I’ve decided not to do a full-blown trip report this year. Seems like most things have been mentioned other places by lots of us. Instead, I thought I’d just provide some highlights (and warnings) from our trip… Please forgive me for leaving out some details to protect the guilty.
Overnight Stops10/15 – Great Harbor, Peter
10/16 – Cane Garden Bay
10/17 – Benure’s Bay, Norman
10/18 – Soper’s Hole
10/19 - Cooper Island
10/20 – Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda
10/21 – Anegada
10/22 – Drake’s Anchorage, Mosquito Island
10/23 – Cooper Island
10/24 – Our Secret
Boat –
Midori, 2001 Lagoon 410
Charter Company – TMM <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" />
Best Pre-Trip Purchases – 4 copies of
The Drinking Man’s Guide to the BVI by Julian Putley and a Mayan hammock. The Drinking Man’s guide saved us around $100 per person (not bad for a $12 investment). The hammock made evenings at anchor under the stars fantastic!
Best Anchorage – I won’t tell you our favorite (it was our first time there and is rarely mentioned on the board), but I’ll say that Anegada, Drake’s Anchorage, and Benure’s continue to be favorites of ours. Also, after 5 years we finally did a day stop at White Bay, JVD and all LOVED it!
Worst Anchorage – Marina Cay has by far the worst mooring field I’ve seen in the BVI. Every year it gets worse. I will not go back there again until those moorings get correctly spaced. We planned to go to Marina Cay on 10/23. When we arrived, the mooring field was almost full. We picked up a mooring that looked to have some space around it, but we kept bumping another mooring with the side of our boat! These moorings were spaced too closely for 13-foot Sunfish! We ended up leaving Marina Cay before paying after I saw a Lagoon 43 Power Cat and a Moorings 4500 cat swing into each other while correctly secured at their moorings. I don’t know where the blame lies (Moor Seacure for setting the moorings improperly or Marina Cay for allowing that major disaster-in-waiting) but for me it isn’t worth risking my boat or anyone else’s just for dinner and a painkiller at the hotel. Honorable Mention: Cane Garden Bay. There are 2 jet-skis for rent there that kept flying between the moored boats. Someone tried to abscond with our dinghy (which I had fortunately locked for the first time) from the dock. And, the night after we were there, 3 boats were burglarized in the area of the mooring field we had just left. CGB didn’t “win” worst anchorage simply because at CGB I never felt the boat itself was in danger of hitting anything while on a mooring.
Best Snorkeling – George Dog, hands down for best fish AND best underwater scenery. It was like Disney for fish! I have now seen my first nurse shark in the wild. It swam up from the bottom right in front of me. Absolutely amazing to watch! Honorable Mention – Indians and Benure’s Bay. Cistern Point at Cooper and Great Harbor at Peter were also great. On this trip we saw several turtles, huge schools of squid (some with bad attitudes), some kind of spotted eel, and the shark, not to mention all the smaller but “almost” as cool other creatures. Overall, our best underwater wildlife trip
Best Above-Water Wildlife Viewing – A tie between White Bay, JVD and Drake’s Anchorage. White Bay had a boat of Europeans – 5 women, 2 men – that only had 1 part of each 2 part swimsuit. Very entertaining – great tans! At Drake’s, we came across 2 boats filled with naturists. It was a riot to see them naked “surfing” on a sailboard behind a dinghy. My mother-in-law’s reaction to naked men surfing around the boat was priceless…
Best After-Dark Activities – no, not THAT! Underwater flashlight fishing and general barracuda watching.
Best Restaurant – Jolly Roger in Soper’s Hole. Even though Lou blew us off for a bunch of virgins <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/pirate.gif" alt="" /> (the Virgin’s Cup – a lady-at-the-helm regatta - was the day we were at the JR and he was crewing), we still had a great dinner of Prime Rib, BBQ Chicken, & Ribs. Highly recommended! Lou promises he’ll be there whenever we come back…
Best Dinner Companions – we met up with Don Cornelius (Capt_DC) and his crew in Anegada and ate too much lobster at the ARH. Great to see them again! Also a nice break to talk to people other than ourselves for an evening!
Best (free) Dinner – Thanks to buying 4 copies of the
Drinking Man’s Guide, we got 4 free entrees at the Restaurant at Leverick Bay. Dinner for 4 with a bottle of wine, a couple of drinks, 3 salads and an appetizer was around $55 (and the wine was $28 of that). Editorial from a former waiter… If you go this route, remember to tip your server for the entire value of the meal, not just what you paid.
Best Sailing – our last morning of the charter, we finally got a good 18-20 knot breeze and got the boat up over 10 knots (GPS confirmed) consistently. Great fun for the people on the bow of the cat as we drove into 4-5 foot waves.
Weirdest Sailing Phenomenon – sailing upwind EVERY place we went for the 1st week. It didn’t matter if we headed east or west, up to Anegada or back from Anegada. The winds were pretty light and very unsettled until the last day.
Best “Wish We Could Charter That” Boat –
Jeannius. Mike Beswick’s Privilege 435 cat at TMM is simply spectacular. All Cyndi could keep saying after we got to see her at the dock was – “Wow! That CAN’T be a charter boat!”
Best Plans – Cyndi and I have started planning next year’s return – ALONE – including a few days on the US side.
Well, that's about all that's fit to print... Fair Sailing!
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