Sailing Trip in BVIs - June 2016

The Sailing Gang

To celebrate Kate's 40th birthday, she and Keith planned a sailing trip to the British Virgin Islands.  While Shawna was prone to seasickness, we had determined on the Miami sailing trip in 2012 that "The Patch" worked wonders, so we were all in. There were 15 of us going on this trip - renting two sail boats out of Tortola for a week.

Our Home for 7 Days

We flew out the Saturday morning using companion pass on Southwest from BWI to San Juan, Puerto Rico.  It was only a four hour flight, which passed quickly as we watched Entourage on the shared iPad the entire way.  We had to walk over to the smaller terminal for our Cape Air flight to Tortola.  We grabbed Dominos pizza for lunch, watched a couple more shows, and fortunately caught an earlier flight.  The flight was an 8-seater twin engine puddle jumper - and we were the only passengers so it was fun to have our own "private plane".  Tortola has a tiny airport - though a few private planes were parked there (Richard Branson uses this airport when he flies in and out to Necker Island).  There was far too much paperwork to fill out upon arrival as we worked with an unhappy customs agent.  Cabs were waiting by the curb so for $40 (likely too much!) we hopped in one to take us to the hotel: Maria's By the Sea where we stayed for one night before boarding the boat.  The hotel was clean and reasonable, with great A/C so we relaxed until the rest of our boat crew joined us.  The others were coming from St Thomas by ferry - and their customs line upon arrival took an hour.  Kim and Jonathan shared a room with us and Paul and Ann shared a room with John and Jo.  Keith booked a table at Charlie's at the Mornings so we made the 30 minute walk over there for a 7pm reservation.  Keith bought the first round of drinks to celebrate Shawna and Keith's birthday as we waited for the rest of the Artin gang to join us for dinner.  Dinner was quite good - Keith had pasta and Shawna had the risotto.

Our Sleeping Quarters for 7 Days

We ate breakfast at the hotel before catching a van to bring all of our stuff to the boat - which is the same place we had dinner.  The boat was not ready until noon but we had a couple of errands: John had to get an emergency phone and a small contingent went to the store to get a few extra items we had not ordered ahead of time.  Keith and Kate (along with Ruby, Phoebe, Kelly, Steve, and Shelly) had paid for their boat the night before (instead of a hotel) so they already had possession that morning.  Steve was the captain of their monohull boat.  Keith and Kate and family determined the route for the week since they had been to the BVIs before (this was Shelly and Steve's 11th sailing trip there).

The BVI Album Cover

Our group (John, JoAnna, Paul, Ann, Kim, Jonathan, and us) rented a 46 foot catamaran through The Moorings.  Our boat was called the Luna Kahuna, a Moorings 4600 style boat.  Each couple had their own private bedroom and private bathroom, each with a separate shower (one each in the front and back of each hull).  There was also a fresh water hose in the back of the boat to rinse off when coming out of the water.  On the main level was a kitchen/dining room inside (stove, oven, microwave, fridge/freezer), along with a huge covered back deck area and a large front area with a "trampoline".  The boat came with air conditioning so we were able to sleep reasonably well at night (though it was not a chilly as we would have at home!).  The catamaran also came with a motorized dingy that could hold all eight of us to take us from our anchoring to shore.  Since only Paul knew how to sail, our group hired a captain - Dunbar.  He had been with the Moorings for 20+ years and was just fantastic.  We pre-ordered our provisioning: food from Ample Hamper and liquids (16 cases of beer plus several cases of water to hydrate) from the Moorings.  It all showed up by 1pm when we loaded the boat and set off to sail.

Marina Caye

Most days followed a similar routine.  Breakfast was usually coffee and yogurt, though two of the days we had scrambled eggs / bacon with bagels or pita.  We would sail to our first spot and snorkel a bit.  We had bought a couple of new Tribord mask/snorkel sets that were just fantastic - no fogging or leaking.  Lunch was also on the boat - generally sandwiches or the like.  We would then motor or sail to our overnight destination, anchor, and then swim/float off the boat and drink beer all afternoon.  We'd meet Keith/Kate's boat in the afternoon and always have dinner on shore as a large group.  After dinner we'd sometimes play cards or Catchphrase before bed.  Catchphrase always resulted in a few laughs - especially as Kim made up words like 'stomachache' and thought that the word fence had more than one syllable (fe??).

Keith Snorkeling with our New Mask

The details of the week:

• Sunday - headed to Marina Cay, anchored, and floated off the boat.  Paul tried various combinations of hooking up each float so that we could float in a semicircle but the current kept pushing us all together!  Dinner was at Pussers, preceded by cocktails at the Arr Bar up the hill.  This is where Ruby managed to negotiate $21 from rich, handsome uncle John (she started out by asking for twenty 100!).

Floating by the Boat

• Monday - snorkeled first, then sailed to The Baths where we met the other boat and hiked through the rocks which was quite cool and required some rock scrambling to get through the tighter spots.  Ruby said it was a great adventure!  We ended on a beautiful beach where we swam a bit.  Paul and Ann volunteered to walk back and bring the dingy to us - we were fully supportive!  We then sailed up the coast of Virgin Gorda to North Gorda Sound, anchored (we stayed here two nights) and then floated again off the side of the boat.  Dinner was at Saba Rock - we first saw the Tarpin feeding (JoAnna helped feed them) and then ate delicious caesar salad, mussels, and flank steak.

The Baths

JoAnna Feeding the Tarpin

• Tuesday - sailed to The Dogs for a snorkel and then headed back to Saba Rock for a float before a dinner of pizza at the Bitter End.

Dinner at Saba Rock

• Wednesday - topped up the fresh water on the boat before sailing to Anagada - 1.5 hours with not a single tack.  Jonathan joined Keith and Kate's boat for this leg.  We anchored and saw a couple of sea turtles swimming off the boat.  All of us except Shawna headed to shore and took a cab about five miles to Loblolly, a beach on the other side of the island where we swam, snorkeled, and had a few beers.  The Artin gang joined us on our boat while Keith and John challenged Phoebe to a dance competition - Phoebe of course won!  Dinner was at Whistling Pines where we had a salad, tequila shrimp and a fantastic curried lobster.

Shawna and JoAnna

Dingy Ride to Shore - Keith, JoAnna, Paul and John

• Thursday - we sailed to monkey point on Guana Island where we snorkeled.  It was here that we were surrounded by millions of tiny fish that swam in "swarms" - almost to music.  We saw lots of tarpon which at first glance looked like small sharks!  We then motored to Jost van Dyke and anchored in White Bay - right off shore from the Soggy Dollar where we swam and drank a few beers while we people watched. There were a lot of day trippers here, so it was a bit of a "scene".  We skipped Foxy's (maybe go there next time?) and went straight to Little Harbor where we anchored.  Dinner was at Harris Place where we had BBQ: the waitress was also the bartender, host, and possibly the cook, so we helped her open the wine and pass out the food.  Before heading back to the boat, Keith and Phoebe had another dance-off.  Keith lost again.  

Catchphrase!

King of the World!

• Friday - filled the boat one more time and got our final ice purchase.  We sailed for two hours around the west end of Tortola - lots of tacking on this stretch.  The first stop was snorkeling at The Indians, a great reef.  The next stop was snorkeling at The Caves, which were three small in-out caves.  We then motored to Pirates Bight on Norman Island where we anchored for the night.  We went over to the floating bar Willy T's, had a few drinks and watched the young kids jump off the boat into the water.  The last dinner for the whole group was at Pirates - we had a great table and saw a gorgeous double rainbow before dinner.  Keith and Shawna went dancing on the dance floor (some great live music was playing) - we were then joined by many of the rest of the group including Ruby and Phoebe which resulted in some serious sweating by Keith!

The Indians

The Caves

Phoebe and Keith Dance Off!

• Saturday - we moved the boat closer to Pirates and swam ourselves and the collapsable cooler of beer to the beach which was a lot harder than we thought it would be.  All 15 of us swam and had a few beers in the morning before the other Artin boat had to leave (they needed to be back at the Moorings that evening).  Our boat had lunch at Pirates (our first paid lunch) and then sailed to Salt Island where we snorkeled the wreck of the RMS Rhone (sank 150 years earlier).  It was in 15-25 feet of water with good visibility.  We then motored to Peter Island.  JoAnna, Paul, and Ann took the dingy to shore to go to the resort while John, Johnathan, and Keith swam/snorkeled off the boat.  John was passionate about using up the rest of the food so Dunbar committed to catch fish to go with rice, beans, and hot dogs.  We never did catch the fish for dinner, though Dunbar and Jonathan did catch a couple of fish later that evening - 2 of which Dunbar froze to take home, while the others sadly were stolen from the hooks by a four-foot shark!  It was an immensely relaxing evening on the back of the boat seeing the lights of Tortola, the stars, and the space station crossing over us at 8pm.  

Dinner at Whistling Pines

• Sunday - it was only a 1 hour sail over to the marina in Tortola.  We all packed up our stuff and were off the boat by 9am.  We saw the gang from Keith and Kate's boat (except Kelly who had an early flight).  We said our farewells to Dunbar - with the gang getting a shuttle to the ferry while we got a shuttle to the airport.

White Bay 

Anne, Jonathan, Kim

Keith, Shawna, JoAnna, Dunbar

It was a long day home - we were at Tortola airport 2.5 hours early.  We took the same puddle jumper back to Puerto Rico (though this time it was full), cleared immigration and customs, had lunch at a Margaritaville restaurant in the airport, and then caught the Southwest flight back to Baltimore.  

Dinner at Pirates

It was a fantastic trip.  Everyone on our boat was super-easy to get along with and Paul/Ann were a fun add-on to the group.  It was also fantastic to spend some time with Keith/Kate's family.  We are definitely up for another sailing trip in a few years!

Drinks at Willy T's

Pirates Bight