Tuesday 23rd April 2019

With the wind behind us and a bright moon above us, it was a lovely night sail from St Barts to the British Virgin Islands. We sailed excitedly through the outer islands into the Francis Drake Channel as the first signs of light appeared in the Eastern sky. It was in the BVI , over a few charter holidays, that the seeds for this trip were sown and, as such, is a good place to have our final tropical fling before we set off back across the Atlantic to cooler climes.

Unfortunately our happy memories were immediately soured by the check in process. The anchorage in Road Town was small and very choppy in the brisk wind. The dingy dock for customs required us to squeeze between a ferry and the rocks. Once inside the custom office the procedure had about seven ill defined steps, each one requiring either form filling or payment and the receiving of numerous stamps. We have occasionally seen worse bureaucracy but nothing like the bad attitude of the officers here, they were incredibly rude, arguing with us and each other and being purposely unhelpful.

So it was two tired and rather cross sailors that docked a few hours later in Nanny Cay marina, to spend a couple of days on the normal marina jobs. Hose down the boat, laundry, cooking gas refil, provisioning…… It has to be said that it took us a few days to find the Caribbean vibe that a stay in the BVI normally brings

Every where has a not quite familiar feel to it. Of course not only has it been about 7 years since our last visit but during that time the country has suffered the effects of a devastating hurricane. On the 6th September 2017 Cat 5 Hurricane Irma passed directly over the islands. Producing wind speeds in excess of 180mph, it was the strongest open sea Atlantic storm on record and nothing much survived its fury. Eighty five percent of the housing stock in Tortola was distroyed or damaged, Island infrastructure was mostly wiped out and the charter yacht fleets, a major source of income for the area, were decimated. Miraculously due to the effective early warning systems in place only four people lost their lives.

The Islands after a huge effort have mostly recovered but signs of wreckage are still in evidence. Particularly poignant for us were the yachts that Irma left high and dry and that still line the beach at Trellis Bay, their typically jaunty nautical names, ‘The Good Life’, ‘Chillin”, ‘Starry nights’, now seeming cruelly incongruous.

Wrecks still litter Trellis Bay

We were however there for a happier event, Trellis Bay is five minutes from the airport and Rachael, Mathew and their partners Andy and Robyn arrived Saturday on the evening flight. Despite the fading light they couldn’t resist an immediate swim, in fact they have hardly been out of the water since.

Readying to snorkel around Monkey Point

We have been nicely surprised by the lack of crowds, of course we return with a lot more experience and are, where possible, anchoring, instead of being squeezed tight in the mooring fields. And there are so many protected anchorages here it’s easy to just hop from one to another each day as the conditions dictate.

Not so good is the lack of life in the sea, we remember the BVI for it’s good snorkelling but it seems Irma has taken her toll under the water as well as on land. Monkey Point always one of our favourite spots was teeming with baby fish but with very little coral the reef fish were missing.

The sea is still a remarkable blue, the beaches are of soft sand and the green hills of the islands still make for a stunning back drop.

Cane Garden Bay

Having six people onboard has rather embarrassingly shown exactly how much we have spread out over the past four years, emptying lockers and clearing bunks took us a couple of days but by Saturday there was plenty of room for everyone. The cooking and washing up is a bit of a mission, the beer seems to somehow be disappearing and the rails are permanently full of damp towels. However the conversation is good, the laughter is loud and trips ashore frequent, I think everyone is having fun, despite the captain dishing out cleaning tasks.

Crew earning their keep