TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands NOBLE SHADOW 2

BVI - July 26 - August 5, 2025


I am an early riser, at 0530 I was carefully working my way up top. Fortunately the sliding stair wall in the owners cabin was smooth and quiet. TMM provided the owner's manual before we arrived and I spent time at home reading through it and this morning I would continue familiarizing myself in person.


I was happy to find that I could quietly make my way around the boat with no unusual creaks or thuds! Well....until I started making coffee in the percolator, dropped the filter basket and lid in the metal sink, CLANK. My daughter and I are big coffee drinkers and she said she couldn't wait for that first cup of boat coffee! She found Folgers and LaVazza at the small store and that would make a nice 5050 blend.
Around 0630 the sun had risen and that first hot cup was handed to my daughter. My wife's water was also ready for her morning tea, it was nice to see they were up early and excited to start the adventure. I quietly walked the marina checking out the fleet and it looked like they were all at dock. It was quiet and peaceful, only saw the security guard and a couple chickens and kittens this early. I did see Joyce around 0700 and sat with her a while, I remember she was always there and it seems she still puts in many hours at the base. She said she would bring us the world's best coffee and mangoes from her friends property! Those who know her, she still has that energetic spirit!












Morgan stopped by at 0815 and asked when we would like to depart the marina, I didn't want to start this trip in a rush and said by noon would work. This gave the crew time to have breakfast, shower at the marina and complete last minute provisioning at the small Riteway. I stopped in the office to complete the paperwork with Sandra and my wife made her first purchase, nice long sleeve swim shirt. FYI, the office had Sun Bum spf50 for $18, later we bought another one in north sound for $35 and at Soggy I didn't feel like swimming back to the boat and paid $25 for a very small tube of annoyingly thick spf45 at their shop (I should have swam!).








Morgan gave a great thorough boat briefing, I paid close attention to the water maker routine, this is our first charter with this. During our boat inspection and inventory check we found few things to be noted on this 3 year old, TMM really does a great job maintaining their fleet. After assisting a returning charter tie up it was now our turn to depart around 1130. We gave the crew their individual responsibilities and then fired up Noble Shadow. It was a calm morning and easing off the dock was uneventful and now I would navigate passed the small ferry aground in the channel. With the natural changes the channel seemed tighter to me this time and really shallow. I found the channel markers beyond Conch Charters as we left Road Reef Marina and ventured out into Road Harbour. The crew was already doing a great job stowing the fenders and securing the lines. You could feel the excitement growing!










Under mostly cloudy skies we were in open water with very little boat traffic. We decided to simply motor down to Norman Island. I believe the seas were only 2-3 feet and it was a comfortable cruise. As we rounded the Indians we found maybe 20 boats in the Bight. The crew readied their mooring lines and discussed their individual jobs, the first ball is always met with a little nervous anticipation!! They chose a ball on the north side fairly close to Pirates. Well done crew, ball secured first attempt!!!











The 7 foot Sun Chill float was delivered in a large bag with pump, very easy to inflate and we found it not difficult to store on deck when not in use. This float was wonderful to have!






Our water tanks were at 80% when we left the dock so I fired up the water maker. It didn't take long to get to 100% and that's when I realized that this system is certainly a major game changer! Every morning after I shut down the A/C I would fill the water tank, it functioned perfectly the entire trip! The tank held 150 gallons. Out of habit the crew still started out by conserving the usage, such as fill a large pan to soap dishes then quick rinse and get wet in the shower then soap then quick rinse. But after a couple days making sure the system wasn't finicky I said everyone should have a nice shower to test the usage, our lowest level one morning was 55%, quite pleased!

After chilling out for a while we headed into Pirates to look around, it's a beautiful restaurant and beach. There were still several boats around from the Christmas in July celebration, everyone had shirts and the same drink cups, they do know how to have fun!. We grabbed a table for some cold drinks and wings etc, service and food was great.












After a late lunch we dinged over to the new to us Willy T. It was a pretty mellow crowd, maybe 20 some people. I was approached by a nice man who asked if we were on Noble Shadow, he owns Sea Tiger at TMM. (If you are reading this, hello!) His son/daughter live in DC and it was nice to talk with them. He introduced us to another nice guy Ty, he is an owner of Boaty Ball. I told Ty this was our first trip since BB started and I'd give an honest opinion here on TTOL once we completed the charter, I'll do that at the end of the reports. Ty did say they were currently testing? an anchor alarm system within the BB app. It may already be available, if so has anyone used this?












After a couple of drinks and jumps off the Willy T we returned to Noble Shadow for dinner. It was a very nice evening and we were so grateful to be back!










Cheers! to be continued.........

Thanks for a great report and wonderful pictures! Looking forward to reading more.

Excellent report with great pictures. Wes - Sea Tiger's daddy - is a great guy, too. Looking forward to the rest of the report(s).

Keep Smiling!!!

Great reports..thanks..Hope our paths cross down there sometime.Cold ones on me.BTW I always have a stock of sunscreen at my place as guests always leave it behind!

Glad to see you got the family back to the blue water!
Looking forward to following along.

Hey Tom! How are ya

All is well!

We just booked a villa on our favorite island for our children and our grandchildren to enjoy the blue water together. We will be 70 next year and decided it was time for young ones to be introduced and begin to love VI (B and US) as much as we have for the last 50 years.

I logged on to TTOL to find out if one can still have a soft carry-on of frozen food. As usual your post answered my question. (Thanks RickinAtlanta)

Drop me a note when you return. We would love to hook up for dinner and beer. We are leaving for Croatia in mid-September for a couple weeks.
I look forward to the next Beerman family installment.

Tom I’m at our cabin in WV this weekend, I’ll shoot you an email when I get home, would be nice to get together. Croatia is on the bucket list! I think we’ll be going back to Piemonte soon!

Take money and more money. We did a charter out of Split 2 years ago. Marinas (and town docks) were basically 300 euro a night for a 45ft cat. Lovely people and country but so expensive for boaters.

Someone told me just yesterday that Scrub wanted $220 plus shore power. We opted for a Marina Cay ball last week.

Thanks for the heads up!

We decided since this was our first time in this part of the world to push the easy button so most of the cost are covered up front
We will be travelling on a small ship cruise - MS Avantura
3 days in Split - 8 Days weaving through the coastal islands - Disembark in Dubrovnik - 4 days in a small town near the Montenegro border.

Have not found that the hotel cost are that far out of line. Staying in small boutique hotels when ashore and the prices are definitely less what we paid in Annapolis last week when we went to see Judy Collins.
However, I am a strong believer in travel rules # 1 & 2
1) Pack suitcase with everything you need... and then take 1/2 of it out
2) Make sure you take twice as much money as you think you will need

BTW rule #3 is strictly enforce.
3) One must be able to pick up their suitcase and put it over their head!

Ahhh, this is making me contract DIF.....

Tom... Yes, I remember being pleasantly surprised by the price of hotels on mainland Croatia. We stayed a couple of nights before the charter and hotels and restaurants were fine on the mainland. It was when we got on the boat and out to the islands we were really surprised by the prices of everything to do with boating. We talked to a few of the guys on the docks and the general feeling was they were risking killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. It was the first season after they adopted the euro so maybe the market will have adapted by now.

In early July we booked a night at Scrub for a 46 foot mono. The Summary of Charges was $225 for dockage, $60 for power and (who knows what this is) $67.50 for "sales tax". Booking was run through Dockwa which was a fiasco.

Our plans changed so we wanted to move the reservation 1 day. Scrub couldn't do it directly we had to go through Dockwa. Dockwa had no way that I could find to change a reservation, just a cancelation. So we canceled and tried to book for the next day. Dockwa processed our request but we never received a confirmation from Scrub despite numerous attempts to get one so we canceled again and went elsewhere.

I got the distinct feeling they didn't want our business and at those rates they'll never get it.

I'm afraid Scrub is lost on me..I say drop the hook at Marina Cay and enjoy that.I was very pleasantly surprised by the food and service we had there at lunch and I've always loved that little island and its history...something Scrub does not have IMHO.

I won't give up the details until that day is in my report, but we had a great time at Scrub. That being said, we would never pay that kind of a rate for a slip there either. Plenty of people do, I watched the webcam for a week before the trip and it was always full and same the day we visited. Just looked at webcam and they are pretty vacant now... stay safe VI's, asking Erin to move a little more north over night!