Whale Encounter

We are still in the British Virgin Islands, enjoying ourselves very much. The wind has died down, and it’s a real treat to be sailing between these islands. 

A nice sailboat sailing past

Since the wind was so nice (around 15 knots) we decided to sail up to Anegada, which is the northern most island of the BVI and spend a few days there. 

Arriving at Anegada - the island is very flat - very different from the rest of BVI

Flamingo Lake - we didn't see any flamingos though

From Anegada, we sailed back to the West Dog island to do a dive there. On the way we spotted a family of Humpback Whales. 2 adults and a small baby just swimming through BVI on their way somewhere into the Atlantic ocean. Let me tell you, the words or pictures do not describe how it feels to be sailing next to these large magnificent creatures. We sailed next to them for about 1.5 miles before we turned back to our course. 

The whales submerged just next to our boat

They did not breach or do any tricks, just minded their own business, but was awesome to see these large creatures in the wild.

We have traveled to just about all of the BVI islands by now, and soon it will be time to move on. We just need to wait for another week for some packages that we ordered through Amazon. We will have to pick them up in the US Virgin Islands (that way we don't pay import taxes). Finally some of my diving gear that we broke will be replaced along with another GoPro camera.

The water here in BVI is so clear and most of the dives are rather shallow (not more than 75 feet but usually 40 ft) which makes it perfect for beginner divers. 

French Grunt

Jackknife Fish

We are currently in Virgin Gorda anchored in Long bay, which must be one of our favorite anchorages here. The water is very clear, not deep and the bay has coral as well as white sand on the bottom, so it's perfect to swim in both places. Tomorrow we will do a dive off of the rock ledges at the edge of this bay. Should be fun.

Long Bay - Virgin Gorda - beautiful anchorage

North Bay - Virgin Gorda

Sunset as seeing from Long Bay

We’ve sailed 2000 miles so far!

- and can someone turn down this wind already?!?

We have so far sailed 2048 miles according to our chart-plotter trip log - which I think deserves a little celebration. The other day we commented on how differently we sail this boat now, and how much we have learned in the last few months especially compared to our Florida marina days. Just getting off the dock used to be a blood pressure raising experience.

So let’s celebrate these 2000 miles and we are already looking forward to see where the next 1000 miles take us! Can’t wait.

In another news, what is up with this WIND!?! We have been buffeted by a consistent wind for two weeks now, staying above 20 knots and seems like rising. Yesterday was 30. It’s actually not that much fun to sail in this stuff as everything gets harder, the boat is under more stress and going against the wind plainly just sucks (and we have to be going against the wind a lot seems like). 

We are longing for 18 knot winds with 4 - 6 ft waves - oh those were the good old days of sailing. Now it’s more like 6 - 9 ft waves coming so closely together that sometimes our boat is riding two waves at the same time, and the wind just howling!

Today we sailed at 12.9 knots of speed! - with only our reefed main sail out. How does it feel? The wave picked up our boat about 10 feet in the air and then acceleration started. Your stomach tightens and you try to swallow a few times on empty in the hopes to push it back down as the autopilot instantly turns rudder about 18 degrees to try and keep the boat from turning sideway. Each ride only lasts a few seconds, but it sure produces some adrenalin in your blood! So, no thank you I would like to stay below 10 knots of speed in this boat!

What are we up to now? Studying a lot of math and diving different places. My GoPro camera died (I seem to be unlucky with cameras lately - I ordered another one though), and my Olympus is only rated to 45 or 50 feet and goes crazy when we go diving below 50 feet, but here are a few pictures (I think these are from diving “The Playground” off of Jost Van Dyke in BVI.

Next on our diving itinerary is to check out the “Painted Wall” and of course the most famous dive site of BVI - The R.M.S Rhone wreck!

p.s. pictures will have to wait as the internet is too slow to upload them now.

In the BVI Groove

We have been in the Virgin Islands about three weeks now, and currently we are cruising the British side (BVI). I must say that we found our groove and surprisingly (to my previous post) we are able to find remote anchorages that are both free, amazingly beautiful and not too crowded. We only paid for a mooring one time the entire time we’ve been here so far (the first night we arrived in USVI). How do we do it? Well turns out that with some creative thinking there is a way to beat the system. 

The key is to find spots that are not on the “beaten path”. 

In the US Virgin Islands the moorings are free until 5:30 pm so what we would do is sail to a destination in the morning, be on a mooring, and in the afternoon have a nice sail back to a free anchorage. We found a couple spots that were beautiful, free and not crowded. Great St. James Island was our favorite anchorage in USVI. Since the distances are so short it’s much cheaper to sail or even motor for 1 hour than to pay mooring fees. 

Here in the British Virgin Islands our current favorite spot is Brewers Bay in Tortola.

We are surrounded by beautiful mountains from all sides and the bay is just about deserted. Perfect.

 (This particular anchorage is off limits to chartering boats as this bay requires a little bit more attention to navigate, but if you try a little bit harder, you get rewarded with a beautiful secluded anchorage outside of the hustle and bustle where you can enjoy the Islands properly.

 Walking the hills of Tortola

Brewers Bay with Jost Van Dyke in the distance

A nice 3 masted ship

The "Not so Virgin anymore" Islands

In fact it seems like they are doing it with anybody and everybody these days - for money of course! 

What is it like to sail the Virgin Islands? It’s a lot like going to Disneyland except in boats. The place is completely overrun with people in rented Boats. And it shows in a big way. Here people are on a tight schedule. 20 islands in 6 days because they have a plane to catch next Saturday! When you wave at other boaters, they just stare at you. People are driving the boats in manner that we have not seen in a while (or ever). The anchoring places are limited, and there are so many boats that people are competing for places to anchor (or more likely for mooring balls). Most of the best anchorages are now filled with mooring balls - which serves double purpose - they make it illegal to anchor there, and they cost money. $15 / night in the US Virgin Islands and $30 in the British Virgin Islands.

So far we got schooled by this evil Customs lady (she made us come back 2 times to the customs office and then ran after us outside and made us come back to the dock for the third time to give us some more schooling lessons - turned out we were not supposed to visit customs coming from Puerto Rico to US Virgin Islands, but she never asked where we were coming from - but it was all our fault), we also got chased out of the area by a park ranger - we anchored on the left side of the bay but it was only allowed to anchor on the right side of the bay. 

The sailing distances here are so small that it is actually more work to put the sails up and after 40 minutes start putting the sails away than just to motor from spot to spot. The bay, we visited a couple of days ago (Caneel Bay), which is supposed to have a really nice beach, even after we paid our mooring fee, you are not welcome to bring your dinghy to the beach, you cannot hang your laundry in your own boat  - because the upscale resort on the shore does not wish it - but other than than you can pull out your credit card and pretty much shut up.

OK, how about some positive aspects? 

We have seen more topless women here on the boats than we have seen in a while. 

No seriously, the Islands are still very beautiful and very easy to sail. The land provides natural protection from waves, so you still have the steady trade winds without the ocean waves to go with it. Perfect for sailing.

We did talk about skipping the British Virgin islands and continuing sailing south, but the winds are so strong right now that we will have to stay here for a while, so we might as well get in line and “tour” the Virgin Islands.

We also went diving the Cow Rock. It was pretty good - except our photography skills are still lacking. Next dive will be better :)