Week 45: BVIs (45nm)

During our second week exploring this popular cruising ground, we developed a running joke as to how long Laura had before she would actually turn into a fish. We got to explore lots of spots including The Indians, Fallen Jerusalem and finished the week at the wonderful coral island of Anegada.

Captain’s log

10th Mar: Got an early start so that we could ensure a buoy at the nearby nature reserve around Pelican Island and the Indians, and were rewarded with some quintessentially BVI snorkelling including a plethora of parrot fish and an underwater tunnel. Then headed round to Peter Island and after a couple of attempts managed to find an anchor spot that had good cell service, although its proximity to the bay entrance meant it was a bit rolly – cruising is full of compromises. Had a quiet afternoon pootling around, other than deciding to test our max free dive depths where we both set new PRs (Alec = 15m, Laura = 11 m).

11th Mar: Laura kept up on her work on the blog whilst Alec worked through the route plan options available to us as we headed back down to St Kitts and beyond. Our spot behind a headland sheltered us from the waves but was exposed to swirling gusts that caused Serenity to wander all over the place – thankfully Springsteen didn’t mind. Noticed that a good weather window for sailing to Saba was coming up a bit sooner than we hoped, but we decided to accelerate our remaining days in the BVI so that we could take advantage.

12th Mar: The Canadian cruisers we met last week had given us some tips on restocking at Road Town, so when we arrived in the capital of the BVI we had a clear game plan that made getting groceries and gas significantly easier. Now stocked with a full complement of fruit and veg (we had been down to our last onion), we motored the short 30 minutes to nearby Brandywine Bay. The calmness of the anchorage was ideally suited for hull cleaning, so we each took an hour in the water to do our side – Serenity was really grubby and we should now go much faster in our upcoming passages.

13th Mar: With light winds forecast, we made suitably unambitious plans to sail the 10 nm across to Spanish Town, with a lunch stop at the epically named Fallen Jerusalem. We had this place to ourselves (there was only space for two boats) and were delighted by both the snorkelling and setting. Then we got ourselves into Spanish Town, only to be disappointed by the early closure of their customs office (“try again tomorrow”) and had to console ourselves with some ice cream.

14th Mar: The second attempt at customs clear out was far more successful and then we sailed off up to Anegada. We restocked the bait box (if not the fridge) with more barracuda on the way up, and then patiently waited as the trees on this flat island appeared first over the horizon. The hazardously shallow channel was navigated without incident other than raised heart rates, and then we found a nice spot to drop the hook and checked out the landside activities in advance of the next day.

15th Mar: Took the morning to explore the impressively flat island of Anegada by scooter and experienced its incredible snorkelling and wildlife. Returned to Serenity in the afternoon to check off some boat jobs, including a rig check that had a couple of worrying signs (TBD in coming weeks). Finished the day with the film “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” starring Michael Cain and Steve Martin, an easy going con film from the 80’s that still managed to seem fresh and fun.

16th Mar: Our morning of boat jobs and prepping for the sail to Saba was slightly hijacked as Serenity decided a couple more things needed our attention (bilge pump became intermittent, anchor windlass refused to turn on). Thankfully we had left ourselves plenty of time and so were hardly delayed at all, and the fact that we could listen to the final weekend of the six nations on the radio during our work made it pretty enjoyable. We then set off eastwards for the first time in around nine months, and into the wind for the first time since Christmas, and celebrated leaving the BVI (passing Necker Island – Richard Branson’s hideaway) by catching and releasing yet another barracuda.

Story of the week

Our time sailing around the BVIs witnessing the changes due to both Hurricane Irma and increased tourism was a bit of a rollercoaster for me (see Parting Thoughts below) and I often had a hard time distinguishing if the negative changes I was perceiving were accurate or in fact due to rose tinted glasses distorting my memories of past experiences. One thing that was firmly lodged in my mind from a previous visit was the wonderful island of Anegada, but these potentially overfond memories started to make me worry as our visit there approached.

Anegada is a remote coral island in the NE of the BVI, separated from the others by a larger body of water and a more challenging channel into the main bay, which is why most charter companies used to prevent their guests from visiting unless they were part of a flotilla or had a skipper aboard. It is for this reason that, despite sailing the BVIs on four previous occasions, I’ve only visited it once – on my first time here with my family when I was 13. Memories of my time there are dominated by an island that seemingly appears out of the sea, of impossibly blue water and jaw-dropping snorkelling, and a beautiful if desolate landscape. Laura had never been and listened to me recount these stories far too many times, and it was therefore a must do on our list when we were discussing the cruising options around the archipelago.

The island is 15 square miles, has a maximum elevation of 8.5m (hence its nickname the drowned island) and population (pre-Irma) of around 300. As the Hurricane approached the BVI in 2017, initial predictions put the centre of the storm as passing directly over Anegada, and the associated storm surge was expected to flood the entire island, which led the authorities to insist on a complete evacuation. In the end, the eye of the storm passed 20 miles further south, which spared the island to an extent; however, its relative isolation from the other other islands and limited supplies would always make disaster recovery a challenge. We had heard that the rebuilding efforts there had been positive and were intrigued as to how it would compare with the rest of the islands.

We had a favourable sail up with 10-12 knots of wind on the beam, and managed to catch a barracuda on the lines – inedible for humans but our bait box was running low so we kept him to make some more fish jerky. The experience of sailing off towards what looks like open ocean only to have the trees slowly rise over the horizon was exactly the same as I remember, as was the hairy access channel where the limited number of marker buoys do not correspond at all with the charts. My Dad’s nervousness when he had sailed us in here now made perfect sense, as we often only had 50cm of water under the keel, but thankfully we were able to get in without kissing any of the numerous coral heads. As we settled down in the cockpit to survey the bay, the only differences that I could see were number of boats in the anchorage (it presumably is less restricted now) and still being able to see one of the other BVI’s in the distance rather than blue water all around – I suspect this is a prime example of false memories although can’t be sure 🙂

The only overnight anchorage on Anegada has a few restaurants dotted around it but the top snorkelling sites and main town were scattered elsewhere around the island, which made overland travel essential. So, the next morning we decided to go two up on a moped rental. After a one minute crash course we were off – Laura asked me how much moped experience I had as we set off, and I admitted it was limited to a 30 second ride on my cousin Joe’s around a car park. I couldn’t see her face as she was sat behind me, but I suspect she may have winced as her arms gripped my waist a fraction more tightly.

As it turns out, they are pretty simple machines and combined with reasonable quality of roads and complete lack of traffic on Anegada, it was a fairly safe place to learn (relatively speaking). The only real hazards that I had to stay mindful of were the numerous mini-herds of goats, and I learnt to give them plenty of notice on the horn to stop them being skittish. We wondered if the goats had been evacuated during Irma – probably not, in which case how bad must it have been to be a goat on the island during a hurricane?

After a quick stop at the salt pond overlook, where you could admire the Caribbean flamingos in the distance, our next port of call was Loblolly Bay. Loblolly, it turns out, is a type of shady tree that is perfect for slinging hammocks under, and the Big Bamboo restaurant by the beach had done well to take advantage of this attribute. It was a bit early for lunch though, and while the bay was renowned for snorkelling, it didn’t look that impressive from beach. So we headed further east to Deep Bay, where a restaurant still under reconstruction signalled a better snorkelling site. We got tooled up with our gear and had an amazing 45 minutes amongst all the coral (see some of the highlights below), but couldn’t last much longer due to a combination of fin failure and slightly scary currents.

So we remounted ‘The Flying Bogey’ (our new nickname for the moped given his attractive lime green colour scheme) and continued round the island to The Settlement, the main / only town on the island where we were hoping to find somewhere for lunch. However, it was clearly still really suffering from the hurricane, and the few businesses that looked functional weren’t open, which was a shame. So we decided to head back for a cheese burger at Big Bamboo on Loblolly, and on the way stopped off at a cute botanical garden that seemed rarely visited and an odd priority for hurricane restoration.

After our lunch, we were both enjoying some space to think and digest when Laura realised we didn’t have much time left to return the moped. She tried to quickly settle up our bill, but a table of six Norwegians (we think three couples) got to the till ahead of us and wanted to split the check six ways (with many debates about each check)…neither Laura nor the waitress was impressed. I had TGB revved and ready to roll by the time she scampered into the parking lot and she astounded the Norwegians (who had moved their negotiations onto a nearby taxi driver) with a flying leap onto the back seat!

Four scattered goat herds later, we pulled into the scooter lot and were relieved to only be 25 minutes late, which by Caribbean standards is actually early. A gas bill of just under 2 USD seemed like a bargain, and this has certainly made us more likely to try out the moped thing in future. All in all, it was a perfect way to experience the island, and the best news was that, whilst it wasn’t exactly the same as I remembered it, it was better in some ways which offset those that it was potentially worse, and as such was still a very special place.

Parting thoughts

Being so fortunate to experience the evolution of these islands over the last 20 years, most of our stops here were return visits for me and often this turned out to be a bit bitter sweet. Devastation from Irma is evident in many places, and the rebuilding efforts have clearly focussed on a couple of high profile locations in order to encourage the sailors and cruise ships back ASAP. Whilst this gets money flowing back in, it’s not clear how much of that makes its way into the local population who are employed in the non-tourist economy, and so many people seemed to be living in lean-to’s or badly patched up abodes.

Further more, the rebuilding of the popular spots has taken advantage of the presumably cheap land opportunities post-Irma to expand and ‘Disney-fy’ the bays, which seemed to be doing a real disservice to their heritage. Soggy Dollar Bar was the most obviously changed for the worse (IMHO), but I suspect others such as Cane Garden Bay may follow suit. This is combined with an increasing number of charterers opting for motor-only catamarans, which is allowing non-sailors to visit the islands – more tourist money comes in, but it erodes the feel of what was such a huge sailing Mecca and starts to test the capacity of the most popular bays.

As such, the preservation of Anegada’s essence was a massive relief to finish our visit on. On top of this, our more flexible cruising itinerary allowed us to visit some less popular spots for the first time, which were amazing (e.g. Benures, Fallen Jerusalem). This shows that there is still something special to be found here for the more purist sailors willing to look for it (as Laura’s snorkelling video below proves), but I suspect this may end up being our last visit here.