TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands Anegada mooring field depth

Heading down in about a week for a 10 day Moorings bareboat charter on a 46.3 monohull which draws a bit less that 6 feet. Given a typical 1 foot tide, how close in can we go for a mooring ball.

A couple of trips ago the mooring field was full so we had to anchor. That normally would be a non-issue if it weren't for the fact that our depth sounder wasn't calibrated. It hadn't been an issue to that point because we were either in a slip or on a ball in deep water. I ending up dropping between 2 anchored monohulls figuring it would be ok for us as well. As I recall we were safely anchored in negative 6 feet of water (no we weren't touching).

Here you go....

I can't really answer as to how far in you can go but this past June I touched down just behind the last row of balls. I was swinging around to starboard to head back up to a ball.

With the assistance of a friendly cat captain, I was able to pull back and out and then was careful to stay in the mooring field to get my call. My depth was reading 4.5 when we touched and I think the boat draws 5' 3" or something so it was "half-calibrated" or something.

I don't know if the tide was in or out as I never pay attention to it there. Next time I go, I'm going to just weave in and out of the ball/boats and not try to come down the outside. After this experience, I would not try to anchor downwind from the mooring field in a mono.

Bvipirate has started posting tide information.

Thanks for the information. I'll try to stay outside (and maybe even pay BoatyBall).

Not only great data (Walker collected it with a dinghy, hand-held depth sounder, and hand-held GPS), but beautifully presented.

Dan