Trip report - BVIs

Chartered a Sunsail 4800 cat for a week out of Tortola. We had originally booked our bareboat through Moorings, but since our boat was still damaged from Irma and awaiting repairs, Moorings nicely moved us over to Sunsail and comp’ed us an upgrade from Club to a boat that arrived after the storm and was thus pretty flawless.

In general, the islands are doing much better than we had expected. There are a quite a few sailboats bobbing around on moorings with no rigging; there are large ships hard aground in a few places; the trees / shrubbery are still very sparse; many roofs are still missing. However, the attitude is clearly that of “BVI Strong”, and it shows everywhere.

There are plenty of bars and restaurants open; never a problem finding a place to eat lunch or dinner. Provisioning, however, remains challenging outside of Roadtown. Bobby’s in Cane Garden Bay, for example, is closed with a sign “open in 1 month”. Nothing at Soper’s Hole; minimal (extremely minimal) food/beverage at Jost or Anegada, as you would expect. The only well-stocked store we found outside of Roadtown was at Leverick Bay. So my advice is to try to provision for the duration of your trip while at Roadtown until more locations come back online. Ice, at least, is available in enough locations to keep your drinks cold.

Locations we visited:
Cooper Island – restaurant is in full swing and both the food and service were great.
Marina Cay – plenty of balls; didn’t actually step foot on Marina Cay, but rather went over to Scrub Island for dinner. Didn’t dock there as they are charging $3 / foot + electricity + resort fee for a minimally functioning resort.
The Baths – found all possible beaches blocked by balls, so the only option is to swim in after tying your dinghy up to the provided line.
Leverick Bay – in full swing and looking great. Still a few repairs happening but this is a great spot to overnight. Beach BBQ on Friday night. Full provisioning, as I mentioned above. A MUST is to taxi up to Hog Heaven!!! The view is amazing.
Anegada – another blast was to taxi to Cow Wreck beach. The owners of the bar have sunk everything they had into rebuilding and it’s beautiful! No snorkeling, but plenty of fun going on. It’s a close second to Soggy Dollar Bar for us in terms of a fun spot to spend an afternoon.
Cane Garden Bay – about halfway back. A few restaurants open and the beach is beautiful.
Sandy Cay – pretty devastated. About 2/3rds of the trail is open; the rest still needs to be cleared with a chainsaw. The center of the island is all dead. And Sandy Spit is now just a bare patch of sand.
Jost Van Dyke – Soggy Dollar Bar is back and perhaps better than ever! A must visit. Foxy’s Tamarind Bar is open but was very quiet the night we were there. Foxy was out, however, looking great!
Soper’s Hole – we pulled in here for lunch. Still a few balls to tie to, or I imagine that you could tie up to one of the remaining (but wide open) docks. Pusser’s is open but you have to weave around the missing deck boards just to get to it, plus find the rear stairs. There’s a coffee shop open there as well, but that’s it. Extreme caution must be used when walking around / over the former docks, where are essentially all destroyed.
Motored over to Norman Island through an unforecasted squall that was gusting over 40 knots true. Big adventure! Pulled into The Bight in a downpour and picked up a ball. Dinner at Pirates which has their newer building open and doing great. The older building is walled off with plywood. The carcass of the Willy T still lies on the beach. (Apparently they attempted to pull it off using a tug and the tow line snapped, so there she lies.)
Peter Island / Great Harbour is of course the new home for Willy T 2.0. She is beautiful!!! They can now sleep up to 18 staffers down below, and she’s top-notch. They have yet to build a floating dinghy dock around her so for now you just need to nose up to the ladder, offload your crew, and then shift your dinghy over and out of the way, tying your painter to one of the many provided iron tie-offs.

That’s it. A great week; a bit different from before, but no less fun.

Great information for someone like us who in 2 weeks will be heading out from The Moorings.

How many balls are their in Great Harbour and did the presence of the Willy T seem to reduce their availability?

The coffee shop in Soper's is " Omar's ( De Best Cup) and I would highly recommend it for breakfast or early lunch ( they serve food til 12.30).Bottomless Mimosas and Bloody Mary's too..with WiFi. Omar's was a God saver for those of us down soon after Irma and they ( he) deserve to thrive.

Just a note on provisioning - Virgin Gorda's (Spanish Town) food stores Supa Valu, Rosy's, Bucks and Riteway (formerly RTW and now operated by North west company) have incredibly great supplies including all kinds of high quality fresh fruit and vegetables and great meat and seafood. So moor say near Coco Maya and shop to your heart's content.

Gordaguy, your suggestions would not work for me. I get the moor part, but how does one get passed coco maya without getting stuck there?

Just order a cab to take you around to the stores and return - you can still dock at Yacht Harbour and order a cab as well or alternatively and assuming you have wifi you can order your goods from bucks or riteway and they can deliver to yacht harbour - the parking lot is still there next to the dock. cheers Brian

Thanks for the comment, louismcc.

I'd guess that there were 20-25 balls in Great Harbour on Peter Island, plus another 6 or 8 in front of the Ocean's 7 beach club at the west end of the bay. You shouldn't have a problem getting a ball mid-afternoon, as there's a lot of traffic to the Willy T just for lunch and then quite a bit of turnover during the afternoon.

There's one ball right in front of the Willy T with no pennant on it but if you can hook the eye on top and pull the (heavy!) chain up enough to slip your mooring line(s) through, you will be secure. Another option is to send someone out in your dink with two mooring lines and then pass those up to someone on the bow. Most people chose to pass by that particular ball, but it could be your backup plan if nothing else is open.

Have a great trip!