The Baths – Saturday 3-13

Decide on an early departure from Lee Bay to head directly over to the Baths on Virgin Gorda. This is one of the busiest places in the BVI, so we want to get there early to secure one of the few National Parks mooring balls.  Its about an hour motor (directly into the wind) but we beat the crowds and get a ball right in front of the beach. The sun is up, no clouds, its going to be a great day.

Tracy makes the kids pancakes for breakfast and we head in to go exploring. Its a little different then I remember, and the first beach landing doesn’t provide access to the trails in the Baths. So we head out and around the rocks to the next bay. Now its looking familiar. There are no dinghies allowed on shore, so we have to tie up to a dinghy “dock” in the water. (two moorings with a long rope in between). From there we have to swim in to shore. Of course I forgot the underwater camera in the dinghy, so no more pictures of the baths.

This is another highlight of the trip. We all love climbing over the rocks and discovering hidden pools of water and grottos. The trail leads to Devils Bay on the south side of the baths. Its a beautiful beach surrounded by the bath boulders. While there, a tour guide shows up with a group and shows up a spot to climb up on one of the rock and jump off into the water. Its about 10 feet high, straight down into the crystal clear water. A lot of fun, until the guide asks who is ready for the ‘big rock’. This is 30’ high and its a one way trip. once up the only way down is to jump. We follow him around to the point of no return, and then return. None of us are brave enough to make the climb. Instead we head back to the beach and watch the fun. About 10 people went with him, and its amusing to watch them stand on the top, refusing to jump. All but 2 make the leap. and he takes them down the side of the rock, about 10 feet lower where they are finally able to jump.  The jump is over rocks, and we can see the guide throwing shells out into the water to show them how far out they need to jump. Its a big drop and not surprising that they are scared. After that entertainment we hike back through the rocks to the dinghy and back out to the boat for lunch.

We have used up 1 1/2 tanks of water, so I want to test the water maker. I’ve never used one before and want to learn how. After figuring out all the valves, we fire it up and start making water. Its loud, but its working. We run this for about 2 hours, while finishing lunch and heading up the coast to Leverick bay. We are able to make about 60 gallons of water for the tank and fill 9 jugs of drinking water. We have to use the water maker at least once a week, or the filters clog, but now we don’t have to worry about going in to marina’s to fill up the tanks, or lug gallon jugs back and forth on the dinghy.

I finally have our fishing line rigged, and on the trip up the coast we try that for first time. No luck, but fun. As we are pulling out of the Baths, someone on a passing sloop hollers out. Its my captain from my offshore Bahamas trip. He has been down here teaching sailing courses and captaining charter boats.

The mooring balls at Leverick bay are mostly available, but we are getting good at anchoring, and when there is plenty of room we prefer to just drop the hook. We go into shore to try to get wifi connection and check the weather report. Leverick Bay is a nice resort, but the restaurant is a bit fancy for dinner and VERY expensive. We just missed the Friday night BBQ and beach party. We opt for ice cream and pick up a few groceries. The weather forecast for Monday night looks good, and we are planning the overnight trip to St. Martin.

Back at the boat after dinner, Captain Bob and his charter guest David come over for a nice visit.

 

 

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Monkey Point 3-12

Its our last day at White Bay (at least for now), and we are getting ready to head back to the East end of the Islands. Made a quick trip into the Soggy Dollar to connect to Wife and upload some posts. Unfortunately the picture albums I had set up in the posts would not load. Will have to look into that later, since its much easier to just dump the pictures in one bundle into the blog. By the way, if you haven’t noticed, hovering the mouse over the picture will show the caption. I haven’t found a way to have it show the caption permanently below the picture.

Dropped the ball and headed out of the east end of the reef at about 11am. As we round JVD and pass Sandy Cay, the wind and waves are really building. Now its 20+ knots right on the nose and the waves are around 6’. We are on the North side of the islands, and there is very little protection from the open ocean. We are crashing over waves, burying the bow and sending water everywhere, including (due to a small miscommunication) down the forward hatch into our cabin. Delaina and Noah are in the salon watching movies, and of course Noah starts feeling ill. Delaina is unphased, but Noah soon needs the bucket. We end up hugging the shoreline to avoid the biggest waves, but its still slow going into the strong wind.

After about 3 hours of fun, we reach Monkey Point on the south side of Guana Island. We are back in the lee of the islands, and the waves are gone. We tie up to a National Park mooring and jump in for a snorkel. This is one of our best spots yet for snorkeling. Delaina is finally getting the the hang of it and has a great time. There are millions of minnows along the reef and she is swimming right through them. This is what I love about sailing. It was a bit of a challenge getting here, but now the payoff!

 

After a great snorkel, we head around the point to another White Bay (creative names are not a specialty here). This one is on Guana Island and is just a secluded anchorage. The island is private, with a resort on the beach so we are not supposed to go ashore. There are a couple of huge mega yachts just leaving as we come in. We have two failed attempts at anchoring. The bottom is all rock and the anchor is skipping off and dragging. We finally snag a rock, but its not really safe, a wind shift would pull us off that rock and we would slide until hopefully snagging another one. There is also the risk of the chain wrapping around the rocks and making it difficult to raise the anchor. So we gave up on this site, and headed back around Monkey Point and over to Great Camanoe Island and Lee Bay. This is just a small cove, but according to the guide book has perfect anchoring conditions. There are only 2 other boats in the bay and we settle in behind them in about 20 feet of water. The anchor sets and we are secure for the night. After dinner, we start our first monopoly game – a bit challenging with the wind blowing through the salon.

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White Bay day 2

It looks like another perfect day, a few clouds but lots of sun to go with them. Time to check out the west end of the bay and the Soggy Dollar bar. Noah and Delaina head in with the kayak and follow a path over the rocky point in the middle of the bay. Tracy and I head in with the dinghy towards Ivan’s to pay for the ball and make a relatively dry beach landing. There’ no one working at Ivan’s but there are several campers making breakfast in the back room. Back to the dinghy and off towards the other end of the beach. Noah and Delaina have met 4 goats on the path and are all excited. We walk the beach and check out the restaurants and shops.   They are mostly bbq shacks, so not much going on in the morning. Kids swim on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

We head back to the Soggy Dollar which looks open with several people sitting around at tables. I guess they are just hanging out, there’s no bartender working yet, so we have to wait about a 1/2 hour for our first Painkiller. We kill time sitting in the hammock and playing the ring game. Delaina has quite a knack, and racks up close to 50 before we leave.

 

    

As good as the bbq sounds, we have a LOT of food back on the boat and need to use it up. So we launch the dinghy and head back for burgers on grill. Just about out of propane, so Noah and I head out around the point into Great Harbor. This is the main harbor on JVD, so you’d think they would have a decent store and propane would be a common item – nope. As we are learning, nothing is as easy as it sounds here in the islands. The first store sent us to the second store at the other end of the beach. While leaving the store, we stop for ice cream and they suggest Ali Babba’s in the center of town. Ali Babba’s is a bar, so we skip that and head towards the second store, but pass a dive shop on the way. They suggest the fuel dock, which is way down around the bay, past the second grocery. So we continue on to the second grocery. No luck there, so on to the fuel dock. The guy at the fuel dock says he has propane, but its back at his house. He can’t leave because he must run the fuel dock, but he’ll call his wife and she will bring some in an hour or so. OK, small progress. Back towards the center of the town to kill time and get the dinghy. On the way we pass Ali Babba’s  again and figure what the heck we’ll try. It takes a while to get the waitresses attention (she’s in the back cooking), but when she comes out she confirms that yes, they have no propane. There is only one table of people, but one of the asks, ‘how long are you going to be here?’ Here we go again, I think. He says he had a propane problem on his boat and bought several small cans as a back-up. He fixed the problem and now doesn’t need the cans. But they just ordered food and he doesn’t want to run out to the boat until after lunch. This seems more likely to happen then the fuel dock guys wife showing up before sundown, so we agree and head on down towards Foxy’s to kill time. I’ve gotta say its surprising that Foxy’s is so famous. There really isn’t much here. Maybe its just a late night kind of place. All in all, great harbor isn’t that appealing. We’ll have to come back to clear customs when the See’s come to visit, but hopefully we won’t have to stay long. 

While our Great Harbor Propane Adventure was playing out, Tracy and Delaina had gone back to the beach to get some hair braids. (the humidity and wind is not being kind to either of them) 

Soggy Dollar

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Soggy dollar Hammack

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Ahhhhhhh White Bay

Last night several little squalls blew through. It went from complete calm to 20 knots of wind ripping through the harbor. The wind bursts only lasted a couple of minutes and then it was calm again. A few had rain and we had to close the hatches. By morning the clouds had cleared and it was going to be a beautiful day. We headed up a little river to go to a local market called Kenny’s. We needed propane and non-stick fry pans, but had no luck at the market. They directed ‘5 minutes walk’ up the road to the hardware. 20 minutes later we are at the hardware, but struck out again. On the way back, David calls and is on his way to fix the relay. He ends up needing to bring out an electrician to wire things up, but the electrician knew what he was doing, and in no time both engines are starting and running fine. 

With the repairs once again behind us we drop the ball a little after noon  and head out through the Thatch Island Cut. Winds are up near 20 knots and with just the headsail we zip along at 7 knots towards Jost  Van Dyke. We had thought about going to Cane Garden Bay, the the swells are still running and Jost will be better protected. The kids are ready for a beach (we all are, and the best one is at White Bay. We remember it as being very tight, with only a few balls and not much room to anchor between the shore and the reef, so we are going to try that first, and then head to Great Harbor if there is no room. We’re in luck, there are a couple of open balls on the east side of the channel.  Not our best effort, as our chosen ball doesn’t have a pennant and we have to back up to the other one. The wind are current are against each other and it tosses the boat a bit. The reef is only about 20 feet behind us and the waves are breaking over it. Every 4 or 5th wave comes over the reef and the boat is rocking pretty good. As soon as we get tied up a boat further in towards shore leaves, and even though its only a hundred or so yards in, its clearly a lot calmer. So we quickly untie and move up. This proves to be a good choice. We are sitting here calmly, watching the sloop that got our old ball rock and roll all over the place. Its good to be us.

White Bay is the post card Caribbean paradise. White sand and water an amazing shade of blue. Its a couple hundreds yards to the beach, Tracy and Noah snorkel in, and Delaina and I follow in the Kayak. On this end of the bay is Ivan’s Stress Free Bar, and tucked in behind it is a little campground with several tents set up. (Dave and Shelly – you could be here!)  We swam back out to the boat where the kids swim and dive for another couple of hours. Dinner is Snapper on the grill (which turns out amazing) eaten on the cockpit with the light of St. Thomas directly behind us. After dinner its back out on the tramps to watch the stars. There’s less light pollution here and the stars are the brightest yet. Still no shooting stars.

Soper’s Hole

After a great day and night in the Bight, we call David to schedule our freezer repair. He has Alfred lined up to meet us at Soper’s Hole at 2pm. This should work great, giving us a chance to stop and snorkel at the Indians on the way over.  Only one problem. Now the stbd engine will not start. Battery is charged everything looks good, but it just doesn’t do anything when we hit the switch. Back on the phone to David to let him know we’ll need more service at Soper's.

We had a nice snorkel stop at the Indians. It was a little tricky maneuvering into the ball between the other boats and the reef with one engine. But we managed to get tied up. All of us quickly put on our gear and jump in. The chop on the water wasn’t bad, but it was completely overcast and again we were missing out on all the great colors of the reef. We will have go back again later, as I remember this as one of the best sites I had ever been to. I’m sure it will be better in the sun when its a little warmer.

Leaving with one engine is again a bit dicey. Boats on both sides of us and the reef directly behind. With one engine, the boat wants to spin until it gets a little forward momentum. Luckily we do not make the Boat Channel Comedy hour, and pull out cleanly.

With the Jib unrolled, we are slipping along at 6 knots heading west towards the cut between St. John and Tortola. The wind is funneling through the cut, so we roll up the sail and motor around Frenchman’s Key and into Soper’s Hole. By now its a little after noon, and the harbor is pretty crowded. Soper’s is mostly a lunch stop with a Pusser’s restaurant and lots of shops. We find an open ball and tie up to wait for repairs.

Noah and I hop in the dinghy to check out the marina in case we need to go to a dock. There’s space, but no need to go in unless we have to. Noah needs some fishing gear, but we have no luck finding any. Back at the boat, Delaina is excited that she saw a dolphin swimming in the harbor. We watch for a while, but don’t see him again.

There’s a nice a market here, so I run in to grab some more food. When I reach the dock, Alfred the refrigeration guy is there waiting – good timing. Market will have to wait. Unfortunately, the compressor appears to be bad, so he has to take the unit out an back to his shop for the full repair. Luckily its all self contained and comes out easily. It would be nice to have the DC, as it would minimize the amount of time we need to run the engine to keep the freezer cold, but its not that big a deal. Hopefully it will be fixed and we can have it put back in by early next week before we head to St. Martin.

David arrives and finds a bad relay in the starter circuit. The terminals are corroded and a wire has broken off. Getting the wire on gets us running, but the relay still is a little fluky. About one time in 3 it doesn’t start.  A few taps on the relay, and then it starts again. He’ll have to get a new relay tomorrow.  By this time is way too late to try to go anywhere else for the night, so we will just hang out here a while longer. There’s no beach, so not a great place for the kids, but we’ll be able to go in and have a nice dinner at Pusser’s.

 

The Bight

Rained all night and morning at Cooper Island. The wind clocked around to the NNW, and it got a little rough. Not bad, just loud slapping of waves on the boat and dinghy. During the first break in the rain, the kids swim in to shore to play on the beach and we enjoy coffee on the deck while getting ready to head out. When the kids get back we cast off in light rain and head back out into the Sir Francis Drake Channel and towards Normal Island. Soon after leaving the rain stops, and it actually starts getting lighter with some patches of blue sky. By the time we are half way, its only partly cloudy and turning into a nice day.

We pass Peter Island on the left, and can see St. John straight ahead. Looking off to the starboard side I was amazed to see a tuna shoot straight out of the water and up at least  10’ in the air. I have never seen such a thing. Either he was chasing something fast or the other way around. It was a big fish to be up that high.

We sail in to check out the Indians, a great snorkel site, but it is full of boats and the conditions are not great. The wind is blowing and there is 2’ chop all around. I don’t think the kids would enjoy it, so we’ll save it for a better day.

 

The Bight is mostly empty, and we are able to sail right up in front of the Pirates Bight restaurant and beach. Now the sun is shining, its getting warm and the water is back to the beautiful shade of blue. The bight is totally protected, and the water is flat – a nice change from bouncing around at Cooper island. We tie up and start to prepare lunch when the kids are shouting from the bow. A group of 5-6 French guys on a large cat are attempting to tie on to the ball in front of us and its not going well. The kids are howling with laughter (which is not helping the guy at the helm). Delaina declares this the ‘Boat Channel’ and takes a perch to watch the comedy. This goes on for what seems like 20 minutes or more. Several times they come running to the back of the boat when it looks like the other cat may come loose and swing back on us. Eventually they secure the boat and we can finish lunch.

     

After lunch, Noah takes the kayak into shore to check out a large inflatable climbing wall/slide he saw on the beach. We follow him in with the dinghy. There are some hiking trails to check out, and then we go back to the beach for a swim and slide down raft. Pirates Bight is a nice bar/restaurant, and this is definitely on our list of places to come back to with the See’s.

After getting back to the boat and cleaning up, Tracy and I head out in the dinghy to find Tim McKenna from the CIC. He’s hear teaching sailing classes and should be here in the Bight tonight. We complete the lap around the bay to find his boat just a few ball behind ours. Tim is doing well, having a great time sailing/teaching here this winter. He’s got a couple of week left before heading out. We mention that we are heading to Cane Garden Bay tomorrow, but he advises against it. With the storm, the northern swells will be rolling in there. He’s seen 4-6’ waves crashing in with these conditions. So we will need to find a new destination.