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

We are back aboard and I thought I'd start another thread where I comment on current protocols and our experiences for those that may be interested.

We flew SEA - MIA - STT and again Island Birds to EIS. Being the only two arrivals at the time, covid testing and C&I was extremely quick.
This time we received the vinyl red bracelets and only a single tracker (for the two of us), which apparently is defective and can't be charged. Oh well.

Provisions from Moorings and Caribbean Cellars were all aboard and things are looking good for getting off the dock in the AM.

Looking forward to another two weeks!

Looking forward to the updates! Have a great time!

Are you spending the first night at the Moorings base? We will be a driving in the mid afternoon and I wonder if we will have time to get everything done at the Moorings that day.

Thanks
Peter

Thanks for the updates
Following...

We are staying at the base tonight. We probably arrived early enough to make it over to Peter or Norman, but we have a few small boat issues we want to address and the fellow who stores our paddleboards won't be able to bring them by until later this evening.

Will probably order food from MYC this evening.

We received our day 0 (negative) test results in about 22 hours... I'm hoping this bodes well for our day 4 test.

We are just relaxing and hanging out in Benures bay and may give ordering from Pirate's a try.

After an early dinner served by Pirates yesterday and a restful night in Benures, we had a very nice sail today. There was enough south in the wind to comfortably clear Beef Island from Peter on a close reach. We turned around in the vicinity of VGYH and sailed back to Peter Island Great Harbor.

Beautiful sailing conditions with a steady 15-18 kts and a relatively calm channel. We don't usually sail back and forth just for the heck of it, but with limited activities during quarantine it was definitely a nice way to spend a few hours.

There are certainly a lot more boats here than on our last two quarantine cruises. In December GH had one or two, in February about 5, now it's up to a dozen or so.

Ocean 7 is open and we may give their delivery service a try today.

Hi Peter, I assume by driving you meant diving. If so and you are a sleepaboard the night before you should get off the dock by 11am.
G

I read it as "arriving". With no in-person chart briefing and if you don't have any boat issues or require a boat briefing you can be off the dock quite quickly. Not being able to leave the boat eliminates the temptation to walk back an forth between reception, provisioning or Renport which can eat up time. Boats on the quarantine dock also do not tend to be boxed in.

We could easily have left that day if it wasn't for our paddleboards.

EZGoin-

What was transfer like at STJ to Island Birds to EIS? Nadia mentioned it takes about an hour after deplaning and you have check back in. I assume you don't need to show any test information in STJ airport...just your Island Birds receipt?

Thanks in advance

I don’t know if you got the update but you can now return to the Moorings for your day 4 tests. Might be easier than Nanny Cay.

Yes, thanks, that is what we are doing this time. We just returned to the Moorings base and should have our day 4 test early tomorrow AM.

I'm not entirely sure which airport you mean... STT or SJU? I assume STT (St. Thomas). We used Island Birds from STT to EIS three times now (and twice on the return).

I believe we did have to show our USVI travel authorization and covid test on arrival at STT. After that, just exit the terminal and head right to the smaller terminal that has the local Caribbean operators like Cape Air. The pilot comes into the terminal to pick us up and takes us out to the aircraft. Nadia scheduled our flight for 2:30 with a 1:48 arrival at STT, so less than an hour.

The pilot will also help with USVI immigration on the return and can take your luggage through customs so they will not be opened. Overall as convenient as can be, can definitely recommend based on our experience.

We have a ferry reservation this time for the return, purely to save some money. Will see how that goes.

Note: STJ doesn’t have an airport

Fine weather and fairly light winds today... to help pass the time we sailed from Great Harbor around Great Dog and back down to the Moorings base where we will spend the night to get the earliest available appointment for our day 4 test at Peebles. We are attempting to make arrangements for a rendezvous dive with Sail Caribbean a few days from now.

sorry SJU...we are DCA to SJU and then island birds to EIS as we usually do...

Does anyone know if one place is quicker than the other in regard to the processing of the Day #4 test results? As we have nothing to do but sail around it might be worth it to return to the Moorings if it will expedite the procedure..

All tests go to the 1 lab at the hospital and get processed in batches of 115 (I think) so I doubt there's much difference.

We had a nice day today. Got an early taxi from the Moorings base to Peebles and were first in line for our day 4 test. We were back at our boat before 9AM.

Left the base to do some more sailing, but wind was more East today and after 4 tacks only got me to Dead Chest, I was reminded why I typically motor up the channel.
Headed to George Dog to do some snorkeling (which I interpret as being OK to do in quarantine... in any case there was no other boat around to infect - and we are vaccinated anyway).

We had a nice swim... probably haven't snorkeled there since our first visit to the BVI, mostly because nearby Great Dog was so much better.

Really nice broad reach back down the channel back to Great Harbor where my wife is making dinner onboard. We've set up a dive on Thursday.

I'm really going to try to no wait on pins and needles for our Q release tomorrow... obsessively checking my phone, etc. That got me into trouble last time. We'll make the best of the day, probably sail around again, conditions should be much like today.

Good luck. Fingers crossed for an early release!

We had a nice day today. Got an early taxi from the Moorings base to Peebles and were first in line for our day 4 test. We were back at our boat before 9AM.

Left the base to do some more sailing, but wind was more East today and after 4 tacks only got me to Dead Chest, I was reminded why I typically motor up the channel.
Headed to George Dog to do some snorkeling (which I interpret as being OK to do in quarantine... in any case there was no other boat around to infect - and we are vaccinated anyway).

We had a nice swim... probably haven't snorkeled there since our first visit to the BVI, mostly because nearby Great Dog was so much better.

Really nice broad reach back down the channel back to Great Harbor where my wife is making dinner onboard. We've set up a dive on Thursday.

I'm really going to try to no wait on pins and needles for our Q release tomorrow... obsessively checking my phone, etc. That got me into trouble last time. We'll make the best of the day, probably sail around again, conditions should be much like today.

Really appreciate your updates. On the fence about moving my June trip to the USVI. Waiting to see how your trip turns out!
G

We are following closely, as well. Our trip is the first week of June, and your updates are very helpful in knowing what to expect.

Thanks for the updates. We were there in March and headed back for several weeks in mid-June.

we are mid June as well so very much appreciate the input here

Released!

We received our day 4 test results about 25 hours after taking the test.

We were out sailing when the email came in, and after taking down the yellow flag, turned SW on a nice broad reach and picked up a mooring at the Indians.
Had a very nice snorkel there... good (but not great) visibility and one other boat. There is more sargassum in the channel than I have seen on any previous trip. We have sailed through rafts that took two knots off our speed. We haven't really visited any beaches yet, so not sure how much of a problem it is on shore.

So now we are free to visit shore restaurants. The bad news is that many places have significantly reduced their opening hours since February. Pirate's Bight is only open Thursday-Sunday. Cooper Island is similar. So today it will be the Willy T and we were planning to go to Cooper tomorrow to go diving on Thursday morning, but we won't be able to eat there :-(

There are more boats currently in Benures Bay than in the Bight.

Congrats! Willy T has fresh wahoo today that will be great!

Thanks Jason! We just got back and that's what we both had :-)

This has been one of the most insightful posts considering the times we are in! Thanks a ton for taking the time to give us all the play by play...

Indeed..thanks from all of us Jonesing to "get home"..

Wow, thanks so much for all the kind comments... I made sure to read them to my wife to help quiet the doubts that she had regarding anyone being interested in any of this :-)

Today we had nice weather in the morning and moved from the Bight to a mooring at the Caves, where I enjoyed some paddle boarding and we went snorkeling in the caves and around treasure point. This was really nice, better than I remembered. I don't know if the area is still recovering from Irma or if the lack of boats and the attendant rafts of noodles and snorkelers made for more abundant marine life. Visibility was also very good, and we spotted a stingray and barracuda off treasure point.

Since we are set to rendezvous with Sail Caribbean tomorrow morning, we headed to Cooper Island in the early afternoon. This involved motoring directly into wind and waves and was not all that pleasant compared to the sailing we have been doing. Salt Island passage always seems to be particularly rough, and the E wind was around 20 kts.

By the time we reached Manchioneel Bay, the weather had turned somewhat and it was cloudy, rolly, squally and we had showers through the afternoon. With the bar and restaurant also closed, it was far from the most inviting vibe at CIBC. Not much to do but relax on the boat and read.

As we were coming into the mooring field, there were a few boats and several groups of swimmers, some around a boat on one of the outer buoys and another group that seemed to be swimming to Cistern Rock. As we were tying up, a Moorings PC "MAI TAI TIME" came charging through the mooring field at a speed that struck me as really reckless. Minutes later, a M4800 passed us at a distance of about 8 feet on the way to their boaty ball. Why?? The boat name was "Amused". I was not.

The water and weather has calmed down now and we are looking forward to our dives tomorrow, location still TBD. They will be our first dives in at least a year and a half.

Just be obedient and bow to their every whim

We saw some very bad PC behavior on our trip last month. Very bad.

Have a GREAT time diving!!!!!!’

Is that in reference to wives, power cats or dive leaders? :-)

The former and the latter...not all of us PCers feel the need to race to an already reserved boaty ball or any other type...

No blanket bias against PCs on my part intended!

Non taken my friend...

We met Sail Caribbean Divers at the CIBC dock this morning. Familiar boat (Endeavor) and dive master. Went out to Carvel rock first, but it was deemed too rough. Tried the Rhone next, but there was too much current. So we ended up at Ginger steps, which we have certainly done a number of times before but was probably a good choice for our fist dive since January 2020.

There were only two other divers along (who live on Tortola). Conditions were quite good and we had a very enjoyable first dive. Reef sharks, a large sting ray, big lobsters, etc. The second dive at Painted Walls was also very nice. We are not such seasoned divers that it doesn't take a bit of review and acclimatization and were both very glad we went. We may try to get in another dive near the end of our trip.

Afterwards we had lunch and drinks at CIBC, which did not disappoint. They have really upped their game in both food and the cocktails. The weather was really nice and it felt much more like one of our old favorites. Even the funky smell (presumably rotting seaweed) that was a bit unpleasant in the mooring field somehow seemed absent on shore.

We left for North Sound in the afternoon, picked up a few provisions at Chef's Pantry and plan to head to Anegada in the morning.
We also scheduled our (hopefully final!) exit covid test at JVD which means we have to be in Great Harbor the morning of the 26th.

See you in Anegada tomorrow! Dinner at Sid's??? It's an island hot spot on Friday nights...

Thanks, very possibly! I've been loving the jerk lobster at Wonky Dog but might be time to try something new. Will discuss it with the admiral... do you already have plans to be there? We are not exactly night owls :-)