12-26-14
My husband and I started our trip with 3 days in Puerto Rico for his belated birthday celebration. My husband works for the US Forest Service at home in Colorado so we got to go to 2 of his wishlist spots...El Morro and El Yunque. In my opinion it was the perfect amount of time to stay in PR. We were ready to get away from the hustle and bustle and off to the BVI! So we wished Puerto Rico good bye and begain our journey to BVI Family Trip 2014!
Our good flight Karma continued at the airport. We were scheduled to fly into St. Thomas at 8:10 on Cape Air and then planned to go through the agony of trying to make the 8:55 ferry (if it was even running) and then cab it to BVI Yacht Charters. We got to the airport at 6:15am, just to be safe, and when checking in at the Cape Air desk I casually asked the attendant if it would be possible to go to Beef Island instead. He punched some keys on his keyboard, made some faces, punched some more keys and VIOLA, said, “Sure!” Of course, thinking it was going to cost an arm and a leg I then asked him how much and he wished us a Merry Christmas and told us our plane would leave at 8:30am and to go get a cup of Puerto Rican coffee (which by the way my husband said was delicious). YIPEE!
We landed at Beef Island with no issues. On our plane were the 2 of us and another family of 4. No one else was at Customs/Immigrations, no problem with the food we brought in, no fees charged and we were at BVI Yacht Charters by 10am. Oh, AND our customs agent was friendly and happy! Wake me up, I must be dreaming. Right then and there my husband and I made a promise to each other that we would never fly into St. Thomas and do the ferry thing again. LOVE Terrance B. Lettsome Airport!
I also LOVE BVI Yacht Charters. Our boat was ready for us with our “toys” (SUP, noodles and floats). We literally put our bags on the boat and Chris told us to just let us know when we were ready to do our boat walk through. I went and checked in at the office with the incredibly friendly staff who make you feel like you are part of their family and went back to the boat for the boat check. Chris was friendly and thorough. During our boat walk through our check out captain came aboard and told us he was ready when we were. Seriously? No waiting? We decided to grab our Tico’s order that BVI Yacht Charters had stored for us in their warehouse and get on the water. We could finish up provisioning when we returned.
This was my first time being the captain on a Catamaran so we had opted for the Check Out Captain. So happy we did as he made me feel comfortable with maneuvering what some people call a tennis court on water. He asked me about my experience captaining a boat and then threw me to the wolves right away!
My first task was to get the boat out of the slip and take it to another slip and back it in. Um, what? [censored]! I quickly found out that it was fairly easy to spin the Cat around. I had to practice a bit with how much power to put on each engine but successfully backed into the dock and also did a port side docking with a boat in front of me at the dock. We did a quick sail to Peter Island, picked up a mooring ball, anchored in 20 ft of water (which was literally 20 feet from the shore… a little nerve wracking for a girl used to a mono-hull), anchored again in 30 ft of water and then another beautiful sail back to Roadtown were I had to dock again (this time much easier on the T dock and without another boat there). We had planned to finish up provisioning and then go over to Soper’s Hole for the night but it got too late so we just stayed on the dock and walked to Pusser’s for fish and chips and much deserved Caribs, YUM! We went to bed with full tummys, smiles on our face and feeling very accomplished. Having done a sleepaboard on the dock in Tortola before, we were really surprised not to be roasting hot. We had a great breeze coming through our hatch and slept like babies.
I do have to give a shout out to the new Riteway. WOW! It is very nice and very similar to a grocery store at home. I was impressed. One note of advice…don’t forget to bring bags since you have to buy grocery bags there if you want them.
12-27-14
Our kids and the rest of our family had arrived the night before and spent the night in St. Thomas. For our trip we would have 2 family boats. On our boat, we had my mom, husband, 15 year old twins (boy/girl) 19 year old son and his college friend. On my brother’s boat we had my brother and his wife, my sister and her husband, my niece and nephew (both early 20's) and my dad. My parents have been divorced for 40+ years but get along really well. Luckily, my dad’s wife lets him still go with us as long as he isn’t on the same boat as my mom. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Wink.gif" alt="" />
They took the first ferry of the morning and we met our crew in Soper’s Hole along with my sister and her husband. My brother and the rest of his crew (minus our dad) went to the Moorings to pick up his boat, a 46ft Cat. We motored up to Guana Island to do some snorkeling at Monkey Point. We easily found a mooring ball right off Monkey Point and spent the afternoon jumping and snorkeling. I hadn’t been to Guana before but had decided to start the trip here since I had heard so much about how beautiful the snorkeling was. Unfortunately, we went on a day where the water had churned up and it was pretty murky. We couldn’t see much but still enjoyed our first time in the water and the view of the beautiful island and white sand beach. The kids tried out the Catamaran by jumping off the top.
We left Guana in the late afternoon to go over to Trellis where we met my brother, his crew and picked up Grandpa Bob (our dad) at the airport. Again, love the airport at Beef Island. We shopped at Aragorn and had drinks at the Loose Mongoose testing out our new Drinking Man’s Guide. The noseeums were awful on the beach and at the bar but the drinks were great. We loaded up on bug spray and my poor 15 year old son still got eaten alive. We have decided that he is a mosquito/noseeum magnet. Every trip he is the one that looks like he has chicken pox! We had patty melts on the boat while the crew of the other boat went to The Last Resort. The name has a soft spot in our heart as we have a family cabin in Northern Wisconsin with the same name. Unfortunately, they were not impressed with the food. My brother is in the restaurant business and owns a few restaurants in North/South Carolina so he loves to go out to eat and compare. Since they were under new ownership we will give them another try.
12-28-14
We got an early start the next morning and had planned to go to Great Dog for some snorkeling on our way to Virgin Gorda but as we went through the channel between The Dogs we noticed that it was pretty rolly and worried that it would be murky as well. We decided instead to go to George Dog and got a mooring right off Kitchen Point. We were the only boats there at first but others joined later. Snorkeling here was amazing! Spotted by our crew were a small shark, octopus and various tropical fish.
After Bloody Mary’s we dropped the ball and continued our journey to North Sound. My hope was to motor out a ways north so that we could catch a close reach to North Sound. Oops, forgot I was trying to sail a tennis court. Would have been a beautiful sail on a mono-hull (mom/grandma couldn’t help but mention) but instead was a “gettin’ there” motor into North Sound. All was well, we grabbed a ball by Prickly Pear while the other boat went to get a ball by The Bitter End.
My brother loves that place and wanted to get a Hobie Cat from them to sail back to Prickly Pear. Every year something happens where he can’t get his Hobie and so this year we were determined. Unfortunately, the Hobie gods were not on our page and there was a Hobie Regatta so all the boats were already out. He and the crew took the dinghy over to Prickly Pear and we enjoyed Bushwackers on the beautiful white sand beach. Heaven! I love Prickly Pear. We swim or paddle board in, the water is crystal clear and a gorgeous blue and the sand is white. Truly paradise. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular. Busiest time of year and still plenty of beach chairs. We have all voted that the Bushwackers at the Sand Box are by far the best in the BVI. Shh, don’t tell anyone!
Late afternoon we started to see lots of boats coming into North Sound so dropped the ball and went over to meet the other boat at The Bitter End and watch some football. Very busy over there but we were able to get a ball by the other boat and have drinks and watch football at The Crawl Pub. Dinner on the boat was tacos.
12-29-15
The plan today was to go over to Leverick, pick up our rental truck from Mahogany and go to The Baths. Our boat got an early start and went over to get our slip at Leverick. Had to back in the Cat for first time on my own without the check out captain giving me pointers so I was a bit nervous. I have to say that the crew on the dock at Leverick are the bomb diggety! They are so helpful and even though I was off a bit when I did my fancy spin turn they still talked me into the dock and told me what a good job I did.
My brother was able to get his Hobie that morning so they did a sail over to Leverick to tell us they would be over in a bit and the kids went up to the pool while I had a Bloody Mary (stiff) since I was still a bit wobbly from my fancy docking skills. We then went up to the little store to get my husband’s annual Leverick treat, a Samosa. The bakery at The Chef’s Pantry grocery store is amazing. We always stock up on baked items here.
I then went up to meet the rental truck drop off guy (forget his name but he was quite the character) and he was there waiting for me. Signed some papers, gave him our license numbers and got the keys.
Once the other boat arrived we packed lunches and beers and 12 out of 14 of us jumped into the car (safari truck) for our very adventurous drive to The Baths. My husband drove and my job was to remind him to keep left. Everyone else’s job was to hang on! Holy cow it was an adventure with steep roads up and down the mountain with a stick shift but with incredibly stunning views. Each bump and turn we could hear the commentary from the safari seats. I was glad to be in the front cab!
We arrived at The Baths safely and immediately handed the driver a well-deserved beer, his knuckles were a little white! We did the hike over to Devil’s Bay and it was typical Baths’ splendor. We hadn’t been here since 2010. The last few years we tried to go by boat and the flags were up. Spent the day hanging at the beach and in the water, again… heaven. We had a little mishap when my brother-in-law took a wrong turn and decided to do some rock climbing. He slipped, scraped up his leg pretty well and unfortunately soaked his bag with camera and camcorder. We discovered later that neither were able to be revived, not good news since he was the camera guy for the trip. Luckily I had my Samsung S5 Active Phone (newly switched from being a long time iPhone user) and we found that the camera is amazingly good.
The hike back up from Devil’s Bay was getting a little crowded but we made it. Where did all these people come from? I don’t remember them when I was running and jumping across the rocks as a kid! We didn’t stop at Mad Dog for a drink because it was raining and everyone had already piled into the truck.
As recommended by TTOL we stopped by Hog Heaven on our way back. Well worth the trip but next time I will bring a sweatshirt! Believe it or not we were chilly with the wind blowing and damp bathing suits. The view was worth the shivers and we got some group shots from the deck.
We returned to Leverick to Michael Beans playing at the Jumbies Bar. I get a lot of flak for Michael Beans from my family since part of our NYE plans in 2012 was the Michael Beans show. Apparently the teenagers don’t think it is as cool as other’s might. BUT, who ended up at the bar Snapchatting photos to past crew members? Yep, the “too cool teenagers!”
Showers and then Family Spaghetti Dinner night hosted on our boat resulted in good family drama stories and lots of laughs. Happy!
12-30-14
Stocked up on delicious pastries from Chef’s Pantry and another early start off the docks to get to Anegada with time to explore. Beautiful sail over; these fat boats sure do like a beam reach! Arrived before noon in hopes to get a ball. My brother snagged the last ball so we had to anchor. Not a big deal as we are used to anchoring and happy not to have to pay a mooring fee.
Went ashore and put our dinner order in with Anegada Reef Hotel. We had a reservation to rent another safari truck but the truck allegedly hadn’t been returned on time. I think she just forgot about us as she was pretty busy. I had even called the day before to double check. Luckily they had 1 more car available which sat 7 so we shuttled ourselves to Cow Wreck beach. This time Grandma stayed on board but Grandpa Bob joined us. He enjoyed the day sitting on the beach watching the kite surfers and even got a spotting of Richard Branson. We had some lobster and conch fritters and drinks at the bar and took naps on the beach. My sister-in-law is in the search for the best conch fritters as they serve conch fritters at one of their restaurants in Charlotte. We pretty much tried them everywhere. They were good at Cow Wreck Beach but Ivan’s still has the vote for the best!
After our naps and walks on the beach half of us got back in car to go to Loblolly Beach. Since I was the driver for the day I shuttled the first group and then went back for the second group. They decided to go back to Anegada Reef Hotel instead of Loblolly so I pretty much got to drive the whole island. I saw a bull fight in the middle of the road, almost ran into 3 donkeys but never spotted the pink flamingos. Quite the adventure but very easy driving; no stick, no hills. <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" />
Dinner was at Anegada Reef Hotel with all 14 of us. They have a great dock that has a small, shorter dock beside it so it was much easier to get the Grands out of the dinghy and onto the dock. I loved the ambience of dinner right on the beach and I absolutely love lobster so I was in heaven. We brought a big bottle of wine with us so the dinner was complete. Thanks to my big brother for treating all 14 of us to the best dinner of the trip!
Back to the boats, some cards and another perfect day was complete.
Stay tuned for more... <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/toast.gif" alt="" />
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