Just returned yesterday from 8 days at sail in BVIs on a 40’ catamaran from The Moorings.

St.Thomas Route

Going, I flew to Puerto Rico then to Beef Island, returning I ferried to St. Thomas, and flew back to the U.S. Until now I always went the Beef Island flying route. I WOULD NEVER EVER AGAIN TAKE THE ST. THOMAS FERRY ROUTE UNLESS I ABSOLUTELY HAD TO. Although we took the “fast” ferry, it was just as fast as the other two (70 minutes). The only difference is that because the “fast” ferry is a wide catamaran, it has a large interior which is out of the sun, is nicely air conditioned, and one can watch the first third of a DVD movie (yesterday apparently “Spiderman 3” one way, and “Road Hogs” the other way). When we arrived at St. Thomas, we had to hover for 10 minutes for the slow ferry to leave the dock (which left 20 minutes before the “fast” ferry left Road Town but had somehow managed to also stop in Soper’s Hole and get there before us). Then we had to wait on the boat 20 minutes until the luggage had been completely off loaded. Once ashore, at the ferry dock we had to go through U.S. immigration and customs. The immigration and customs people, although pleasant, did not seem to know what they were doing, resulting in 30+ minutes to process the boatload of people. They even thought that I was a terrorist and had to do a special database search (“so sorry, sir”). Although we waited 10 minutes before the waiting taxi decided to leave, the taxi trip was fast. Then, at the airport, we had to go through U.S. immigration and customs a second time, of course after filling out the form again and after waiting in line again. Although I did not go to Tortola through the ferry route, my wife and daughter did, and they told me it took forever in that direction too. People here have said that if you take the ferry to St. Thomas, you can spend time in Charlotte Amalie and still catch your flight. BEWARE. Count on 1 hour to get through U.S. immigration and customs at the STT airport, and I am talking about August, which is a slow season! Who knows what it's like in “high” season.

Moorings/Sunsail/Footloose Base/Mariner Inn
Was as it has been for years. Food was good. Premises and dock clean and neat. Pool was great. Construction seemed to be slow but progressing (we were there during the annual Emancipation/Festival celebrations/holiday times, so that might explain the lack of construction activities), and out of sight unless you look for it. Moorings has a new registration building which is very pleasant, big teak chairs, open air and breezy. Moorings has dock A, Sunsail dock B and Footloose Dock C, with boats going to the old Footloose docks for deep cleaning, etc.

Weather in August
Daily, 85 degrees with nice cooling breeze everywhere. Had to stay in Trellis Bay one day due to 25+ knot winds and swells of 8+ feet. On board mutiny and common sense required the longer than planned stay. One day it rained every 2 hours for 24 straight hours, making beach bars cool and clammy.

Jost van Dyke
White Bay was beautiful. But the 2 beach bars had no-seeum issues. If that dock were at the west end, not sure why it would be so horrible. It’s a long bay (sorry, no dock fans).

Food of note
Was at Top of the Baths on Thursday where there was a BBQ with excellent ribs and live great 3 piece band to lure tourists up the hill to eat. At Cane Garden Bay, Ivan’s chicken was great. At Trellis Bay, Da Loose Mongoose’s conch fritters were excellent, as were the frozen rum drinks.

Virgin Gorda Roads
Rented a car at Leverick Bay and drove the length of Virgin Gorda to the Baths. Not a drive for those afraid of heights. The tight hairpin turns are scary, even at 10mph, a good maximum speed for most parts of those roads. Drive in low gear in case the brakes die on you. Thank goodness the car had AC or we’d have died of heat stroke.

Flotillas
At Leverick Bay saw two flotillas amass. When we arrived, the dock was empty and virtually none of the moorings were occupied. Then, starting at 4PM a parade started with 2 flotillas of sail boats arriving. Watching the panic as they vied for dock and mooring spaces was fun. I retrieved a dropped fender for a panicking docking captain. Saw a divorce in the making. One flotilla was from Sunsail, the other from a catamaran company with grey sail covers. The next AM, all the Sunsail boats left at once, putting up their sails in the North Sound almost in unison, all 25 boats. Must have been bumper cars out there. At the same time, the crews, all wearing orange shirts, from the 10+ catamaran boats were ashore getting a briefing. We left between the flotilla waves. At Bitter End in the evening 6 fishing boats came in a line into the North Sound and then sailed abreast to Bitter End. It looked like a D-Day landing.

Sailing
Had hoped that August would be somewhat calm. It was not. 4 days of high winds and high seas. Motored a lot. Sailed downwind from North Sound VG to White Bay JvD. Dropped mainsail when a rain storm caught up to us but continued with the jib. Cool to go 7+ knots with just the jib and even through a storm, watching the sheets of rain water drop off the sail. The main sail ended up with 10 gallons of water in its folds, as I learned surprisingly the next AM. Reached 8.5 knots sailing down wind with just the main until another mutiny resulted in motoring.

Moorings
Never had any trouble getting a mooring. Could have picked one up at 6PM everywhere (except when the flotilla sailors were in port). The Bight at Norman had on 10% mooring occupancy when were were there on a Wednesday. In the North Sound, one boat came in 2 hours after sunset and took 2 hours getting a mooring. Not a charter boat. Clearly he did everything one is not supposed to do.

All in all a good trip with stories to tell.