Trip Report:

We were a group of 6 adults ranging in ages from 36-43 hailing from Savannah, GA, NY, NY and Los Angeles, CA. This is the fifth charter for my husband and me, the 3rd for one crew and the other 3 were newbies.

We bought owners time through sailonline.com and paid about half of what the yacht is listed for with Moorings.

Friday 6/3/11:
Depart at 0’dark:30 (4:50 am), for Savannah Hilton Head International Airport. Arrive, check in, check bags and get through full body security searches and redress just before they close the doors to our 6:30 AA flight to Miami.

Layover in the Miami and board our next flight at noon. At 1:30 we are asked to get off the plane due to mechanical issues and standby for more info. The door to the jet won’t shut properly. Finally, we get confirmation of another plane to take us and will depart at 3:30. Flight goes smoothly and we land at STT at approximately 6:15. Someone else who is going to Tortola with a large group has arranged for us to take a special ferry from Red Hook to Westend for $65pp. We took a taxi to RH for $15pp. They keep customs open for us at Westend. We then take a taxi to Moorings base for another $11pp. Arrive around 9pm and are immediately shown to our yacht “Sweet Chariot” a Moorings 51.5. (detailed review in the Charter Boats forum)

Bobby’s had already been on the boat when we arrived. We immediately stowed provisions and checked our order. Only two subs which were corrected immediately and no problems otherwise. I should mention that we did bring our own MEAT!!! We brought 6 filets, 8 chicken breasts, 6 burgers and 100, yes I said it, 100 strips of precooked bacon!! We got a package thru Omaha Steaks. It was delivered the day before we departed and kept very well. We packed them in a small checked cooler. AMEX reimburses for baggage charges so NBD. The bacon came in handy as we ate more meals on board than we had planned due to weather.

Moorings service was ok at best. I wasn’t thrilled with it. It was irritating to be given a ticket for a “punch” and then have to pay another dollar for the addition of rum. It’s just a buck, but I think it’s tacky.

The only option for dining at that point was the Hibachi that they are doing now on Thursdays and Fridays. The chef was fun and tried to make the best of our very late arrival with lots of flying food and sake shots. hibachi wasn’t the best I have ever had but the vegetable tempura was quite good. We retired to the boat to unpack and get a good nights sleep at the dock in the AC heaven.

Saturday 6/4/11:
Captain and First Mate attended the chart briefing. The water wasn’t working at the base so there were no water top offs, hot showers or clean restrooms for us. Big Bummer.

Boat checkout and off the dock by noon in a light shower. Winds 5-15 kts cloudy and squally. Decided to turn left out of Roadtown. Boat sailed beautifully once the main was up. The lazy jack system was frustrating. Made sandwiches underway. Picked up a ball at Marina Cay. Crew paddle boarded around anchorage and over to Scrub. Went to Pussers for a painkiller. Dinked in to Last Resort for a wonderful and fun dinner. This is always one of our favorite stops and it did not disappoint. Food and Service was wonderful by all accounts.

Sunday 6/5/11:
Captain and First Mate slipped the mooring at 6:05am and motored to the Baths arriving at 7:15. Only 3 boats anchored and 2 moored at that time. There are probably +-20 NPT Moorings here. The ladies slept through the voyage and were tickled to awakento the sight of the enormous boulders and crystal blue water. Breakfast on the boat. We snorkeled, paddle boarded, climbed and swam our way through the magnificent site. One crew swam in and tried to find the bar only to be carried away by the bugs! Take your insect repellent if you are sensitive to them. In the past, we have taken a taxi from Leverick to get to the Baths but this was a great way to experience them, and in my opinion, the only way, from now on. The ride across Virgin Gorda is special too but the Baths should be experienced at least once from this vantage point. Had lunch and took off at noon for a beat upwind under sail to North Sound. Arrived at Saba Rock around 4pm. Accidentally got a BEYC ball, oh well. (noticed that overall, the mooring balls in the BVI didn’t seem as well marked as usua, but we encountered less unusable balls as well, generally they were in better condition than in years past) Enjoyed Happy Hour Painkillers, Rum Punch and Conch Fritters at Saba Rock. What a pretty spot. We always enjoy it so much. Witnessed the feeding of the fish and took a stroll around the island. Back to the boat to wait out the rain and thunderstorms that would plague us for the next few days. Enjoyed pan seared Filets for dinner, yellow rice and cucumbers and tomatoes for dinner. Had a pretty nice crew party in the salon that night. Solved most of the world’s problems.

Monday 6/6/11:
Cloudy, no wind, on/off rain. Dried off cockpit and grilled some chicken for later. Noticed that the No Shoes Below Program is helping to keep the cabin cleaner than usual. Also, noted later in the trip, that as big of a bummer as the rain may be, it sure does help to keep the boat clean! Got a new boat hook from the Moorings rep on Saba. Ours was bent and ended up breaking into two pieces. Captain revealed the name for our dinghy which he had taped onto it with green duck tape…VIOLA! Lemur! was her name (inside crew joke with a Lemur spin) Lemurs became the underlying theme throughout the trip. Explored BEYC. Newbies jogged from BEYC around to the new Megayacht Marina that is being built. They really enjoyed it. Had ceremonial beverage with Willis at BEYC. Discussed the state of the Lemur-Lemur/Goat relations on the island. He is a treasure and we always love chatting him up. As is usually the case with the BVI locals, he is the highlight of our stop at BEYC ☺

Dinked to Fat Virgin and enjoyed lunch and cold beers. Awesome French Fries. Planned to snorkel Eustacia Sound but ran out of time. Motored to Leverick for our reservation on the dock. Had made a resi for dinner Upstairs but was notified by Nick earlier that the Restaurant would be closed. Very sad, as that is usually our most anticipated dinner of the trip. Alas, we enjoyed some cocktails at the beach bar and returned to the boat when the rain came. Tried to do some laundry but you have to have tokens now, you must get them before the office closes at 5pm. Had grilled chicken Caesar wraps for dinner with the chick we had grilled that morning. Too tired to work on the world’s problems tonight but will get back on it first thing in the AM.


Tuesday 6/7/11:
Weather-bad. No Anegada today. We decided to sail to Scrub Island and check out the new swanky resort. Wind 20kts, gusts to 25. Full sail and close reach. No knotometer or GPS but probably hit 10-11kts. Luckily we got behind Tortola/Beef before the real weather hit. Picked up a ball in Trellis Bay. Want to show the newbies Aragorn’s place and have a Turbokiller at TBCybercafe. Sat on the boat in Trellis for a while since it wasn’t raining at the moment and enjoyed watching people try to pick up balls. One boat tried at least TEN times. Also, on two occasions this trip, watched people pick up a ball and hook the pennant to the cleat on the side of the bow of the boat. WTH??? I have never seen that before. Met Jeremy at the Cybercafe, who asked me what my TTOL handle was and if my avatar was a Lemur?!! Good stuff. We decided that most people don’t GAS about the Lemurs. The Lemurs are “Winning!” Walked to De Loose Mongoose. Enjoyed Noseeums and Nachos. The Dinghy “Voila! Lemur!” started giving us issues that would last the rest of the trip.

Motored across to Scrub Island and tied up outside slip of B dock. Topped off tanks and went to the pool. Enjoyed the waterslide and hot tub. Never in a million years thought I would be freezing in the BVI in June and enjoy being in a hot tub!!! Although, it was raining and cloudy a good time was had by all. The TTOL deal was great and we got our drinks at the bar by the hot tub. We made a resi for dinner in the dining room , took hot showers and some used the gym. We had cocktails at the bar in the restaurant enjoyed dinner. Food was good, not great. Topics of discussion included the differences in Brands of Gin and the use of Grains of Paradise. Got heated. Some members of crew are passionate about their gin. Hung out on a huge Catamaran with some friendly folks from Texas, did some jukin’. Retired to the Sweet Chariot sooner rather than later to keep myself out of trouble.

Overall impression of Scrub Island: It was a great stop for us, especially since it rained and stormed during our entire stay there. The resort is attractive although the use of marble tile all around the entire resort is questionable. It is very slippery when wet. I would love to have seen a room. For a charterer, I would say it is a must do. Do not expect the best food ever and you won’t be disappointed. It was good, but it wasn’t great. I always get a filet so I am rarely disappointed unless it is overcooked. Creature of habit I suppose. The French Onion Soup was adequate and actually was nice for such a cold night in the BVI!! The showers are visually appealing but don’t expect much. They do not supply towels or have any shampoo, soap etc. It is just a shower with marble tile and a glass shower door and no ventilation (hot hot hot). If it hadn’t been so darn cold outside I would have been happy with a transom shower. The marina service was great. When you arrive you will go to the Lobby and check in. The staff was wonderful all around. The June TTOL special was $1/ft dockage - .50/ft electric (their 30 amp breaker was broken-no problem, used the generator for free-thunder was so loud, it didn’t bother anyone else on the dock) -.15/gallon for water -2 very LARGE bags of ice - $25 credit at bar-$3/bag garbage. Our bill was $83.50 and included dockage, 225 gallons of water, garbage and resort fee of 8.50.


Wednesday 6/8/11:

Rain Rain GO AWAY!! Pouring down rain today. No Anegada today. Paid our bill at Scrub and left the dock. Decided to go to JVD instead. Made stellar breakfast burritos with eggs, sautéed onions, salsa, bacon and boursin…yum! Took Camanoe passage passed Monkey Point. No moorings available. Sailed Beam reach to Sandy Spit in about 8kts wind. All of the sudden there was this large yellow ball in the sky and the water turned a lovely shade of turquoise! We were perplexed! We anchored in 13 feet of water. We swam in snorkeled around the spit. Pretty cloudy and not much vis but who cares….the sun is out!!! One newbie crew, who isn’t an avid snorkeler got washed up into some fire coral and had some stinging welts for a few days. Scared her off of snorkeling for good. In hindsight, we should have made more of a point not to try to get back to the beach by going over the coral but rather going AROUND the coral. We mentioned it when going out but did not say it about coming back. Live and Learn. We were just glad she wasn’t hurt more than she was. Felt sorry for the coral but I think they won that battle! Was planning to swim back to boat as exercise, when suddenly a catamaran was chasing me and my two snorkel buddies down and yelling for us to get out of the way, along with some choice expletives. I didn’t really appreciate it and I thought it was quite unsafe and tacky of them. In my opinion, you should always look for swimmers and yield to them. Wanted to hike Green Cay but ran out of time.

Decided it was probably too late in the trip to do Anegada and that since there was more rain in the forecast for the coming days we should just scrap it. I have never done the BVI without Anegada and it was a serious blow to my happiness. I would miss it so much.

Motored to Great Harbour, JVD and picked up a ball. Made friends with some locals . Went to Corsair’s but Vinny was in Colorado. Enjoyed pizza, salads, Carib and Abysinthe for dessert. In all my trips I had never tried it. I split a drink with another crew and felt like I had taken a pill of some sort. Interesting. Others hooted and hollered about a hockey game. (boston v. vancouver???) Corsairs is always a good time. Moseyed down to Foxy’s and danced for a bit. Beers were cold and it wasn’t raining. Went back to boat and laid on the bow and looked at the, wait for it, wait for it, STARS!!!! Yes, we could see the stars!! Had fun using the iphone star constellation app, listened to music and had Red Stripes. It was a great night! Before we went to bed, I appealed to the Captain and said that even though we don’t usually go to Anegada from JVD and even though we wouldn’t have Walkers exact navigational direction, I think we should get up early and go to Anegada. He concurred. All was right with the world.

Thursday, 6-9-11:
Weather is good, Anegada HERE WE COME!!! Captain charted a course. 50-55 deg mag from lands end point Guana Island. Depart at 7:45, winds 8-12, calm seas. Motorsailed and saw several boats returning from Anegada with no sails up. Steered 54 deg mag from Guana to Anegada and ended up a few hundred yards from the channel markers. Made and enjoyed BLTA’s for lunch. Arrived Anegada at 12:30, 3 hours from Guana. Picked up a ball and our draft was no problem. Called Dean to arrange for the Minivan. Met him at ARH shortly thereafter. I wish renting a car in the states was that easy! Made a resi for dinner at ARH. We have now done most of the lobster dinners and are back at the good ol’ARH!

Headed straight to Cow Wreck to see Bell and have some Shark Tacos. Awesome!! French Fries are to die for, as usual. Lime away a few hours. Decided to head to Big Bamboo to have a Bamboo Teaser and snorkel Loblolly. Ended up at Flash of Beauty after an hour or so. It was closed and it was getting too dark to snorkel so we headed back to ARH for Rum Smoodies and to watch the sunset before dinner. Our bartender, Sly, was a gem!! We enjoyed getting to know him and hearing his stories. He enjoyed the fact that we are apparently the first people to “get lost” on Anegada! (Funny thing, Xeroxed the map that Dean gave us had been folded down the center. The fold crease was white and looked like a road going thru the center of the island from the top to the bottom. We never could find that Cross Island Parkway!!!!) Dinner was lovely. We all had lobster and it was quite tasty. In the past, it seemed to taste more like Lighter Fluid than like lobster to me. Whatever they have changed works because it was delicious. Back to the boat for stargazing and music! One of our newbies proclaimed it one of the top 10 days of his life! Made me teary and proud.

Friday, 6/10/11
Woke up to the Mooring Man knocking on the hull at 6:15. We had been gone from the boat the prior day from 1pm-9pm. Since he only has three balls he needed to make sure that we didn’t leave before paying up. No problem, Mon! To Pam’s Kitchen for breakfast. Was disappointed that I didn’t see that she would prepare breakfast sandwiches to order. If you are not a “sweets” person, be sure to just ask her for what you want. If she can, she will prepare it for you. Shopped at the Purple Turtle and VNJ’s pottery. Dropped the ball and headed for a surprise destination. Made good time motor-sailing in about 9kts of wind. Had an amazing lunch underway of a large salad with all sorts of veggies, grilled cheese with bacon on wheat, and leftover oven heated pizza. No balls in White Bay so over to CGB, which was great, because in 4 previous trips we had never been to CGB via boat. Watched a Footloose boat come barreling into the anchorage and proceed to drop the hook will still doing 1-2 kts in forward. Needless to say it did not set. Had to tell the to please move away considering there was only about 2-3 feet between our bow and their stern. Dinghied in and had a few Rum Punches at Big Banana. Watch the Sunset for an hour and forty mins. Gorgeous!! Ate dinner at Myett’s and back to boat. The sounds of Reggae lured some crew to Quito’s later in the evening. Enjoyed the last evening on board Sweet Chariot. Stargazing and music until 1:30am.

Saturday 6/11/11:
Prepared the boat for return to base and was mostly packed before leaving the ball in CGB on the way to the Moorings. Motor sailed to Thatch Cut. Lost our diesel engine at 10:30 am off Tortola. We were motor sailing at 2000 rpm when the engine abruptly shut off. Restarted briefly but cut off again when throttle was applied. Moorings advised us to sail to the entrance channel and then call them when outside Road Harbour. Checked engine oil, oil on dipstick, but noted oil drip in bilge. First Mate reported smelling fuel in his cabin around midnight the night before. No indicator lights or alarms on panel. Oh well, we were forced to enjoy a lovely quiet sail up the Drake to the entrance channel. Called Moorings who said they would send a boat. Had to “heave to” in the mouth of RH and await the service boat. The ladies were quite impressed with this “Heaving To” maneuver. About 45 minutes later, the service boat arrived and told us to turn on our engine. We have no engine. He said he needed to go get another person to help him. 30 minutes later he arrived alone and we attached bow, stern and mid lines. First Mate steered and with the service boat put us perfectly into a slip on the moorings A dock. The Moorings Dock Manager was immediately at our slip questioning why we were 45 minutes tardy and demanding that we get off the boat very quickly. He was already behind schedule and the cleaner was waiting to get on the boat. He was lucky that we were very prepared and it only took us 15 or so minutes to clean out the galley and get our belongings off the boat.

Checked in at Mariner Inn. 2 of 3 rooms ready. They were remodeled and very cold! Lunch by the pool and some swimming. Return to room for showers. There was about 1.5 minutes of hot water and that was it. Huge Bummer. The bed was soft and comfortable.

Had a toddy while strolling on the dock that evening. The new charterers were already aboard Sweet Chariot. 6 girls and 4 boys who looked to be, let’s just say, quite young…early 20’s max. We asked them if they had a captain and they said that they didn’t and that they hoped their boyfriends knew how to sail! Ah, to be young again! We told them to make sure the engine was working and to have fun! Cab to Spaghetti Junction. Fabulous cab driver from CGB named Jason. I have his number if anyone wants a nice cab ride. Dinner was ok. Tired and back to Mariner for bed afterwards.

Sunday 6/12/11:
Finally got a HOT shower! Yay! Checked out of Mariner Inn. Again, the staff was rude. They were unhappy that we had arranged for our own cab ride. We didn’t realize that they arranged a cab for us. Oh well, who knew? 9am RTFF to Charlotte Amalie. Walked to Frenchtown Deli for a delicious lunch. Visited with the staff at CYOA. That is a TOP notch operation which I would use again if I had extra vacation time. Hung out with the welfare iguanas. There are like pigeons waiting for you to feed them, they are even a little aggressive. Airport was crowded but we managed to make it back to Savannah without incident.

Overall Impressions:

Moorings – They lack in organization and communication. While the base has been updated, it seems to not be being maintained well. The staff was adequate, except for the last day, when we were treated downright rudely. I had gone back to Moorings this time in hopes of a first rate experience. I will make it a priority to charter with them again unless I get another great deal by purchasing owner’s time.

BVI - It seemed empty. There weren’t many folks around and the establishments seemed to be running a skeleton crew and skeleton facilities if that makes sense. This didn’t really bother us, as I would rather have the place to myself. Some of our singles in our crew were a bit disappointed.
The locals seem to really be trying to make a good impression so that visitors will want to come back. With the exception of a few, the people were nicer than ever!! This is truly one of the things that make the BVI so special.

Provisioning - We have finally perfected provisioning the right amount. If we had not had the rain, we would have had to much food. Drank the last two Red Stripes at 1 AM on our last night. Had two bottles of wine left, which we drank for toddies at the Mariner Inn. Bobby's does a great job with timely delivery and accepts COD. Checked out the Riteway and it was super nice! Has everything you would want, but Bobby's online provisioning order form makes it so easy.

Cell Phones - We have Verizon service and had a hard time getting a signal anywhere in the BVI. Those with AT&T seemed to have better luck.

Fave Meal – The Last Resort – hands down.

Fave Stop – Anegada – such a special place. Great Harbour ran a tight second place!

Fave Bartender – Tie between Sly at ARH and Willis at BEYC

Fave Cabbie – Jason at Deluv’s Taxi Service 824-543-7466