BVI Vacation, January 2007
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Day 3 - Friday, Jan 12, Great Harbor, Jost van Dyke
Butch and Lynn were up around 7:30, Mike and Kelli slept in until 8:30. Another warm, breezy morning.
Mike and Butch did some troubleshooting on the bilge pump. The pump was leaking a little.
After a morning of really just vegging out and chatting, the crew dropped the mooring ball around 11:30. We motored over to the caves just outside the south side of The Bight. We picked up a mooring ball and shut down. Butch and Lynn went snorkeling to check out the fish and the caves. Mike and Kelli launched the 2-man kayak. They paddled along the cliff and into a couple of the small caves so Kelli could takes some pix.
Butch and Lynn...
Kelli and Mike explore the caves...
Nearby ships...
Returning to Perseverance and rinsing off...
After returning to the boat, Butch and Lynn relaxed in the cockpit while Mike and Kelli brought the kayak back and then went swimming to cool off.
The next order of business was PBJs and more relaxing. It's not actually possible to do too much relaxing in the BVI. About 2:10, we dropped the mooring and set sail for The Narrows between St. John and Thatch Island. Winds were generally 12 to 15 kts, with some gusts in the 30s associated with a squall that rained on Perseverance and her crew.
A very nice beam-broad reach brought us to the channel along St. John where we turned downwind to a run. We sailed wing-on-wing at 8 knots all the way to the Narrows. That was great fun. Then we rounded the west end of large Thatch Island for a rollicking close reach to Great Harbor on Jost van Dyke.
In a guide book, Lynn had discovered a reference to the Soggy Dollar restaurant and bar in White Bay, a "short, 30-minute stroll" from Great Harbor . The cruising guide suggested dinner reservations, so before arriving at the bay, we called the restaurant on the cell phone and made them. Very modern. They respond to a hail on Channel 16, but the cell phone is actually more reliable.
About a mile out, we had to practice man-overboard to retrieve Butch's brand new cap. It took three approaches to pick it up, but since we were in the BVI and not SF Bay, the hat did not suffer from hypothermia. But we didn't give in and use the motor.
A rainbow along the way...
Arriving in Great Harbor, we found quite a few boats already anchored...
Butch was at the helm and picked out a spot for us. It was deep, 38 feet, and we put out all the chain. The anchor didn't hold, so we tried to bring it up for a second try. However, after reeling in 1/3 or so, the windlass breaker overheated. While it cooled, Kelli brought up chain using the manual handle on the windlass clutch. Butch got the breaker to reset, and we got more chain aboard. The breaker popped again and we went through the same routine. This time Lynn got it to reset.
Finally all the chain was up so we could move the boat. During this nonsense, Butch skillfully kept our boat away from the others. We picked another spot and dropped anchor again. This time it held, so we waited to see if it would drag but all seemed ok. After a few minutes, we shut down. It was about 4:30.
Anchored for the night...
After securing everything for the evening, we got ready and dinghied ashore to Foxy's. We enjoyed a cocktail and took in the sights of sunset. Before it was really dark, we decided to walk over to White Bay while we could see the road. The "30 minute stroll" turned out to be a rather generous description of the hike. It's more like 45 minutes or longer, and it goes over a bit of a steep road. The road is paved, island style, not very well marked.
The harbor view from the hill...
On the descent to White Bay, we came to a fork. One direction led down towards the beach, the other followed the hill at the level of the fork.
We decided to go down, which is, of course, not the "right" way. We came upon a bar on the beach, but not the Soggy Dollar. So we set out down the beach. Eventually, we ran out of beach and scrambled on some rocks to a pathway over an outcropping that divides the beach in half. A "sort of" path got us back to the west half of the beach, and we continued until we found the Soggy Dollar. It turns out, as we discovered on the way back home later, that the other road at the fork goes to the Soggy Dollar, but it requires another climb over another hill. So maybe the beach route wasn't so bad after all.
Dinner was very good - prix fixe menu, $35. Reservations are required since it's not very big, and there is only one "seating." We enjoyed a very pleasant evening meal and highly recommend the Soggy Dollar restaurant. In fact, it is a small resort, and might be a fun destination in its own right for some beach time.
The restaurant called us a "cab" to take us back to Great Harbor so we didn't have to hike the hills after dark. The cab was a rather beat-up old minibus, minivan, or something like that. In the front right seat was the driver's daughter (wife? girlfriend? ...?) with a take-out pizza. Actually it was good to know that somewhere on JVD you can get a takeout pizza.
Back at Foxy's, we stayed for a few minutes of dancing and to wait out another brief shower. A bit of an "older" crowd now. It seems the younger crowd either comes out later or goes elsewhere. Finally it was back to the boat thru a little chop. Back aboard, we were too tired for cards, so off to bed. Just after we got aboard, it rained again.
Butch declared for the second day in a row that "it can't get any better than this!"
Day 4 - Saturday, Jan 13, Marina Cay
Butch and Lynn were up between 7:30 & 8:00, but once again, Mike and Kelli didn't get up until around 8:30. Something about being on vacation and not having a schedule. Mike and Kelli arose to the smell of bacon - Butch was at the stove. The smell of bacon seems irresistable in that environment.
Planning the day's route...
By the time the crew was ready to go, half the boats in the marina were already gone. The decsion was made to try for Virgin Gorda Sound and the Bitter End Yacht Club. It would be a long beat, but the wind was strong enough to get us there, and there were places to bail out if it seemed like too much work.
It was great fun to watch another boat try to unanchor. The skipper got in his dinghy with his first mate aboard the sailboat. We couldn't quite figure out what the problem was, but he seemed to want to pull up the anchor from the dinghy. Of course, that was not likely to work. They seemed to let out a lot of rode, and the boat may have been in gear. The fellow was alternating between chasing the sailboat trying to reboard (presumably to control it and put it where he wanted it) and trying to pull up anchor rode from the dinghy.
We couldn't quite figure it out. At one point, he killed the dink's motor before he got up to the sailboat, which pulled away from him. He grabbed the paddle and tried to to catch the boat with that. Then he tried to restart the dink, and must have flooded the engine. Then he gave up on that and paddled some more. He caught the boat, and scrambled aboard to the helm. Fortunately, he didn't drop the painter or he would have had to reverse the process and run the dink down with the boat. Sometime later, he was gone, so we supposed he sorted it out.
We pulled up anchor at 10:30. This time, the circuit breaker only tripped once. We saw another boat's anchor come up with a lot of the bottom attached. It looked like corral or rock. But ours came up clean. We did Tradewinds proud with both our anchoring and unanchoring drills, even though we had to deal with a touchy circuit breaker.
It was very windy as we motored out toward the main channel between JVD and Tortola, we hoisted the main with a single reef in. Then we unfurled a partial jib. With the reefed sails, we turned northeast to beat toward Virgin Gorda. Initially, the seas were something like three to four feet. On one tack, the wave angle gave us a reasonable motion. But on the other tack, the boat rolled quite a bit.
An hour and a half into the trip, both ladies were feeling the effects of the motion. They retired to their berths to try to feel better. Mike and Butch sailed the boat and enjoyed the ride. Eventually the seas built a bit so there were occasional 6' waves with a steady 20 kt breeze. We saw a consistent 7.5 kts, often 8, occasionally surfing at 9+ kts.
After some 2.5 to 3 hours, we had made the east end of Tortola. We easily had another 2+ hours to Virgin Gorda, so we decided to bail out and spend the night off the east end of Tortola. There are at least two choices with services. We decided to head for Marina Cay, a small island off the northeast end of the main airport on Beef Island. The other spot is Trellis Bay at Beef Island. We thought Marina Cay sounded a bit more inviting, and with no land access, it might be a bit quieter.
Somewhere during the beat, the wind and sea reclaimed Butch's new cap once again. This time we let it go rather try man-overboards in these conditions.
We headed to the pass south of Guana Island. When we got behind Guana, the seas layed down considerably. We got a shower just as we got close to Guana. We headed to the small channel between the Camanoes, rounded the bend, and picked up a ball at Marina Cay. Just before we moored, Kelli and Lynn emerged from below looking quite a bit better. Aside from the seasickness, we had a great romp!
There were only a few mooring balls available when we arrived at at Marina Cay. And, it was still very windy...
We relaxed aboard for awhile and then Lynn made all of us PBJs. Eventually we took the dink over to the island.
There's a Pusser's store, a gift shop, showers, laundry facilities and a fuel dock. There's a lot of services on a very tiny island. We decided to pop for the $2 showers. This should remind everyone to bring quarters to the islands. Lynn was the only one to complete her shower in the 4 minutes allotted before the water shut off. We picked up rum and ice.
After checking out the store, it was back aboard for hors d'oevres courtesy of Lynn. Even though the breeze continued, Butch got the charcoal barbeque going and we grilled steaks. Great dinner aboard!
Eventually, the tuckered out crew decided on lights out. Oh yeah, there was a card game and the Boys won. This being the first time they were in the lead (Boys 2, Girls 1), the boys weren't insufferable or anything like that. Got to bed at 11 p.m.
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