TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands November 2021 cruise of (not) Lio Kai

Just a few hours until "wheels up"... hopefully we have everything in place, all the various boarding passes, covid tests, vaccination records, travel authorizations, Binax tests, ferry reservations, etc.. etc.. etc..

This will be our fourth BVI trip since covid re-opening last December and in an effort to make full use of our owner points we are out for a planned 4 weeks this time. It will be interesting how things have changed since April.

We will be unfortunately at least starting our cruise on an older M4000 since our boat was recently damaged and has been hauled out for repairs. I plan to post in this thread occasionally with our experiences - it is partly for my own record and for anyone else that might be interested. Certainly I have benefited greatly from all the information here.

I can also totally understand not being interested in my long-winded travelogue, so reading is decidedly optional! :-)

Safe travels and have a great trip! I can't wait to read your long-winded travelogue! What is the name of the boat they put you on? Would have thought they would put you on a bigger boat since the grounding is such a bummer! We are on Makani, also a 40ft Leopard but with Sunsail. Will be there November 10th and literally can't wait!

Thanks! We are at the pump house now getting on the ferry soon. We don't know the boat name yet. So far so good! I would have loved to have a new 42 but not surprised that didn't happen. It's only the two of us so a bigger boat doesn't add that much. We'll keep a lookout for Makani!

Well we're on board. A board anyway :-). Our flights ( separate bookings on Alaska SEA-IAD, United IAD-STT ) went very smoothly. Only complication is that we checked a bag this time and the Alaska staff at SEA struggled to check our bag through until they got some help.

We got out of STT and to the ferry terminal with enough time to have a nice mahi platter at the pump room, then on to the 2:30 ferry.

Got our rapid test results and through customs, maybe 45 minutes total. Really not a hitch until we got to the Moorings base and found that they had not put us on another 3-cabin M4000 as Jenn had assured us, but a 4-cabin M4500.
Being that we are only a couple, the bigger boat with 4 cabins and 4 heads really has no advantages and my initial reaction was on the WTF side, but there was nobody around with the authority to make any changes.

The boat we are on didn't make the best initial impression with some dock rash at the stern. The idea of having to figure out another boat because they couldn't find an M4000 for us was initially irritating.

However, once aboard I can see how similar this boat is to ours... must be a comparable vintage too. 1000 hours on the engines. I have a meeting with a base manager tomorrow morning, but it could be that this is our best option. There is still the possibility that our own boat will be back in the water during the course of our 4 week charter and we will switch to that.

I think we were well prepared... they definitely checked our pre-departure covid test and our vax records. Only a cursory glance at the travel insurance we got from insubuy.com ($160 for 2 persons 4 weeks). Moorings has apparently stopped selling travel insurance.

If you want, we will switch with you. We are 6 people so would do well with the bigger boat. We are on a Sunsail Leopard 40 (4 cabin). We have it from November 10-November 29. Not sure how they would do it but since we both basically own the same boat they might?

Thanks for the offer, but since it is also a 4 cabin boat it wouldn't be much of an advantage. I had a chat with the base manager and there is still a possibility our boat could exit the boat yard during our charter. We ended up going out on the 45. Actually quite nice and has a water maker and inverter. The inverter will come in handy since the boat wifi did not work and we ended up with a Renport unit.

There were boat issues to address that took us into the afternoon: the adhesive on one of the foward plexiglass windows had failed. The gas struts would not keep the forward lazarette open and I really didn't want that heavy hatch coming down on my wife as she retrieved a line or boat hook. Fridge and freezer drawers were partly off their tracks.
Once again, the depth sounder was not well set up... set to transducer with 0 offset, so "off" by almost 3 feet. That's probably one way these boats get run aground :-(. The boat briefer did not know how to check or set the offset.
The starboard genoa sheet braided cover has significant chafing, but after waiting around we finally left with it. If it gets worse we'll have to have the chase boat out.
As on some recent trips, the bridles that hold up the dinghy are tied with uneven legs so that the dinghy hangs at a significant angle from the davits. I don't know if this is deliberate, but I don't like it because it blocks more of the view off the stern and if the dinghy fuel tank vent isn't closed and the tank is full it can spill fuel. The dinghy motor looks brand new, but smokes a bit from extra oil they add for break-in.

Before leaving, we took a quick look at an L42 which was being prepped for its first charter. This would be a natural up-trade at the end of our contract if we are in a position to go that route. There is noticeably less headroom in the salon... the coach roof is kept low to make the (also shallow) sky lounge work. It feels a little forced on a boat that size, but I still find it an appealing if somewhat compromised feature. The boom did not look sky-high as it does on the 58. Notably less storage in the galley but an additional fridge (under helm seat) and separate extra freezer (to the right of the forward salon door where it takes up a lot of cabinet space). Eat less and drink more?

I had not appreciated until now how having 2 heads in one hull of a 40-45 ft boat means no room for a hanging locker at all.

We took a mooring in the Bight, maybe 1/3 full. Early afternoon about half the reservable balls at Cooper were taken. Looking forward to snorkeling tomorrow!

MrEZ - thanks for the trip reports! We'll be on Abby Normal To starting 11 Nov for two weeks. We'll keep an eye out for you.

Regarding your dinghy, have you tried hooking it up the opposite direction? It was probably set up for a different boat. If that doesn't work just adjust the bridles.

Good suggestion. Initially I thought the dinghy would then simply list away rather than towards the boat's stern, but since it does not hang freely that may not be the case.
It is possible, however, that it would then hang bow-down, because the davit lines with the snap hooks are unequal in length. I'll give it a shot.

I tried hanging the dinghy the other way, but as I suspected it hangs bow down so that can't be it. May have to retie the brides, which will likely be a PITA since the knots are pulled tight.

We had a nice lunch at CIBC yesterday, snorkeled Vanishing Rock and Cistern Rock. Exceptionally calm seas and nice paddle boarding. Easy paddle over to Salt Island. Rounding Cooper would have been a whole lot easier than when I did it a few years ago.

Left late morning and motored to Leverick to pick up a few missing items. The Chef's Pantry was well stocked and we found all that we were looking for.
Entering North Sound, we passed the point where Lio Kai likely ran aground :-(

Planning to pick up a Mooring at Saba Rock later this afternoon. All BBs at Saba and Leverick are reserved, so things have definitely picked up. Eager to see the rebuild of Saba, always one of our favorite spots pre Irma.

We are spending a third night at Saba, possibly heading to Anegada tomorrow depending on conditions.
The reconstruction is really nice. Nothing can bring back the original atmosphere, but short of that I think they have done an excellent job in rebuilding. I think they have retained some of the original concrete that survived the storm, so the layout is much the same but the upstairs is much expanded with a second bar and seating area.

We went there this afternoon for drinks and some bar food and ended up sitting near Richard Branson and his wife who was there with a large party related to the "Big Change" charity. He was on crutches, though I hope this is due to something minor and not the bike accident he suffered some years ago.

Though Saba only has 12 mooring balls at present, there are now 20+ new balls on the other side of the channel presumably managed by BEYC. I ran into Scott Allerton ( formerly of BVI Kiteboarding ) who was collecting for moorings and hopefully will get his school running again.

He crashed on a bicycling event yesterday coming down a hill on Tortola. His brakes failed and he and another cyclist fell . . . hard.

Yeah, ecm56, I saw a post about the wreck. Some nasty road rash. He's lucky he wasn't hurt worse.

Glad to hear Bitter End mooring balls are usable. 10 days ago it didn’t look like they had pendants.

They do not all have pendants, but quite a few do - all nearest the channel separating BEYC from Saba. Those also look quite new. I have also seen a few boats hooked up to them. That said, we did not use one so I should emphasize that I am making some assumptions here.

Sunchaser Scuba was working on installing the BEYC balls. Had a nice post about it on their Facebook page.

I had a chance to ask Scott who is collecting for the FCFS Saba moorings about the BEYC moorings. He told me that as yet nobody is collecting for them. I told him I would not spread the word, but also feel to compelled to correct my earlier assumption that they were active.

Personally, I would not take advantage unless I felt like I had no other option.

They will be collecting sometime very soon. If a BEYC ball looks new it's because it is. Sunchaser Scuba is in the process of completely replacing and updating all of the balls and are almost all the way done.

Pendants should be out soon as well

Pendants are on the new balls.

We spent 2 nights on Anegada... definitely cultivating a different pace with 4 weeks. We had a very nice sail both ways, decided to sail back to North Sound rather than JVD and spent my wife's birthday at Oil Nut Bay where we are now.

Our first time in Deep Bay, not the calmest with several hundred yards of fetch from Eustacia reef, but we enjoyed our lunch Nova restaurant very much. I thought the sushi was first class and we get pretty good sushi in Seattle.

We originally thought we would spend the birthday at Anegada Beach Club, but when we rented a Moke on Friday and went to explore, we ended up staying there most of the day and so were ready for something different. Anegada Reef Hotel didn't have any Mokes available, so we rented one (stick shift) from Anegada Amazing Rentals (lol) across the street which ended up being the Worst Moke In The World. There was so much play in the steering you could hardly keep it on the road and no brakes to speak of. Something in the "roll cage" rattled so loud you could hardly hear yourself think. At first I though I don't want to drive this thing one meter further than absolutely necessary, but eventually we toured the whole island in it and had a good laugh. More later.

Curious MrEZ - Moorings upgraded us from a 45 monohull to a new 4200 three cabin for our trip in January. I wonder if that the one you mention above? Can't be too many new ones in the fleet just yet. And what was the name of it?

That would be a very nice upgrade from my perspective, though if you have always sailed monos it will certainly be very different. I'm trying to recall the name of the boat we boarded at the dock at Tortola, but failing so far.... I think it was a two-word fanciful name. I'll let you know if I think of it or I could ask someone.

Agreed. I'm taking ASA114 before the trip so I don't make a complete fool of myself...

LOL! We call that "Anegada good"

Due to the forecast swell and wind I thought it best today to move to a more sheltered location, so we moved from Deep Bay to the Bight. We had a very nice sail down the channel from north of Mountain Point to the Indians ranging from a broad reach to near DDW, and arrived before noon.

I was just rounding up near the Indians and dropping the main sail when I felt something on my thigh and when I put my hand there it landed on one of those large bees (wasps? hornets?) that we often see, whereupon it stung me pretty badly! I didn't even know they sting and it has been many years since I had a sting like that and it was not at all pleasant.

I recovered, however, and we had a nice swim at the Indians with somewhat rough water and not the best visibility, but it's a great spot even under less than ideal conditions.

When I get restless I like to tinker with the boat and though this is not my boat I still aim to leave it better than I found it. The Blue Sea battery monitor was clearly showing some questionable info with regard to the state of charge of the house batteries and I found it was not at all correctly set up... it had the house bank at 100Ah flooded, and god knows what reference voltage. I was wondering at the beginning of the cruise how the house battery capacity could be so much worse than our own boat. A monitor showing wrong info is worse than no monitor at all.

Fuel is holding up well now almost 2 weeks into our trip... this boat holds 194 gallons, an amount that by itself justifies the ca. $600 turnaround fee we pay to Moorings. I'm hoping it will hold for the trip.

https://sta.uwi.edu/fst/lifescience...Polistes_lanio%20-%20Jack%20Spaniard.pdf

There is a wasp they call the Jack Spaniel or Jack Spaniard: very nasty sting.

That looks scary, but wasn't it. Fatter and very black. It stung me through my swim trunks and did not leave a stinger.

On second thought I actually didn't get a good look at the one that stung me. I just felt that it was very large and assumed that it was one of the large black bees that often follow the boat.

We spent a few lazy days at Norman Island with somewhat unsettled weather. Had lunch at Pirate's, which did not seem as good as earlier this year. I'm not sure if I just had a dish I didn't like quite as much, or if there is a different chef, or if the kind of effort that was made when there were only a few boats in the whole area isn't there now that things are picking up.

We didn't eat at the Willy T this time because they were out of Wahoo.

Hiked some of the trails on Norman for the first time since before Irma. Not much sign of impending development when you head East, didn't go in the other direction yet. There are cell towers on the ridge towards water point that I don't remember. The island is still really beautiful.

We needed to re-provision and take care of a few things, so we planned to go back to the Moorings base for one night. The things to take care of included going to the boat yard with "my" surveyor and checking out our damaged boat and the work in progress. I won't go into all the details, but all of this is obviously not the most fun part of being a boat owner. I'm not losing sight of the fact that in another program we would not be out on the water at all.

After spending the morning dealing with boat issues, we got off the dock at noon and motored up to Diamond Reef by Marina Cay and snorkeled off one of the buoys there. There are three, but two of them are so close together that it doesn't seem possible that they could be concurrently used by boats of any significant size. I thought the reef was in pretty good shape (had not seen since before Irma), but my wife didn't enjoy that much due to combination of middling viz, jellies, seaweed and sadly some trash in the water.

From there we had a beautiful if short sail on a beam reach across to Cooper where we had secured a BB (boo hiss). Weather has turned really fine and the evening atmosphere in the mooring field was absolutely stunning. This is definitely one of my favorite places to paddleboard. We're looking to set up some diving, but hoping for a bit better visibility.

We left during the day to spend a few hours at the Baths, swimming and paddle boarding. There were still a few unused balls during our mid-day stay.
After staying a second night at Cooper, we decided to head north again. Made a stop at Great Dog to snorkel. Visibility much improved, it was very nice. I resisted the urge to swim through the great arch, though the new fins I brought would have made it quite a bit easier. I did swim through the chimney and managed to nick the side of my leg in the process. Seems to be healing well though.

Long Bay was looking really nice, with only a single boat anchored there, so we anchored and decided to stay the night. I paddled out to Mountain Point and played in the rocks there... there are 3 chutes you can paddle through, conditions permitting. The middle one is very narrow and I skipped that one for now, but overall it was great fun and I went back out there this morning. A few larger yachts came and anchored for the night ( Angeleyes, Out of Office). Plenty of room though.

We are fairly near the balls at the Kodiak Queen, and tied up our dinghy next to a dive boat and snorkeled there. First time, pretty impressive, though unfortunately the art work additions (damaged in Irma?) do not really add much, but look more like an entrapment hazard for divers. I was tempted to dive underneath the crane or fallen mast, but my wife did not want me to try.

Thought we might see if we can visit Little Dix, but doesn't seem like they are really set up for it. Paddled from our boat to Savannah bay and back, passing several beautiful bays (Nail, Trunk, Mango (Tetor?), Pound) along the way. I had thought I might make it to Little Dix but glad I did not try, would have been 6+ miles.

This has been such a nice setting we decided to stay a second night.

Seeing the Club Med II anchored off the Baths this morning.

Anchored off the Baths? YUCK.

After another paddle at Mountain Point we headed back to Saba. Definitely picking up, pretty much all the balls are taken and it's really starting to feel like high season.. All Saba FCFS moorings taken, we took a mooring at BEYC and chatted with the fellow collecting for it, describing all the things they hope to have open Dec 15th.

The water being very calm, we went for a snorkel at Eustacia reef for the first time since pre-Irma. The BEYC balls are no longer there, so I was going by memory on where the best snorkeling was. We were really surprised how good the condition of the reef was considering the depth and location. Much more intact coral, including some nice staghorn stands. And way more soft coral than I was expecting. Really nice, we will probably go again tomorrow.

We weren't focused on the cannons (my wife doesn't care about the cannons :-), but it turned out I dropped the dinghy anchor about 10 feet away!

We had an early dinner at Saba. The food was good, but they are still working on the service aspect, I finally had to get up and get someone's attention to take our order.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yesterday moved back to Deep Bay... I just had to have some of their sushi again. We were hoping to snorkel Eustacia Reef again, but the sea was so calm that it was very difficult to locate the reef or reef pass and we eventually tried elsewhere.

I took advantage of the exceptionally light winds to paddle board from Saba to Necker Island, passing on either side of Eustacia on the way. Very enjoyable, but a bit sweaty with no breeze at all. My wife also paddled to Biras creek and back, and we both rounded Deep Bay.

With some unsettled weather in the forecast, I decided to move back to the Bight early today and we left around 7 and arrived at 10 just before the first rain band came in.

The sea was glassy the whole way, with dead calm wind and the occasional gust to 1.5 knots. This boat motors great, 8 knots at 2000 rpm.

Spotted the "Yellowstone" offloading some Moorings power and sail cats at Road town. If anyone here is "expecting", congratulations.

Great reports...Happy Tday and safe travels

The Bight completely filled up by 3pm today, PR sportfishing contingent arriving and and a 50' tried to anchor right next to us (our mooring is in 35'). Things definitely seem to be picking up!

Ouch, I was hoping for moderate crowds. The North swell might be pushing a few people out of some anchorages but I rarely see the bight full!

Drat- we arrive tomorrow and I am with George - was hoping for moderate crowds.

Hopefully it's kind of a one off between the holiday weekend, and the weather

Looks like the swell and thunderstorm forecast might have pushed people to the bight. Boatyballs are available everywhere.