BVI

Our trip from St. Martin to the British Virgin Islands was perfect!  The wind was low, the seas were practically non existent, it was just a perfect day to travel 12 hours across the ocean.  We arrived in Virgin Gorda's North sound to anchor and have dinner.  We really enjoyed our time in the Virgin Islands last year and the kids were looking forward to being here again.

We had a month left before we needed to head home to Idaho, so we planned to slow down here in the Virgins and just "hang out".  That meant time for tubing, and blowing up our water trampoline for playtime off the back of the boat while anchored.  That night David and I met up with some friends we met during our short stay in St. Barts.  They also have a motor vessel and similar outings.  We met up while heading to have dessert at a nearby restaurant.  It is always nice to make new friends along the way.

The next day the kids had their school work completely finished by 8am.  Melinda had a stack of work awaiting her when she got up for the day.  The kids were so proud they had gotten it all done early.  Chores were next and completed quickly.  By 9am the kids were in swim suits and headed to the beach less than 100 feet from where we were anchored.  They had a great morning exploring the shoreline.  After lunch Dad took them tubing as promised.  Our tube is a giant hot dog and they love riding it and falling off behind the tender.  That evening before dinner we headed to Saba Rock resort for their nightly fish feeding.  They have a few dozen tarpons that roam near their docks awaiting the nightly fish scraps.  The guy who runs the feeding shares interesting info about the fish and other sea life.  The kids always enjoy attending this and its a fun thing to do in this area.

In the morning we packed up and headed down the coast of Virgin Gorda to an anchorage I had wanted to try last year, but with such heavy winds from the north, it was just not a great place to anchor, so with light east winds, I was anxious to head there.  It was a beautiful spot called Savannah bay.  We had  a beautiful long beach to ourselves, gorgeous turquoise water, and coral all around.  We had to dodge a few coral heads on the way in to find a great anchoring spot.  I headed out to snorkel after lunch, and the kids, including Matthew talked Melinda in to towing them on the raft to the beach, not an easy swimming task, but they made it.  Snorkeling was great, and i could have spent days there seeing all the reef in the area.  But after an hour of exploring I swam over to the beach where Matthew and I went for a walk.  By the time we made it back to where the kids were digging away Matthew was ready to head back to the baot.  My little 4 year old only makes it about an hour at the beach.  He was ready to swim back to get there.  The funny boy.  I knew after about 5 mins of swimming he would be done with that attempt, so I resigned myself to a good workout in swimming back with him on my back.  Its a good thing he wears a life jacket as the extra flotation came in handy.

Around dinner time, and maybe it was the change of tide, but we started to roll a little at anchor, so that convinced me that in the morning we would be moving on to a new anchorage.  After checking the weather seeing rainstorms headed our way over the weekend, we knew it was a good day to head to The Baths for the day.  If you have just one day to spend in the BVI's--maybe a cruise ship stop, then definitely go to the Baths.  It is by far a gorgeous and cool place. The beaches there are amazing. The snorkeling, also amazing.  But the rock formations and the climbing path and tunnels thru them are truly a unique and cool experience.  We loved it last year, and we loved it this year.  The weather was hot and sunny and perfect.

Lunchtime approached and it was time to start heading back to the boat.  We needed to make our way to a protected anchorage for the night and weekend of rain that was coming.  We decided to head down to our favorite spot in the BVI's, Great Harbor of Peter Island.  It is a large bay, less on the charter boat path, more used by cruisers and live aboard boats.  It is deep and anchoring can be a challenge.  But if we could get our favorite spot in the south east corner of the bay, we'd get excellent internet from the only resort on the island. And as we headed in, arriving before the dash of boats coming in from the days activities, we were able to pick the exact spot we wanted.  There was a boat up near where we were wanting, but just enough room for us to squeeze in next to them.

We were gad we went when we did as we saw several boats come in after us looking for spots to anchor.  And the next day, the rain started and rained all day long.  It was a good wash down for the boat, and cooled the air off for us a bit.  We worried that it would still be raining come Sunday and we'd have to make a wet ride across the channel to church, but Sunday morning we woke up to clear skies.  The forecast was calling for rain later in the day so we took our raincoats with us as we loaded into the tender and had a pleasant ride across the 3 mile channel into Road Harbor of Tortola for Church.

It was Mothers Day, and the Tortola Branch had a sweet Mother's Day program prepared by the Primary. They even invited our kids to sit with the other kids and sing with them.  And after sacrament meeting they handed out sweet gifts to all the moms in the congregation.  We enjoyed visiting with the members we had met there the year before.

That afternoon I enjoyed a snorkel around the shoreline of the anchorage to discover that after diving and snorkeling all throughout the Caribbean isalnds, the BVI's truly has some of the best.  I love being able to just hop off the boat and swim to a nearby reef and enjoy for an hour, and this anchorage has days of exploring nearby rocks and coral.

Monday morning David and I once again headed back across the channel to restock on food.  We love shopping at the Rite Way store in town, as they have pretty good sales, it always helps if the sale items are things we need.  Doesn't always happen, but it helps, as food here is expensive.

  

Once we returned to the boat David started in on his list of calls and emails trying to make arrangements for leaving the boat this summer thru hurricane season.  And since we are having another baby this summer, we won't be returning to the boat until the winter, so where we leave the boat is rather important.  Well it didn't work out  as we had hoped.  After days of calling and emailing, the fact was, Puerto Rico did not have enough adequate boat storage for hurricane season.  We couldn't get the boat hauled at the preferred boat yard, in fact the only boat yard with propert hurricane storage.  So the decision had to be made with what to do for summer with the boat.  After going back and forth and making more calls, David had decided that we should move the boat to Florida for the summer.  That had been an option months before, and then we hoped for Puerto Rico, and we were all excited to spend a few winter months back in the Virgin isalnds before heading north to Bahams and then the East coast of the US.  But with not having a place to store, we were left with Florida.  The question was when and how would we get the boat there.  Lesson learned-- don't wait to plan for hurricane season.  We should have called the Puerto RIco yard in March when we returned to the boat and knew we wanted to stop in Puerto Rico.

Great Harbor, Peter Island, one of my favorite spots to watch the sunset.

Goodbye BVI

From Anegada we headed to our favorite BVI spot – Great Harbour, Peter Island.  It was crowded when we pulled in late in the day, with all the other boats seeking shelter from the crazy winds too. We struggled to settle ourselves at anchor and kept swinging a little too close to one of the nearby boats. The rule is, who ever anchors last is responsible. So if we swing to close- we have to fix it or move. We had moved once but still the boat kept swinging where we didn’t really want it to. So the decided fix, was to put out a second anchor. It did the trick and kept us in our “swing space”. Time to to settle in for the weekend. A few dolphins were also seeking shelter in the harbor from the winds, and it was fun to watch them play as we sat on the boat.
We were able to attend church on Sunday, but it was a wet ride across the 4 mile channel. We had expected the waves and spray because the wind was still blowing a lot! So we dressed for it. I am sure we looked crazy to all the bathing suit clad boaters, dressed in our foul weather gear. We had heavy rain jackets on with the hoods pulled tight around our faces. The baby sat in his car seat on the floor of the tender covered by a towel tent. We arrived relatively dry. Savannah and I were on the “wet side” of the boat so we had planned for our raincoats to keep our top half dry and then we packed our skirts to change into once we arrived in Roadtown. It was a good plan—our bottom halves were soaked! Thank goodness the winds were blowing, or we would have all melted in our rain gear.
Monday the winds had calmed. David, Benjamin, Isabel and I made another run to Roadtown and hardly got wet this time. We made a last trip for groceries. We have enjoyed shopping at the Riteway in Roadtown. They have great sale prices. We picked up half gallons of milk for $0.99. They were expiring the next day, but that was fine for us, we tossed them in the freezer to be used later. Same with the yogurts and cheese we found on sale too.
We also stopped at customs to clear out of the BVI’s. We were moving on that night. The weather files showed the wind had calmed all day, the waves were dropping and it would hopefully be a good overnight passage to Saba for us.  We were kind of sad to leave the BVI’s, we had been there a month now.  I wasn’t sure when we arrived if I would like it much, with ALL the boats and tourists.  Turns out we loved it there. It is a beautiful place, even with the thousands of charter boats.  But it was time to move on and see more of this beautiful world.

Anegada

Since we were waiting out weather in the BVI’s we thought we would head north to see Anegada.  It is different from the rest of the BVI’s in that it is a low lying island, rather than a hilly one.  In fact it is disappearing into the water little by little, and what is left is a beautiful reef.  On paper--the anchorage looked like it would provide great coverage from the current winds.  It was a not so pleasant 2 hour journey up there, and the anchorage was not calm as we had hoped.  Anegada’s shore line is mostly one big beach, so it was fun to tuck in only a few hundred feet from the beach and drop anchor in 9 feet of water.  It had been awhile since we had anchored in shallow water.  We only rocked a little, but enough that we debated whether to head back Virgin Gorda for the night.  The kids spent the afternoon playing in the soft sand on the beach.  Once the baby was down for a nap, Jessie and I jumped in the water for the nice swim to the beach.  The sand was gorgeous and soft.  The kids were building a fort with the boogie boards, having a great time.  I started walking down the beach and then decided to run.  I ran as far as I could go till branches and rocks blocked my path, then turned and ran back.  Several times Jessie would pick up a branch and chase me, thinking I would stop running and throw the stick for her.  No such luck.  Once I reached the kids again, I checked on them before Jessie and I made the swim back to the boat.  What a great work out. I had never run barefoot before, at least not a significant distance.  I was worried my feet my get sore, but the sand was so soft, it was great.  I mapped my route on the GPS back on the boat and my barefoot, sandy run was close to 3 miles. 

We made it through the night and headed into town the next morning to rent a car to tour the small island.  Our vehicle turned out to be a pick up truck with benches in the back.  The island is very small with only a few roads.  We drove the north side, stopping at a couple of beaches.  The north side was being hammered with waves and had beaches for miles and miles.

The kids had a nice time shell hunting along the north beaches and just walking on the sand.  Of course if you were looking in the right direction as the wind blows it would whip sand in your face, and that wasn’t very fun.
Before we left Puerto Rico we had purchased a new camera.  I may have mentioned previously that I broke our old DSLR, so it was time to invest in a new one anyway.  Well, we invested alright, in a camera without auto settings.  Needless to say, I have a lot to learn about how camera’s work and what makes a great photo.  But it was fun to sit for a bit and play with the different settings and light.  This camera can turn out some great photos, I just need to learn how…


On the drive back we passed slowly by the salt ponds looking for the resident flamingos.  Off in the distance, far away, we finally found them.  With the help of my new super zoom lens we were able to capture a few shots that you can tell they are in deed flamingos.
 
It felt good to get back to the boat and pull up the anchor.  It was a bumpy 2 hours back to the lee of Virgin Gorda, and then another 2 hours to our anchorage for the weekend--  Great Harbour, Peter Island.  We love it there.

Long Bay

After spending most of the week in the North Sound we decided to head for some different scenery, and maybe somewhere that would put us a little close to church on Sunday.  So we headed around the corner to Long Bay, still on Virgin Gorda.  We still had one more dive to complete our advanced course so we needed to be close by for that, and then hopefully close enough to make the drive in the tender to church. 
 
We weren’t sure how the anchorage at Long Bay would be.  David had taken Madison and a couple of the kids a few days before over to that area for snorkeling and said there were a few of the crewed charter boat there.  The guide book says that it can often be a swelly anchorage.  But it turned out just fine once we got settled—which took awhile.
 
David drove us in and headed for the very edge of a patch of sand next to coral, but by the time he got from the helm to the anchor to drop it, we had drifted over the coral and I wasn’t interested to damaging the coral or in getting our anchor stuck in the coral and rocks.  So I circled us around and drove back in heading a little more towards the sand area.  David started to drop the anchor and got out about 50 feet of line—enough for the anchor to be in the sand—and then our anchor windlass completely stopped working.  Since we were in 30 feet of water we could easily drag our anchor, 50 feet wasn’t enough we needed lots more, but couldn’t make the windlass work to put out the chain.  Also we hadn’t yet pulled in our tender which meant I could use reverse so as not to run over our tow lines and suck them into our prop.  So, we needed some time.   I watched how we were drifting, because the wind was blowing, to make sure we didn’t run into any other boats and David pulled in the tender so that was out of the way and the lines pulled in.  Now we can use reverse.  So I pulled us back and away from the other boats.  David dropped our spare anchor and put out enough rope for it to hold us while he looked at the windlass.

Now you might remember that our anchor windlass had broken about a week ago and we had just repaired it.  This time it turned out to be a simple fix.  David had put it on wrong.  It had worked a few time since we had anchored 3 times in the North Sound, but apparently it had had enough of being connected the wrong way and wanted to be hooked up right.   So he fixed it and it worked again.  Hurray!  Now we could pick a closer spot for better protection from the winds.
 
We pulled up our spare anchor and went back to our spot closer in and dropped anchor. Time for dinner!
We had a nice time in Long Bay.  It was closer for church, but kids were all sick with runny noses and upset stomachs so we decided not to go.  We held a church lesson on the boat instead.  Again I am so grateful for modern technology.  It was easy to open our LDS App and look up a primary lesson.  What a great blessing! 

Savannah and I went snorkeling and it was different then other places we had snorkeled.  It was missing all the colorful sponges but it was still a fun place to snorkel.  The water clarity was more than 35 feet, it was excellent.  I could clearly see our anchor buried in the sand near the stingray at 35 feet depths.   Madison went on another day and loved it.  She spotted fish she hadn’t seen before.  Savannah and I found that in the corner of the bay, the most protected area, was a huge sandy area all 7-8 feet deep all the way up to shore.  Plenty of room to fit our boat.  Currently there was 2 catamarans in that area.  Every day we were there we thought about heading in the big sandy area, but when the cats left, another one or 2 would take it’s place, and there wasn’t room for us.  We had a calm spot, it just would have been fun to be in the very corner.
 
While here at Long Bay we celebrated Matthew’s 3rd Birthday!  The kids were hoping for a day off from school, as is our tradition this year on Birthday’s.  They were disappointed to learn that because Matthew doesn’t go to school, there would be no day off!  They were still excited for his party in the evening.  We had fun eating cake and watching him open his few presents.  He loved each one. 
From Long Bay David and I tendered down to Spanish town to meet up with the dive boat to head out for our last day of diving to get our advanced certification.  We were wreck diving on the RMS Rhone.  I was a little worried we had seen most of the wreck when we snorkeled it and that I would be disappointed, but I was not disappointed at all.  The bow section was in about 80ft of water and is quite intact still.  We could swim thru parts of it, it was very cool.  Our instructor noticed what looked to me like ping pong balls, but she knew they were turtle eggs.  Since they were dropped in water, they would never hatch.  She had worked in a turtle hospital for a couple of years, so she was really examining it and could tell us that it was a Hawksbill Turtle egg.  How can you tell that from looking at it?  Something about number of membranes…  She tore a small piece off the shell and handed it too me, and it wasn’t brittle like a regular egg, I know I was in the water and maybe that was why, so I asked her later, and she said that out of the water the shells are the same way.  They are more leathery.  You can bend them.  It was pretty cool.  We also saw some neat fish. Two large porcupine puffer fish swam close by David and I.  I found a large crab hiding in a hole on the wreck.  It was a great 2 dives.
We had been watching weather, waiting to see when we could leave the BVI’s and head to our next destination, Saba.  This was requiring some patience.  The wind had been blowing for quite some time.  We had been hoping for a drop in the trades, but felt like it wasn’t coming.  So we planned to leave and bear through it.  The winds were normal 15+ knots, and the wind/wave charts showed the waves to be decent, our main concern was the anchorage at Saba.  It is exposed, so we had been waiting for a bit calmer so we could really enjoy our time there, rather than rocking on the boat at anchor. 
We decided to head back into North Sound to clear out and then leave at dark to travel the 85 miles overnight, arriving in the morning at Saba.  Well, by the time we got settled, in a rolling spot in North Sound and headed over to customs—they were closed.  We had been distracted by other things and did not make the best use of our time, and now we can’t clear out.  Well, we figured that might be for the best, as the weather files weren’t showing it – but the current winds had definitely picked up and we did not want to be out all night in these winds anyway.  So, it was a blessing—our procrastination.  Time for a new plan!

North Sound, Virgin Gorda

Still waiting for better weather, still thinking about repair parts…  We decided to head up to the North Sound of Virgin Gorda to explore.  We had heard about some fun things to do in the area and that it was a great anchorage.  Well I don’t know about the “great anchorage” but it was pretty and we found some fun things to do while there. Our friends “Hoodwink” joined us for our trip up to the North Sound since they were still waiting for a good weather window as well.  Their next stop was St. Martin/St. Maarten.  It is about the same distance to head there as to Saba – our next stop, but they are 28 miles apart. 

Our first night in the North Sound we dropped anchor next to Mosquito Island—owned by Richard Branson.  I had hoped for a little better protection since it has a nice reef surrounding it’s cove, but it was a little too rocky for David.  It worked out fine for one night.  Hoodwink picked up a mooring about a half mile away in Leverick Bay.  We tendered over and went to the “Happy Aarrrr” We had heard about a one man family pirate show from friends and the kids were excited to try their hand at the conch shell blowing contest.  We had fun munching on french fries and appetizers while listening to the tunes and jokes of Michael Beene.  The kids had fun shaking pebbled water bottles as the pirate played his guitar and sang.  Then came the Conch shell contest.  All the kids gave it a shot, Calvin had his hopes up that he would be the best.  He handled the disappointment well as other kids won the contest.

The next day we picked up anchor and moved over to Prickly Pear Island, thinking that would offer us more protection from the winds, but the boat was still rocking a bit.  We were missing our calm and beautiful Peter Island.  David and I went into the Leverick bay dive shop to schedule diving and ended up signing up for the advanced diving course, which will take 3 days of diving to complete.  Our goal is to gain enough experience over the next several months to be able to feel comfortable enough to dive off our boat without a guide.  So the advanced course will help us on our way towards this goal. 

After diving the next day the kids went to the beach with Ryleigh for a bit.  Then David loaded them all up and went over to the Saba Rock resort for their daily fish feeding.  They save the skins and trash from cleaning fish.  The kids then wrap the skin strips around their hands and dangle it in the water for the Tarpon to come and get.  We went back to the fish feeding a second time a week later and the guy running the show asked if some people wanted to jump in and swim with the Tarpon, and Calvin was one of a dozen that took him up on it. They also have a little shallow pull where they keep starfish, sea cucumbers, and a moray eel, that they also feed at that time.  The nice guy lets the kids take turns feeding the eel on the end of a rake.  Eels are beautiful to watch swimming, like flowing ribbons, but they have the ugliest faces.  He even pulled out some lobsters (someone’s dinner later) for the kids to hold and see.  They were alive but had been in the fridge, so they were slow moving.  The resort also had a few Toucan’s in aviaries.  They were beautiful to see, they almost looked like stuffed birds, rather than real.  They were mesmerizing to watch.  Their care taker was in the cage playing with them, and it was interesting to learn a bit about Toucan’s. 

That night Hoodwink joined us on board for Pizza.  The kids had a great time visiting, and it was hard to say goodbye.  They were leaving for St. Martin in the morning.  We still had a few more days of diving left before moving on, maybe we will meet up down the road…

The next day we decided to try another spot in the North Sound, still looking for a calm spot—and better internet, which at the last 2 spots were flaky.  We headed towards Biras Creek, near the super yacht marina, and found calm water in 50ft.  Deep anchoring is always a challenge since we have to put out so much chain.  But we got it out and settled and it turned out to be a great calm spot.  I was worried we would get waked by ferries going in and out of Biras Creek, they run through like twice an hour – but my guess is the mega yacht marina makes them slow down, because they plow full speed till they reach the edge of the marina, so it worked out that by the time they passed us, their wake was nill.  And the internet was way better in that spot too.  David and I enjoyed a date night out to eat at a great spot where we had Roti’s and seafood.  Roti’s are a local dish of curried chicken in a flatbread wrap.  Delish!  After getting back to the boat that night we were treated to a great view of fireworks over the water.  We looked around at the mega yachts anchored near by wondering which one had paid for the great show and what they might be celebrating.

Diving was great.  We had to do a navigation course, a deep water course, and then 3 of our choosing.  We picked peak bouyancy, underwater naturalist, and wreck diving.  The sites we visited were awesome.  So colorful and full of fish and sponges and corals.  We really enjoyed it.  The first two days we went, the dive boat came out to our boat to pick us up – what they call “rendezvous”.  The kids loved having the 30ft dive boat pull along side and watching us jump on and head out for the morning while they worked on school work with Madison.