Virgin Island’s trip report – March 28 – April 4th

Overall: First time to the Islands for the whole crew, obviously a great trip, largely thanks to all kinds of wonderful advice from this board. My biggest concerns going in were the crowds and apparent lack of use of holding tanks. We used our holding tanks whenever we were at anchor/mooring/marina, and when snorkeling we pretended everyone else was doing that too. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" /> The crowds were an issue, since this was our first trip we hit most of the key spots, next time we’d skip those now that we’ve seen them. We did use the cruise ship schedule posted here to miss the cruise boats for the most part, so the only crowds were the other charter boats and Puerto Ricans (who were friendly but numerous).

Links to photos here (sorry, not edited): http://gallery.me.com/brettnkay#100455&bgcolor=black&view=mosaic&sel=0

The Crew: 6 people, myself and wife in early 40’s, Dad and wife in 70’s (but spry) and kids aged 9 and 11. First time for all to BVI’s for all, but had been to Caribbean in Yucatan before.

The Boat: CYOA 43’ Fontaine Pajot Belize, owner’s version “Cat Can Do”. Very happy with CYOA, the boat was in great condition, clearly well-maintained and all the important systems (e.g. stereo with MP3 connector) worked great. Only non-working items were the knotmeter (used SOG on GPS instead) and the wind indicator was about 20 degrees off. No big deal, easy to correct for once we figured it out.

Got our boat briefing from Nancy, which was highly thorough, professional yet relaxed, and our sailing check from none other than Captain Jay. He was super polite, very helpful, and showed us how to reef the main which was good to have been through once. We were under way by 11:30 am, having started the briefing around 9am, while the rest of our crew went provisioning at Pueblo.

This was our first time chartering a catarmaran. The amount of room and stability was a huge plus. Seasickness was not an issue, despite some larger 5-7 foot swells and rough chop on some days, and I think on a monohull it would have been. Sailing performance was good, except going to windward (as expected). Captain Jay told us the best we could do was 60 deg unless the wind was strong. Once we got the hang of it we could get to 45 deg by bringing the traveler way up and pinching a little (some lost speed) in 15 knots of wind. So, not too bad. But, with an inexperienced crew it was sometimes easy to lose a lot of ground on the tacks. Basically we ended up sailing until the crew got tired, then we motored.

The GPS on this boat was great, I think it was a Raymarine C120. I also had PolarView running on my laptop with S63 charts from chartwold.com which was pretty cool (though certainly not necessary).

The winch loads were also an issue, I certainly would not have wanted a larger boat. The kids (and grandparents) struggled to sheet the jib and move the traveler, and I was the only person who could raise the main. It was a workout, which I enjoyed, but not everybody would. Despite the many advantages of this boat, next time I would probably opt either for a smaller cat or a monohull (unless I had a crew of 20-somethings)

The trip: Came from Boise, ID. It’s a long way, and one of the reasons we picked CYOA is that we could get to St Thomas more easily than EIS. Arrived 9pm Sat night, took a 5 minute taxi ride to “Hook Line and Sinker restaurant” that was $60 (is that normal?). Called the restaurant as soon as we landed and they stayed open for us. It was a pretty good restaurant, with several microbrews from St John (try the Mango ale, very tasty). CYOA told us the boat would be waiting for us, with the A/C running and the lights on. It was exactly as they said – have to admit I was a little pleasantly surprised by that, but it was a precursor of the rest of the great experience we had with CYOA. Slept aboard Sat night with the A/C running, there was a nice breeze but we had no experience at that point to know whether we could turn the A/C off and be ok. As it turned out, that was the last time we needed the A/C.

Clearing in and out of Customs was kind of a pain and expensive, but honestly our 2 best nights were on St John. If doing it again, I’m not sure if I’d charter out of St Thomas or Tortola – flights are better to STT, you avoid the ferry ride, but you’ve got at least 2 hours (assuming you weren’t planning to go to Soper’s Hole anyway and I don’t know why you would) and a $200 entry fee in clearing into the BVI. At this point, without having the experience of chartering out of Tortola, it looks like a wash to me, with the good experience of CYOA and somewhat cheaper prices possibly pushing me back to St Thomas.

Sunday – showers ashore, breakfast croissants from the deli which were flaky and tasty, boat briefings at 9am while others provisioned, the whole thing went like clockwork. Our plan was either Christmas Cove or Lameshur Bay, depending on how the crew felt. Since we got under way quickly, we sailed most of the way (upwind, then motored) to Little Lameshur, arriving around 3:30 pm. Only 2 boats in the anchorage including us, we picked up a mooring ball easily. Very beautiful spot, and the least crowded place we saw the whole trip.

Monday – Cleared in to the BVI’s at Soper’s Hole. Got the last mooring ball in the whole place at 11am, much too close to another boat and he was non too happy but we told him we were leaving soon. In hindsight, we spent a lot time motoring around looking for a ball, we should have just dropped the skipper at the Custom’s Dock as we later saw others do. Massive quantity of paperwork to clear in 6 people and couldn’t believe it was $200 but that included our mooring ball park fee and we also cleared out at the same time. Topped up some provisions at Soper’s as well, but if you weren’t trying to clear customs I’d probably avoid the whole thing.

Sailed over to Norman Island, got a ball at Kelly’s Cove around 3 pm, Wild Thing II anchored next to us with a stern line to shore, we ended up next to them several days in a row, it was pretty funny. I think they were a crewed charter, 580 Voyage Cat. Good snorkeling there too. A lady came out in a small powerboat to collect our mooring fee, which was the only time this happened during our trip.

Tuesday – Motored early to the Indians, arrived around 7:30am and got one of the first balls. Absolutely fantastic snorkeling, and I say that as a seasoned scuba diver who has dived all over the world. Probably the closest snorkeling I’ve found to the scuba experience, with lots of fish life, good coral, underwater passageways, etc. After breakfast, hit the caves back on Norman (also good but different) then sailed to windward to spend the night at Manchioneel Bay. Arrived around 3pm, no balls to be found, we were contemplating dropping the anchor in 70 feet of water when suddenly a ball opened up – very lucky. Had dinner ashore, which was ok – better meals were to come.

Wednesday – again left early for the baths. Got the first ball again at about 7am. Ashore and exploring by 7:30, we were practically the only ones there. It was so amazing. Highlight of the trip. Took the trail down to Devil’s Bay, played in the surf there for an hour or so, then noticed it was starting to fill up with folks (probably about 9:30 by that time) and decided to head back. HOLY SMOKES!! The cruise ship had arrived, and there was a steady stream of folks coming to Devil’s Bay down what is really a “one-way” path. What a contrast to see the looks of stress and annoyance on their faces, compared to our wonder and delight as we had traversed the same path only hours ago. Even the kids realized how lucky we were to not be on a cruise boat. Although it was a pain making the trip back, it made us all appreciate our good fortune to be on a bareboat charter.

After swimming back to the Cat Can Do, as we were preparing to leave we saw a tour boat called “BVI Patriot” spewing black smoke and soot come plowing through the mooring ball field. They were trailing a path of black oil (see photos). If anyone knows how to contact the BVI authorities, let me know, I’d like to send them these photos, it was an absolute travesty to see the pollution they were dumping in the pristine water.

After leaving the baths, we had probably our best sailing day up to North Sound. Though it was upwind, the conditions were fabulous, we went west of Seal Dog and halfway to Anagada (almost) just for the fun of it. We had reserved a slip with Nick at Leverick Bay Marina, and did not feel anxious about arriving late, so we just enjoyed the sail. When we got to Leverick, we had the best slip in the place waiting for us, plenty of breeze and great view (thanks Nick!!). Dinner at the restaurant was truly exceptional, food and service beyond compare, capped with a snifter of Talisker single malt – perfect evening. $300 for the 6 of us, worth every penny.

Thursday – motored to Bitter End for some souvenir shopping, watched the last day of the BVI Regatta which was pretty cool. Once again, Wild Thing II had the mooring ball right next to us. Sailed to Marina Cay, and clearly we had dallied too long at Bitter End because we missed the last mooring ball. So, we anchored, which took a bit of doing to avoid the coral with our chain, but after some snorkeling to confirm our chain was out of the coral and our anchor was set firmly in the sand at 40 feet (pretty much the limit of my snorkeling depth) we shortened scope to 3:1 and headed in to see Michael Bean. Pretty cool, he’s a great performer, but next time I’d probably skip it and head to a less crowded anchorage. When we got back to the boat, we noticed a Moorings 4600 had anchored between us and the rest of the mooring ball field. It was already dark, we thought they were pretty close, but stupidly I said nothing and just had dinner on our boat.

Around 10pm, their boat started drifting very close to us, they had the generator running and A/C on, so we got out our fenders. After a while, we figured out there was no one aboard! Soon, they drifted into us, but fortunately my able crew fended them off while I called the restaurant on Channel 16. Thankfully, the restaurant staff located the crew of the other boat and shortly they came out in their dinghy. They were very apologetic, immediately took responsibility for the situation, and said they would move. Since it was dark and both our anchor and theirs seemed to be holding well, I offered to raft up until morning. They declined my offer twice, and moved off to another location, which apparently also didn’t work because we saw them leave that one too then lost sight of them. Hopefully they were ok.

Friday: Had breakfast and weighed anchor under grey skies and increasing winds, headed east around Scrub Island planning to hit Monkey Point on the way to Cane Garden Bay. It was our first squall, the rain was so cool. I wanted to put the sails up, but since this was our first rain storm we weren’t sure how hard the wind would blow so we just motored into steep 4-5 foot waves. As it turned out, the wind never got above 20 knots, but we didn’t know that in advance so we just motored all the way to Monkey Point. Again – no balls available at 9am, we anchored carefully to avoid the coral (tricky), and did some snorkeling. It was murky from the swell on the north side, but we dinghied through the chop over to the south and explored some cool caves where the kids spotted an octopus – pretty amazing. The skies cleared up and we sailed the rest of the way to CGB. Arriving at 1pm we had no trouble finding a ball, but it was so multicolored with no writing we couldn’t tell where to pay.

Spent the afternoon ashore at the Banana Bar (not to be confused with the Banana Bar in Amsterdam) sipping rum punches and watching the kids play in the surf. Had dinner at Myett’s, which was pretty good but couldn’t touch the Leverick restaurant.

Saturday: Motored to Sandy Spit, anchored there by 8am and were the first ones. 3 or 4 crewed Lagoons showed up and one anchored very close to us, after our experience Marina Cay I asked him to move, which he kind of did by letting out more scope so he was downwind of us. Probably I was being overly cautious after our earlier experience, but the other skipper was cool about it.

Sandy Spit was another major highlight. Spent a couple hours just exploring, swimming, etc. Before heading to Great Harbor to grab a ball around 11am. Our actual plan was just to hit the Soggy Dollar, but CYOA told us we couldn’t take the big boat into White Bay (later we understood why). This turned out to be a great blessing, because as long as we were in Great Harbor we figured we might as well hit Foxy’s.

This turned out to be the highlight of the trip for me, and everyone else loved it too. The place was pretty empty, but Foxy himself was there, along with K.I. Nichols just playing solo electric guitar and singing. He was so perfect for the spot, he played a melody and rhythm line with such grace and ease, we watched his whole set and sipped our cold micros. Bought a CD from KI Nichols but it didn’t hold a candle to his live vibe. Had the Chicken Roti – best $15 I spent the whole trip. After the set, we dinghied around to White Bay and anchored the dingy in 8 feet of water, and swam ashore with our dollars which the kids loved. It was cool, but a much different scene than Foxy’s, and soon we were ready to head for Leinster Bay. Again, no balls available by the time we got there, but it was such a beautiful bay we decided to anchor in 60 feet of water. The snorkeling here was excellent, second only to the Indians, and we never went ashore so as to stay on the good side of the customs laws.

Sunday: Up before sunrise to make our noon return to CYOA. 10-12 knots on the beam most of the way, so we sailed, arriving at Charlotte Amalie harbor at 10am, which we thought was plenty of time to grab fuel and clear in (turned out to be a little tight). Took an hour to fuel up at Yacht Harbor Grande, even though there was only one other boat and they were just getting water. Grabbed a ball off the CYOA dock, then tried to dinghy to customs which it turns out you can’t do. So, back to CYOA, walked over to customs, another hour killed checking in.

Thankfully – CYOA saw our boat, grabbed it off the ball and brought it back to the dock for us, got the sails up and checked it all out for us while we were messing around with customs. It was such a huge relief when we got back to the dock that the CYOA staff had taken care of everything for us – it doesn’t sound like much but after the fuel fiasco and back and forth trying to get to customs we were losing a bit of our island time vibe, but CYOA restored it immediately – again, great service from these folks.

Had lunch at the Hook Line and Sinker and headed to the airport for our 4:30 pm flight. We arrived around 2 and it only took about 30 minutes to get through the airport, but better safe than sorry. Loooooooong flight home.

What would I change next time: Again, it was a great trip, and everybody loved it, I don’t think it could have gone better for a first trip. Now that we’ve seen the major highlights, I’d probably skip the Baths, Marina Cay, and North Sound. I would certainly use CYOA again. Some options I might consider for next time:
1. I’d find a way to spend 10 days rather than 7. Coming from the western U.S., it is such a long way. I’d get a smaller boat, and rent it longer, the cost would even out.
2. By the time we go back, the kids should be old enough to dive, so I’d be sure to do that.
3. If they’d let me do a night passage, and I had a crew that loved to sail as much as I do (two big IFs), I’d consider chartering a cat from CYOA and going to St Croix overnight, then back up to JVD, then up to Anagada and back. Beam reaching most of the way.
4. Would also consider a trip to Spanish VI, but possibly would choose a mono for the trip back to windward.
5. If I was going to do another BVI-focused trip, I’d probably get a monohull from either CYOA or somewhere on Tortola for better windward performance. Probably would do a clockwise rotation, clearing in at JVD and back to the US in Cruz Bay. Instead of the big draw places, I’d hit Peter Island which we missed this time, and maybe two nights on Anagada, which is what a lot of the experienced folks on this board seem to do and now I know why.


Once again – thanks to everyone on this board for the great advice. For people reading this and considering a trip – do go, and follow the advice on this board it is right on!