TravelTalkOnline Forums Travel and Vacation Forums British Virgin Islands April cruise of Lio Kai

No reservations yet but will either be there or Wonky Dog.

Sent you a message

We had a great (and fast) passage from Leverick to Anegada on Friday, had a relaxing afternoon on the boat and a great dinner at the Wonky Dog. The jerk mango lobster has become my favorite.

We decided to spend Saturday exploring on land and I have to admit I never quite understood the enthusiasm for Anegada that is felt by many here, but I finally get it.
When we first visited 12 years ago, we had read a big build-up about snorkeling at Loblolly bay and it fell far short of our expectations. Probably the conditions weren't the best, but it was mainly the health (or lack thereof) of the reef that made it so disappointing. The flat, scrubby island just didn't seem to measure up to the more hilly and lush islands in our eyes.

Well, we had a great day - rented a Moke for the day and made a pretty complete tour of the island and the establishments that were open. I was hesitant to even go into the water at Flash of Beauty, but at my said it was pretty good and indeed I actually had a great time winding my way through the coral heads. Certainly the coral was probably once in much better condition, but with appropriate expectations I was able to focus on the good rather than the bad. I had a stingray swim right underneath me and bury itself in the sand directly below. Almost right afterwards, a six foot nurse shark (probably one of the largest I've seen) crossed right underneath, almost close enough to touch. Barracuda and many other fish hiding below the coral ledges, and numerous potential swim throughs. A spot I will definitely will want to do again.

We visited Anegada Beach Club, which we had not seen and is absolutely lovely. We crossed paths with Jason Helmbrecht at Cow Wreck and had a nice chat. Fun to put a face to the name! Late lunch of Lobster Tacos at Sid's. Great weather - the day could not have been more enjoyable.

Today we sailed to JVD, a bit more wind (and a bit more south) would have made it an even better sail, but still very beautiful and relaxing. Tomorrow morning we go for our exit covid test and have a dive lined up with JVD Scuba (who we have not used before) directly afterward.

Great to run into you! Glad you enjoyed Anegada.

Dinghying to the main dock and a short walk to the JVD health clinic, there were seven people in line ahead of us. Once things got started (the porch had to be carefully swept first, etc :-), it didn't take all that long. The swab procedure is still pretty stinging, but I'm holding out hope that it will be our last one.

Our scuba trip was scheduled to begin 9:30, which left time for a quick coffee at the Tipsy Shark. Ordered Cappuccinos, but the espresso machine was acting up so we had to settle for drip.

Afterwards we got our rental equipment at JVD Scuba and had a chat with the owner who is a long time JVD resident and business owner and expressed passionate misgivings about the coming protocol changes, because as it stands the arrival quotas of 120 air passengers and 50 ferry passengers remain unchanged, making the relaxed protocols somewhat moot if people are finding that they are unable to get transportation to the islands. Apparently, BVI residents who want to travel to USVI are now finding increased motivation to get vaccinated and vaccination rates are increasing, but these day travelers are also taking a large share of the incoming travel quota when they return. Incoming ferries are booked out for months.

Having done all our diving with Sail Caribbean Divers, there was quite a contrast in how this dive was run. It was a fairly small boat (with no head), but the biggest difference was that we were 5 customers to one dive leader who also drove the boat. We have never gone on a dive excursion where someone did not remain onboard. The equipment was all a bit older as well.

The other three guests were quite inexperienced, so the first dive a fairly shallow (40'-45') dive at Sandy Spit. One guest in particular used his air supply rather quickly and my wife and I were signaled to stay together and continue diving on our own while he returned the other party to the boat. Not exactly worrisome, but we weren't quite mentally prepared for it.

One bonus of going with a different outfit is that the sites were unfamiliar to us and the second site "Playground" is on the back side of Green Cay and deeper at around 75'. One of the other party elected to stay on board, possibly because he was self conscious about having cut our first dive short.

This was a really nice dive, we were approached by several small reef sharks, spotted an eagle ray and most remarkably, a manta ray - the first we have seen outside Hawaii where they are attracted with lights.

We left Great Harbor early afternoon and mostly motored back to Norman and picked up a ball near the Willy T.

Enjoying your daily reports. We are planning to dive during our June trip. Tentatively with Sunchaser in North Sound and were thinking about booking with Colin at JVD Scuba as well and checking out the area (I am Rhone’d out so won’t be adding that to the list). Older equipment? I don’t really want to bring my own for a few dives. Honest condition assessment? Not a big fan of Dive BVI either last trips with them were really rushed. Guess Busy Bee on St. John has spoiled me.

I don't want to imply that the equipment wasn't serviceable or adequately maintained. The BCDs were a little faded and hoses a little cracked. I'm really don't consider myself qualified to meaningfully distinguish the functional from the purely cosmetic when it comes to the condition of diving gear. We didn't have any trouble with any of it. Take it mainly as a commentary on that we are very used to how SCD runs things having done most of our diving with them. My wife did find herself in the water on the second dive with 1400 psi in her tank (probably the same tank from the first dive). She did notice it before descending and it was corrected. I attribute this to our dive leader having a lot to take care of, anchoring the boat, etc. Overall it was far from a negative experience, and we have a better sense of what kinds of questions to ask when diving with an unfamiliar operator so that there are no surprises.

There is a lot wrong with a diver ending up in the water with 1400 PSI however I would split the responsibility fifty fifty between the dive master and diver.

agreed

We enjoyed a nice day at Norman Island today, paddleboarding the caves and the Bight, snorkeling the Indians and Treasure Point again (visibiity was excellent) and having another fresh Wahoo at Willy T where we chatted with a group from OK that own another L40 that we've been seeing off and on.

Received our exit test results from yesterday morning about mid-day, and applied for (and received) our USVI travel authorization. We will have to return to the base tomorrow afternoon since our Ferry is scheduled for an early 8:00 departure and we have been advised to be there early.

Had a bit of trouble with the dinghy motor; I assumed it was prop ventilation and adjusted the tilt stop to put the prop a bit deeper in the water. I also checked the prop nut and nothing seemed loose, but I wonder if there could be some something else going on.

If the prop hits something or is run in sand there is a rubber coupler in the prop hub that can get spun. Once that happens the prop will quickly get progressively worse until it will barely function past idle. It’s a 5 minute fix for the chase boat to swap out the prop. If the engine seems to rev normally but you are getting minimal thrust that almost guarantees that is the problem. The initial hit to the prop could even have been on a prior charter or the hub can wear out from long term use. It should continue to function at idle.
G

This sounds possible, though we certainly didn't hit anything. It only happened a few times, always at planing speeds but not during acceleration. We didn't use the dinghy much.

We are safely back at the dock, but not without a bit of excitement.

The weather wasn't looking good for another go at snorkeling the Indians, so we decided to head back to the base early so that we could take our time getting things sorted and possibly wait for a break in the weather for docking.

As we got into the channel it became clear that there was no avoiding the dark clouds that were coming our way, much more than an isolated shower. Visibility kept getting worse and the rain intensified.

As we were passing the western tip of Peter Island, I thought I heard some low frequency noise, but my hearing is not the greatest and I wasn't sure. But sure enough, with visibility perhaps a thousand feet, a very large freighter came into view off our starboard bow and heading to cross our path at about a 45 degree angle. It appeared to be heading for Peter Island Passage.

Needless to say, I quickly disengaged the autopilot and hastily changed course about 90 degrees to starboard. Truly Murphy's Law at work... at no time in the six weeks we have been cruising the area during covid did we see a single large vessel underway; it would have to be during the worst visibility and on a collision course, or very close to it. Made me wish these boats had AIS, nobody needs that kind of surprise.

The wind, which had backed all the way to NNW, lightened, but the system stalled over the islands and it rained for the next several hours.

What a rude surprise. Makes you wonder why Karma chose you, and specifically that sort of a karmic attack to throw at you. Glad you passed the test, but also really glad everyone, as well as the boat, is safe.

When it comes down to it I guess I don't really believe there are such forces at work, but I do spend a lot of time analyzing my actions and decisions, trying to make sure that I learn as much as possible from the incident.

It was, as you said, a rude surprise but still far from disaster. I was fully alert to the situation and there was no delay between the ship coming into view and my seeing it and taking evasive action. Some considerations in no particular order:

1. I would not have left a place of safety in the conditions I found myself in. They developed en route and were neither so serious or proximate to my point of departure to suggest returning.

2. The weather information I consulted (windguru) was not sufficiently specific or up to date to give me an accurate idea of the coming weather. I should see if there isn't something better. WX?

3. I should have asked my wife (whose hearing is better) to confirm the sound. She might also have been able to get a better sense of it's direction. I considered it at the time, but didn't want to alarm her. In hindsight that was certainly a case of misplaced priorities.

4. Maybe I should have proactively turned toward the nearest shallow water, which in this case was Peter Island. In hindsight certainly.

thanks for the recap...I do that myself and appreciate learning from others

glad it turned out ok...

Those kind of storms have left me uncomfortable on many occasions in the BVI. The weather can quickly drop the visibility under 1000 feet. The strange thing I have noticed is sometime what looks pretty innocuous can really hammer you. I was down there many years ago when a small buildup you might not give to much thought about turned into heavy rain and 50 knot winds. A monohull under full sail was knocked down with all hatches open and sank almost immediately at the deepest point in the FSD. Thankfully everyone was rescued. Strangely after several months under water the boat was salvaged by one of the dive companies and towed to Peter. They drained the water and oil out of the engine, put new oil and a battery in and it fired up! The boat was motored over to Tortola and fixed.
AIS is a great feature. I suspect it will show up on more charterboats in the future. There are portable AIS systems that will work with a IPad at very reasonable cost.

It must be very scary on a sailboat (at sea level). We are at ~200', with a view from Anegada all the way down the SFD. We can see the storms roll in and the rain come across the water.

One time I thought we could beat the rain back from Trellis. Within minutes we couldn't see anything and were freezing cold. Never again.

I remember hearing about that incident. We were fortunate in that there were no strong winds or seas associated with this, really only reduced visibility.

I see online that a receive-only Raymarine AIS unit is only about $500 and probably easily integrated. I wish I could get Moorings to do it.

The Moorings 45.3 we chartered in 2018 and the 46.3 we've chartered for this July both show "VHF with AIS (receiving only)" but we never investigated to see if it indeed picks up AIS information.

This year we're doing a sleep aboard because of quarantine reasons so will have time to do things like check this out and load waypoints into the chartplotter.

Many (most even?) newer VHF radios seem to have AIS integrated into them - receive at least. I know on my Lagoon it is tied to the chartplotter from the factory. The rub is that if you didn't turn the radio on in the morning when you get underway, the AIS data doesn't show! Don't ask me how I found that out one day....! Duh....

Sounds like you guys had a great trip - close encounter not withstanding. Of course that was just the sea gods giving you a good story to tell your friends at the bar!

Safe journey home!

I'm guessing that means the VHF radio includes the frequencies used for vhs, but there may be an additional seatalk module required to feed data to the chart plotter (mfd). I'll be curious to know what you find out, thanks.

EDIT: on a little further research a ais capable vhf may be all that is required. The Ray55 in our boat doesn't seem to support it. A standalone AIS receiver may require it's own antenna, so a VHF upgrade could be the best solution for me.

The Marine Traffic app is a great option for viewing vessels with AIS send capabilities.
There are some $$ features available but the basic app is free.

Just had to replace my B&G VHF with AIS (receive only) on my boat.
Upgrading to a B&G with AIS transceiver (send and receive).
Better to "See and be seen"!

BTW - AIS works off of your regular VHF antenna

Thanks for the tip. Is that really sufficiently real-time to help in such a situation?

True, but I am not sure I want to be pulling up much stuff on my iPad in a heavy squall! Already running on the chartplotter is so much handier!

I have AIS on my boat and it is very interesting and gives you information but there are many vessels out there without it including some of the inter island freighters we see in the BVI that do not have AIS. So it will warn you sometimes but doesnt replace the need to keep watch.

[/quote] Is that really sufficiently real-time to help in such a situation? [/quote]

When you see weather coming or before you leave the mooring at quick look can tell you a lot.
While the AIS has been out on my VHF, I use it all the time on the Chesapeake Bay.
I can watch a freighter coming from miles away.

The Marine Traffic information on freighters tells where they have been and where they are heading and warns you if you are in danger.

Just another tool to help keep your boat safe.

Having AIS built into you chart plotter is a win win!

Well we made it home safely, but it's always a long trip back - around 20 hours.

A taxi took us the short distance to the ferry terminal. We were advised to arrive early and were there at 7:00 for our 8:00 sailing. There were already about 7 people ahead of us. The line went quickly. I showed printouts of my ferry reservation, exit test, and USVI travel authorization. I would advise having these on paper if at all possible. The fare was $60 each plus fees and $10 per checked bag (and they check small rollers), $10 departure tax.

They were very diligent with the check in process... spraying the glass of the booths between every traveler. Temperature check and lots of hand sanitizer. We were on the Bomba Charger, presumably at quota capacity of 50, or near that number.

The ferry left and arrived about thirty minutes late. It did not cause us a problem, but passengers with tight connections were nervous.

The C&I process didn't take too long with that number of people. Showed exit test and travel authorization again.
Then there was another national guard checkpoint to check these documents.

We took this board's advice and went to Emerald Beach via taxi. We had a nice table right at the edge of the beach - certainly beats waiting in the terminal.

Back in Seattle after midnight. Thanks for taking the time to read all this and for the comments.

Glad you made it home safely. Thanks for the running updates!

Great thread! Thanks for all the info...

Thanks so much for taking the time and effort to post - it is very much appreciated! Welcome home!

Great information! Thanks for posting!