Nancy and I did our 11th BVI bareboat trip June 4th through the 15th. The weather this year was wonderful for the duration of our trip, with excellent breeze around the clock and only a few 2AM hatch drills. A full photo album is online at
http://users2.ev1.net/~nwmangum/BVI2001.<br><br>Nancy and I have found that taking people that have never been there before down to the BVI is very rewarding. Seeing someone else see the islands for the first time is a lot of fun. We carefully pick our "crew", and this usually works out very well. If not, at least we wind up with interesting stories. This year our guests were Mike and Sandy Jackson from West Palm Beach. Mike and I worked together at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft during the 70's. Although I left Florida in 1977, we have remained the best of friends. Having them along on the trip was very nice, and we caught up on a lot of passage of time.<br><br>This trip was our second time on a
Moorings 3800 catamaran. The 3800 is a very, very comfortable boat for one or two couples, and sails quite well. It has excellent ventilation and is very roomy. In smooth water, we go upwind at about 6 knots (GPS) and make tack through about 100 degrees, making good about 110 degrees on the GPS. On a good reach, it does about 7.5 to 8 knots, and we saw a few 9's. In the rough water outside, though, the 3800 really dies upwind when the seas get above about 4 feet.<br><br>Here's my story, and I'm sticking to it:<br><br>
June 3 - Flew from Houston to Beef Island via DFW/SJU. Very smooth trip -- all of our luggage made it without a hitch. We are NOT light travelers, and probably never will be. My windsurfing gear can sometimes be a pain, but everything went smoothly this trip. The new terminal at Beef Island is coming along nicely, but when it opens I am sure that we will miss the island feel of the old terminal. The runway is being extended from 4500' to 5500', which will allow direct regional jet service from Miami. Although this will probably make travel to the BVI more convenient, I have bad overall feelings about the consequences. The BVI are becoming noticeably more busy and crowded. While this does probably mean more prosperity for the belongers, it makes the BVI less attractive to Nancy and myself. Still, the BVI are the best thing going. I guess we just don't like to see the inevitable changes, for fear that the BVI will eventually begin to resemble the USVI. Gone are the days of the bridge toll collector with his coconut-on-a-stick tool...<br><br>While we were waiting for the American Eagle flight from SJU to Beef Island, another couple spotted my Anegada T-shirt and introduced themselves -- Bob and Kathy Eckert from Sarasota. They were on their way to spend a week at the Anegada Reef Hotel -- their first time to Anegada. They are a very nice couple, and we wound up visiting with them quite a bit while we were at Anegada.<br><br>When we got to the Moorings, we met up with Mike and Sandy, who had arrived a couple of hours earlier. The Moorings pavilion rebuild necessitated by the 1999 fire is very attractive. The bar has been relocated to the area between the pool and the dock, and is much larger. The restaurant area itself is also much larger and is very nice.<br><br>We strolled around the bulkhead and B dock to see if we could figure out which Moorings 3800 would be ours this year. The docks were loaded with 3800's -- they are obviously doing quite well with these boats.<br><br>We had dinner at the Mountain View restaurant (formerly Mario's), and were the only guests for dinner that night. Dinner and wine were outstanding. We had huge lamb steaks with a delicious sauce.<br><br>
June 4 - Up bright and early, and found out that we would be sailing "BOB". What kind of boat name is THAT? Well, "BOB" kind of grew on us for a while, and we eventually thought that it was pretty cool -- especially when we made dinner reservations for Bob, which were answered with "OK, but what's the name of your BOAT?" We decided that "BOB" was an acronym for
"Boatload of B*******", with which we christened our dinghy.<br><br>We had intended to provision from K-Marks. However, we were allowed to skip the morning charter briefing and boat tour, and took custody of Bob early. So, we decided at the last minute to provision from the dockside grocery, since that would get us away from the dock sooner. That turned out to be a bad choice. The dockside grocery at the Moorings is convenient, but is actually very poorly stocked. They had no pickles, no pineapple juice (the HEART of painkillers), and numerous other missing necessities. Since we were headed for Marina Cay, we decided that we could make do and fill in the gaps from the Trellis Bay market. We wound up getting underway shortly after 10AM, and headed east for Trellis Bay. On the way out, we set our
flags -- including the TT flag. We filled out our provisions from the Trellis Bay market, and stopped by Jeremy Wright's place to pick up our water sports toys -- two sailboards and a sea kayak.<br><br>The airport construction is bringing quite a few changes to Trellis Bay. The runway extension has definitely eaten up some of the bay itself. The new road being built to the south of the existing beachfront changes a lot of the access. I suspect that further changes to Trellis Bay will be coming.<br><br>Finishing our business at Trellis Bay, we motored over to Marina Cay for our first night out. After mixing up our first gallon jug of painkillers, we were finally in the R&R (Rum & Relaxation) mode. Dinner at Pusser's was OK but not great. That's OK -- our painkillers aboard Bob were.<br><br>
June 5 - Up and off to Anegada. After a nice easy reach, we were anchored off the Anegada Reef Hotel by 10:30. Sailing into the ARH channel, we were right behind a monohull. As we turned into the anchorage, we spotted the captain --
Jimmy Hodge -- and old friend of ours. Jimmy is one of the Moorings captains, and was the first captain featured by Sue Wheatley on the Anegada Reef Hotel's
Mariner's Page. Nancy and I first met Jimmy in 1990 at Anegada. Jimmy is pretty much unforgettable, and we bumped into him numerous other times over the years. Jimmy came to Houston and spent 2 weeks with us in 1995. Taking a BVI native to Texas honky-tonk was a real hoot! Getting to visit with Jimmy this year at Anegada was very nice for Nancy and I.<br><br>Ashore, we found another old friend -
Keith Smith. Keith works for Lowell at the hotel, and has become another of our very good BVI friends. We were heading for lunch at Cow Wreck, so Keith took us on a "grand tour" of Anegada. They are adding another 5,000 feet of pavement to the road, which now ends just to the west of the flamingo pond bridge. The addition will bring the pavement to the intersection at the ARH. Lowell is building some nice housing for the ARH staff a few mile up the road. We drove through the Settlement, and ran into Wendell Creque, who was supervising his part of the construction of the new water distribution system. Anegada is building a water plant and a real water system. As Keith said, "Anegada on da move!". Leaving the setllement, we took the back roads through the old farm area to Loblolly Bay. George's place "Lavenda Breeze" really looks nice.<br><br>We spent the afternoon at
Cow Wreck Beach, where Belle Creque made us some her wonderful conch fritters and conch ceviche. (We had conch fritters at every stop in the BVI, and Belle's were unanimously voted the best fritters of all the islands by our crew at the end of the trip.)<br><br>After Caribs, conch, and swimming, we headed back to the ARH. There is construction going on to the west of the ARH, just to the east of the Whispering Pines place -- more guest cottages. Maybe we are not so happy about the new construction on Anegada. We like it just the way it is.... I got my windsurfing gear rigged and finished off the afternoon sailing off Setting Point.<br><br>Dinner was Lowell's lobster at the ARH. We met up with Bob and Kathy - the couple we had met in the San Juan airport. They were having the time of their life, and totally loved the place. Anegada was far exceeding their expectations. We counted 39 boats in the anchorage this night -- more than we normally see this time of year. <br><br>
June 6 - Up bright and early for some more windsurfing. The wind at Anegada this year was very, very consistent. After breakfast and more windsurfing, we headed off to
Loblolly Bay. The water at Loblolly was very, very clear this year and we enjoyed excellent snorkeling along with more cold Caribs and excellent lunch.<br><br>Mid-afternoon, "Las Brisas", a crewed Moorings 4500 cat, pulled in, dropped anchor, and settled back to within half a boatlength directly off our bow. It's not like the anchorage was crowded, either -- there was plenty of room. You learn to expect stupidity from charterers, but not from a professional sailing crew. However, Nancy talked me out of making it an issue with them and we let it go. Thankfully, they left early the next morning.<br><br>We had to unexpectedly switch water tanks -- the port tank (100 gallons) was empty after only a day and a half. It was full when we left the Moorings, and we had not been at all lavish with water. I had noticed the fresh water pump cycling more than normal, and had checked all of the visible faucets, etc. Since I could see no running water, I assumed that the problem was with the pressure accumulator or switch. We had been just turning off the FWP breaker during the night to keep the noise down. However, I was wrong. It turned out that the purge valve in the water system was apparently not quite completely closed, and we had been slowly pumping water out the purge line. Changing tanks, purging, then tightly closing the purge valve solved our water problems, but only after we had lost about 80 gallons.<br><br>Dinner again at ARH -- fish for everyone tonight.
Charlie entertained us and Mike took his turn
tending bar.<br><br>
June 7 - Up bright and early, windsufing before 7AM. Wonderful full English breakfast at the ARH. Hung around the anchorage all day windsurfing, kayaking, having Caribs, and generally just "limin'". Saw Bill Hartzman arrive in the early afternoon. Briefly met Bill, with plans to meet later at the ARH bar. Dinner again at the ARH - this time barbecue ribs and chicken - outstanding.<br><br>
June 8 - Up early, dinked ashore to pack up windsurfing gear and say goodbyes to everyone. Dinked
Bob and Kathy out to the boat to see what a bareboat is all about. After dropping them back off at the dock, it was time to leave Anegada. We had planned to go to Jost Van Dyke, but we had to detour back to Marina Cay to take on fresh water. We sailed west to Little Harbor, where we met up with
Gordon and Judy Evans. Gordon and Judy got me into sailing many years ago, and we raced together then against each other for years. Gordon crewed with me on my J/35, then we raced against each other on our J/22's. Gordon and Judy have weighed anchor and are now on an extended cruise abourd their boat
"Dreamcatcher", and were in the BVI on the way south. Dinner at Sidney's -- lobster for all, but not nearly as good as the ARH.<br><br>
June 9 - Up bright and early and off to the
Sandy Spit for a day of limin'. When we arrived, we had the Spit all to ourselves. The sky and water were beatiful. After we got the anchor set, we had breakfast. I spotted a couple of rays swimming toward us on the surface and pointed them out to everyone else. The lead ray was a spotted eagle ray, about 2 feet in span, and was followed by what appeared to be an ordinary stingray. While we were watching, the rays put on a spectacular display of flying. The eagle would leap from the water, and the stingray would follow - as if they were in formation. Each leap would be about 20 inches high, and cover about 4 feet. I was really happy that everyone got to see this. The only other time I had ever seen a spotted eagle ray leap was while I was windsurfing Anegada, where one literally flew across the nose of my board.<br><br>I climbed to the top of Green Cay and took
photos. While walking on top of Green Cay, I discovered "land urchins" - the prickly spines on the barrel cactus there. I first noticed them when I stepped on one. The inch-long spine pentrated the rubber sole of my diving boot with ease, as well as most of my foot -- OUCH! It seems that when these dry and fall from the cactus, they always land with the top spine pointing straight up. After the first encouter, I shuffled carefully along the top in an unsucessful attempt to avoid getting spiked again. I picked up a couple of them and brought them back as reminders.<br><br>We hung around the Sandy Spit until early afternoon, then headed over to White Bay. I have never, ever seen a crowd like was there. There must have been 40 boats anchored inside the reef, as well as a couple of charter trawlers anchored smack in the middle of the marked entrance. Ashore, it was wall-to-wall people. We spotted an
interesting day-tripper walking the beach wearing her lifejacket. However, the crowds were so bad that we did not bother stopping at the Soggy Dollar for the flying fish sandwich that we had been wanting.<br><br>After leaving White Bay, we pulled into Great Harbor, where we had another anchoring experience. Three guys aboard "Northern Lights", an Island Packet bareboat from Island Charters, made numerous attempts to anchor just ahead of us. Each time, they failed to set the hook, probably because they were going about 6 knots when they tossed it, btu that's another story. When they finally got it semi-set, they were within a boatlength of our bow and directly ahead. The captain yelled back at me, asking if I thought it was a problem. I yelled back that if he intended to stay there, he should go ahead and set the fenders because I was certain that he was going to drag down on us. Apparently, they thought this meant "OK", because they shut down their engine. They did, however, keep anxious eyes looking our way. We sat and watched them for the next half-hour. Finally, we gave up and dinked to shore to catch Foxy's afternoon performance. When we returned, Northern Lights had moved and were now about 50 yards away. I guess giving them a chance to correct their mistake without us watching was all they needed.<br><br>We spent Saturday evening at Foxy's, where we again had dinner with Gordon and Judy, as well as having Jimmy and his crew sit at the table next to us. Mike and Sandy felt that the beach barbecue at Foxy's was the best value meal that they had on the whole trip. I have to agree -- the ribs, chicken, and fish were all excellent. However, the fungi band that was supposed to play did not show up, so there was really no party at Foxy's this night.<br><br>
June 10 - Pulled out of Great Harbor and sailed across for a quick stop at Cane Garden Bay, then sailed through Thatch Island Cut over to The Bight. Dinner at
Billy Bones. Good, but not great. Very, very noisy. Apparently, Billy Bones thinks that they should provide music for the entire anchorage, all the way out to Pelican Island -- very annoying. I think that it will be a few years before we go back to The Bight.<br><br>
June 11 - Up and over to the Norman Island
caves for breakfast. Excellent snorkeling until the Mongolian hordes arrived. In addition to numerous turtles, we saw a flounder out "sunning" on an underwater rock. We pulled out and sailed to Cooper Island, arriving there about noon. We had our pick of moorings then. Within an hour, however, we were entertained by the new arrivals racing through the mooring grounds looking for the mooring ball that wasn't there. This place does fill up quickly! We saw a Sun Yacht Charters cat make several attempts to anchor before finally settling in just off the beach, with his bow and anchor facing the beach. An overnight strong wind wound up swinging him off anchor and taking him into the rocks on the beach.<br><br>We dinked over to Cistern Point for some more snorkeling. The water was not as clear as the caves had been. Dinner at the Cooper Island Beach Club -- excellent. We had told Mike and Sandy to be prepared for light breeze at Cooper Island, but the warning was unnecessary. The anchorage was very comfortable, with very good breeze.<br><br>
June 12 - Over to the
Baths for breakfast, arriving about 7:45. The Cruising Guide said that the
Top of The Baths Restaurant opened at 8AM for breakfast, but that was incorrect -- they open at 10AM. So, we played around in the water. Sandy really enjoyed the snorkeling there. Nancy, however, wound up with quite a few jellyfish stings. We all got mildly stung, but Nancy had a very strong reaction to them and was literally covered with large swelling areas by noon. We had lunch at the Top of The Baths, and Gordon and Judt caught up with us once again.<br><br>After lunch, we sailed on around to Leverick Bay for some quick shoreside shopping. Nancy and I found the bronze frogs in the jewelry shop there. We had seen them several years ago, but had passed them up. Afterwards, we realized that they were, uhhh, unique. For the last 3 years, they have not had them, and we had not seen them anywhere else, either. Then, this year, there they were, so we brought home a pair of them. Cool little frogs with unique characteristics!<br><br>From Leverick, a quick motor over to Saba Rock. The rebuild there is very nice. While at Saba Rock, Nancy and I dinked over to the Bitter End. Nothing much has changed here -- and we still don't care for it. It really stings when you know you are being gouged. Mind you, we make no real attempt to cut expenses while in the BVI, but we do compare prices. One of our price standards is a can of Pringles. We found varying prices, with $1.99 being the most common. At BEYC a can of Pringles is $4.00 - the highest we found anywhere.<br><br>We had dinner at Saba Rock -- excellent food. And, as reported by others, a mooring at Saba gets you up to 250 gallons of water AND a bag of ice. And you don't even have to ask for it -- when the mooring tender comes to collect your $20, he will tell you to be sure and get your water and ice. Gordon and Judy were moored at Saba also, so Nancy and I said our goodbyes with them over glasses of Nassau Royale, while listening to Gordon's CD of "Hey Jude" played on tuba. You had to be there....<br><br>
June 13 - Left Saba and made a brief stop at what we call "starfish reef". Starfish seem to be very uncommon in most of the BVI, except here. From the bow of the boat, you can easily see literally dozens of starfish at once. Nancy snorkeled down and picked up a couple for
photos. I discovered the place several years ago while windsurfing. I was sailing along and, looking down, it was like sailing across the star field of the US flag.<br><br>From here, we had a long downwind sail along the south shore of Tortola, dipping into Fat Hogs Bay, past Road Harbor, past Nanny Cay, all the way to Soper's Hole, where we moored for the night.<br><br>We dinked over to
The Jolly Roger for a round of Bushwackers. Back to the boat for some limin', then back to the Jolly Roger for dinner. The Jolly Roger is definitely the place to eat in Soper's Hole.<br><br>
June 14 - Time to pack -- it is more comfortable to pack in a breezy anchorage than at the dock. After getting all of our bags ready, we leave Soper's and head back to the Moorings. We are off Bob and back into the Mariner Inn at noon. Mike really enjoys flush toilets. We take a trip into town to visit the Sea Urchin shops and Sunny Caribee. Dinner at C&F -- unbelievable ribs and huge servings!<br><br>
June 15 - Departure day. Breakfast at the Moorings, watch the lucky folks beginning their charters, into the taxi, and off to the airport. Quite likely our last trip across the old Queen's bridge and our last time in the old Beef Island airport terminal. We have our 2-liter bottle of Coke filled with the last of our rum, so the airport wait is pleasant.<br><br>The flight home goes without incident -- once again all of our gear makes it both ways. We get to Houston to discover that there had been a tropical storm here with massive flooding. Luckily, our home was not affected.<br><br>Into the shower, water on, eyes closed. YES! The world is still gently rocking to and fro. Hopefully, that will last for another day....<br><br><br>
Walker Mangum<br>Houston, TX<br><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by Administrator on 6/25/01 11:19 AM.</EM></FONT></P>
