British Virgins - Beyond the Bitter End

British Virgin Islands

Trellis Bay

Left Anegada about 9ish for the 20nm journey back to Tortola island. Had a great reaching sail across to Marina Cay again averaging 8kts VMG despite a fair bit of a side-on swell. We furled the headsail and strapped the main to motor through the Camanoe Gap between Great Camanoe Island and Scrub Island, dropping the main just off Marina Cay before dropping the anchor. It’s a deepish anchorage here and we are south of the mooring field. It’s nice enough but turns out to be a bit of a thoroughfare for ferries and power boats going across to Trellis Bay on Beef Island, off the eastern end of Tortola. We decide not to stay the night and after lunch so we head across to Trellis Bay ourselves. Its right beside the end of the airport runway (a lot of people use it to pick up guests) and with all the mooring buoys and shallow depths there is limited space to anchor so we have to take a buoy. The bottom is weedy, rocky and corally, with a smattering of boat hooks (from charter boats no doubt) and doesn’t look fantastic holding anyway. We go ashore and have a walk along the beach as well as checking out the “market”. There is a small wreck in the middle of the bay so we swim over and take a look. Not much to see, a few fish hanging around. In the afternoon there are people camped on the beach and having races with remote controlled power boats. They sound like leaf blowers on steroids! Who knew there was something more annoying than jet skis. Every time you thought they were finished they started up again! Must be just changing batteries. Later in the day they cranked up the doof-doof music but thankfully that was short lived!

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Little Bay Sunset

In the morning I took the RIB ashore solo(!) and went to the supermarket, launching and docking the dinghy by myself. No bananas! Must be the first time in history we have run out!! When I got back to the boat I realised I was missing the cheese so I had to go back again and repeat the exercise again. Very stressful but I managed! We motored the few miles across to Guana Island, a small island just to the north of Tortola. There are 2 anchorages here both with a few mooring buoys as well. Ashore in the north there is a nice looking white-sand beach as well as an resort and a few houses stretching up the hill. We anchor south of the northern set of buoys, not far from the beach, and have lunch.  After lunch Keith swims the anchor and the verdict is not good, the bottom is quite hard and rocky and the anchor is not set well enough for an overnight stay. We decide to put motors on and head across to the aptly named Little Bay that we can see less than a mile away, on the NE corner of Tortola. Here is a small, white sand beach with nothing much ashore and sand, glorious sand! The anchor digs in nicely and we decide to stay a couple of days as we have the place to ourselves.

ITIKI at Little Bay

The next morning we take the paddle boards ashore. There is a bit of a headwind and I am behind Keith (as usual). I watch him fiddling with his hat and see a reasonable sized wave coming towards him from behind. Nothing I could do but watch him do a little dance on the back of his paddle board and fall off! He was only in waist deep water, unscathed if not a little surprised by the experience, and did not lose his sunglasses or dunk his phone. There is not much ashore but the beach is lovely and we have it all to ourselves so we go for a swim. Although we can, and do, always go for a swim off the back of ITIKI, it is a nice experience to swim off a beach as well. Walking on sand into the water and floating gently about in the shallows, out of the current is lovely.

Sandy Spit

Left this beautiful spot mid-morning and just pulled out a headsail. Made our way slowly the 8nm across to Sandy Spit with 10-20kts up the duck. The anchorage is a tiny sand island inside a reef off Little Jost Van Dyk Island, and we anchor in quite close to it. Keith swims the anchor and we are all set for the night. A lot of boats come for a few hours, visit the tiny sand island, take their selfies and move on. After lunch I take a paddle board ashore and do the same, there are a couple of palm trees and a pile of Lambi shells but that’s it. We stay a couple of nights and spend some time chilling out, doing boat jobs and swimming and watching the comings and goings.

Keith admiring his handiwork

Keith was determined to be first on the tiny beach island the morning we left. He paddled ashore and wrote ITIKI on the beach for me to photograph from the boat, but it looked like iciki… Anyway you get the idea. We left just before 9am and swung around the end of Sandy Cay, another nearby but slightly larger sand island. We had intended to stop here but it is so similar to Sandy Spit and already packed so we don’t bother. We head across to Cane Garden Bay on Tortola Island, intending to just spend an hour there going to the supermarket, but we find a nice spot to anchor avoiding the mooring buoys and decide we like it. Just repositioned ourselves when we realised we had swung too close to another boat on a mooring buoy. Went ashore and the supermarket shelves were a bit sparse but she suggested coming back later as they were awaiting a delivery. We took what we had back to the boat and had a chat to an American couple on a Saona (QuiteTheCatch) who live on their boat 6 months of the year. In the afternoon we take the paddleboards ashore and watch the dive bombing pelicans. We stop at a beach bar for a cocktail and sit under an umbrella for a while, then head back to the supermarket and bingo! Delivery in, so we have bananas again! In the evening the music is fairly loud and goes on until about 11pm and then the parties continue on the charter boats. Well it is a popular place!

Dive Bombers at Cane Garden Bay

The next morning head north again to the southern shores of Jost Van Dyk Island, Amazingly there is no one anchored at Sandy Spit, they are all at Sandy Cay. We take a peek in to Garner Bay but there is really nothing there, a restaurant that looks closed and a barge on the western side, no beach. A few mooring buoys – meh! We continue on west to Grand Harbour and again its full of mooring buoys and lots of boats, there is maybe room to anchor right at the mouth of the bay but it is quite unappealing. Next stop is White Bay. This has 2 sides, the western side looks very busy with buoys and charter boats and plenty of restaurants and beach bars line the shore. We choose the eastern side and reluctantly pick up another buoy, as there is no space to anchor. We have to reverse onto it as it has no pendant, but no fancy trick techniques this time. Then we realise we are right next to QuiteTheCatch again. We take the paddle boards ashore on the western side and go for a walk up the hill a little to get a view. Lots of private villas here and a on the beach is Ivan’s stress free bar (great name!). Later we paddled over to the western shore and went for a walk along the beach, there are a lot more boats, people and beach bars over this side. Ran into Cathy and Steve from QTC who were drinking cocktails and smoking cigars in the water. Quite the party atmosphere!

Privateer Bay

Well White Bay was a nice enough bay, particularly our spot in the south, and we considered looking for a sand patch between the mooring buoys to stay for another night, but instead we decided to move on. QTC left earlier than us and put some sails up. We motored, intending to put a headsail out but it was on the nose and the batteries were a bit low so we ended up motoring all the way. From our anchorage we headed around the western end of Tortola, past Soper’s Hole – it’s a very popular, deep and well protected bay but quite tight, full of mooring buoys and plenty of boats. We keep going south realising later we probably passed through US waters as we skirted along the top of St John (USVI). Crossed paths with Quite The Catch again who are still sailing - hope they don’t think we are stalking them. Arrived at Privateer Bay, on Norman Island, just before lunch and we were delighted to find that it wasn’t full of mooring buoys or charter boats. There are some day use buoys on the eastern side near some caves, about 8 overnight buoys along the shore in the south of the bay,  but they left a fantastic sandy patch to the west which had our name on it. Three other boats here already but we find a nice gap and the anchor is well set. Our mood lifts when we find somewhere special and uncrowded like this. After lunch I go for a snorkel along the western shore. There are some interesting fish and the water is incredibly clear. Later we take the dinghy across to the caves and have a snorkel around there. The coral is not fantastic but there are some more colourful fish, including quite large parrot fish. There is not much life in the caves themselves though, as they are a fairly dark.

Parrot Fish

From our anchorage, I swim and Keith takes the paddle board over to the western point again and we go for a snorkel. There are a few large bombies off the point but again, not very spectacular. A few larger fish. Keith does some more cleaning under the hull and spies a large barracuda and a sting ray. In the afternoon we take the dinghy across to Bight Bay, the next one around from our anchorage, and check it out. There are a lot of mooring buoys and charter boats as well as a resort in the corner. We then head over to The Indians, 4 conical shaped rocks near Pelican Island with a large reef surrounding them. There are quite a few day moorings over here and a line for the dinghy which we tie to. The snorkelling here is the best we have seen so far, quite extensive, good variety of coral and lots of fish. I swim with a school of small, flat blue fish for a while before being distracted by a larger, fish with flouro markings.

White Bay, Peter Island

It’s time to move on again so we leave our lovely spot mid-morning and motored around to White Bay, tucked into the SE corner of Peter Island, 4nm away. It’s a lovely looking white sand beach and there are 3 monos here when we arrive, but they soon leave. We anchor well in the weedy sand but find that the boat is turning 360s. Swam ashore and walked along the beach where there is a big sign saying that the island is closed to visitors and we must stay on the beach. That is not too difficult given the high cliffs and dense scrub inland of the beach. After lunch we are not feeling too comfortable with all of the twisting and turning. The anchor has reset but the movement means we won’t get a good night’s sleep. It’s getting late by the time we decide to leave so we need to move quickly. In the next bay there are 2 cats anchored close to shore so we stick our noses in but find the bottom looks too rocky for our liking. There are a couple of mooring buoys but they are a long way out and too exposed to the strong prevailing wind. We head around the top of the island past Little Bay, Grand Harbour and finally into Deadman’s Bay on Peter Island, a further 10nm from our lunch anchorage. There is one other cat here (Flu Flu that we have seen in various places before). We anchor outside them and we are very happy with the set. It’s quite windy here but a strong breeze from consistent direction is a good thing as it holds us steady on the anchor. We are here just in time for sundowners and enjoy a beautiful sunset.

Cooper Island Anchorage

It was quite gusty overnight, a fair bit of swell coming into the bay and it’s too bouncy go ashore so we get away mid-morning. First “stop” is to take a look at Salt Island which has some mooring buoys to access a wreck dive, but it’s quite exposed and bouncy through the passage so we decide to continue on. We come into the bay at Cooper Island which is full of charter boats on mooring buoys and anchoring is prohibited, so we pick up a buoy intending to just stay for lunch. Some Canadians from a charter boat come around the anchorage in a RIB trying to get rid of their beer and some spirits before they leave to go back home. Surprisingly they do not have any other takers so we score a free case of Corona Light, a full bottle of Cointreau and one of Triple Sec, very generous and a worthwhile stop indeed, especially as we didn’t pay for the mooring buoy... We head away after lunch towards Virgin Gorda and our favourite anchorage near the baths. Sadly the conditions are very much different to before -  there is a big swell coming in here so it is nowhere near as nice. We have to give it a miss and head to the more protected anchorage at Spanish Town, where we spent our first night in the BVIs. It’s still quite gusty but we are able to anchor in the exact same spot we did before. We have done a full circle of the BVIs, visiting all of the main islands, anchoring at or sailing by many of the smaller ones and so many beautiful bays.

Though the gap, back into Gorda Sound

​Sadly it is now time to leave the BVIs and start heading south, so we go ashore in the morning to complete the check-out formalities and swing past the supermarket for a few last minute items for our upcoming crossing. As we don’t need a Covid test for our next destination we don’t need to go to Road Town and we can leave the BVIs the next morning. We head over to Prickly Pear Island 6nm away, so we can start our journey a little further to windward before heading south. We motor all the way and this time we choose to enter Gorda Sound through the narrow and shallow gap between Virgin Gorda and Mosquito island, as we had seen other cats exit this way when we were here before. At one point we had 15cm under the keel and very interesting look on Keith’s face! We anchored in the same spot off Prickly Pear island, rested up and prepared for tomorrow’s big passage.

Saba Rock Resort

​Hughey’s first law of sailing karma
If you cast your mind back to high school physics you might recall Newton’s 3rd law of motion (For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction). A similar law applies to sailing and it goes something like this: For every glorious downhill run there is an equal and opposite ie “god-awful” upwind beat that is deposited into your sailing karma bank. Sooner or later, you have to make a withdrawal. We have been reaching and running with the trade winds since our Atlantic crossing and apart from a short slog from Les Saintes to Gwada, we have managed to avoid sailing to windward for a very long time. As everyone knows, gentleman and cats don’t go to windward. In terms of pointing, the best we can manage is around 45 degrees to the wind before you add our 10 degrees of leeway, but that is only half the story as our shallow keels mean the wind and current can more easily push us sideways, sending us off course and forcing us to tack back and basically zig zag our way to our destination. Our journey north to the BVIs had also been taking us gradually more westward so getting back to the French Antilles in the prevailing easterly trade winds was always going to be challenging.
 
Ahead of us lies a 220+nm journey from the BVIs to Deshaies, Guadeloupe with a COG of 130o. We were expecting 16kts gusting 21kts Easterly (80-95o) with a swell 1.7-2m (at 60o). It might not sound ideal, but there is no point waiting for better - that’s about as good as it gets as the trade winds are pretty relentless at this time of year and don’t tend to change direction all that much. Needless to say, there would be windward sailing and lots of tacking involved! We were mentally prepared for it, if not looking forward to it.

Picking our way out through the reef

We left at 7:30am, motoring around Saba Rock Resort, through the well-marked gap in the reef and out in the open waters. We started with 1 reef in the Main & Genoa, close hauled at 45s. Our progress was slow, as we expected, and we had lumpy seas. Conditions are very similar to the Atlantic crossing except we are going to windward! Our leeway means we are gradually falling further and further south of our course. Late on our first night we tack onto starboard and our VMGs go into the minus. We are just west of Saba, but on checking the radar it looks like we have tacked into an approaching squall, so we quickly tack back again. We continue on starboard tack through the night, passing Statia on our left. In the wee hours of the morning we tack onto starboard and head in towards into Kitts & Nevis. We would have liked to stop here, however their entry requirements were prohibitive and unwelcoming so we satisfy ourselves with a motor-sail along the south coast of this green and misty island. The wind shadow is a welcome relief although short-lived and as we come back into open water we tack back onto port and switch the motors off. We continue this way through the day and into the early hours of the next morning, falling further and further south of our course to Deshaies. We can barely make out Montserrat in the darkness we are so far from it. As I come on watch at 3am we decide to pull the pin on windward sailing and put the engines on so we can reach our final destination in reasonable time. We do the “two Volvo reach” for the final few hours which saves us from heading further south and having to do 15 tacks to get back. We can make a bee line to Deshaies, on the NW side of Gwada and arrive in time for breakfast! As much as I hate burning fossil fuels, for the sake of our sanity it was the right decision and lovely to arrive and drop anchor in a familiar location after a challenging passage.

Passing Kitts & Nevis