Monday 27th April - Norman Island BVI

Mor Toad / Moy Toad
David and Jocelyn Fawcett
Fri 1 May 2015 15:30
Tonight is our last night ( emotions running quite high) at sea by tomorrow night we shall be In the Marina at Nanny Cay on Tortola ready to sort the boat out, pack up our stuff and hand Mor Toad over to the delivery skipper who will be sailing it back to St Mawes with our son Oliver on board and two other crew. We all have a couple of weeks left in the BVI before flying home time to be spent with the cousins and generally chilling and making the most of the last couple of weeks so The Adventure is not over yet.

In true Fawcett tradition we had Spaghetti Bolognase made by the skipper and several glasses of wine. This was preceded by sundowners on the beach in a bay on Norman Island. Merryn was determined this was going to happen the deciding factor being The Pringles and Popcorn which are obviously very important constituent of a 'sundowner' We haven't had a sundowner on the beach for several nights now!

We arrived here at 3 pm and left the skipper cooking whilst the rest of us went round the corner to snorkel in the caves of Treasure Island repute. We didn't find treasure but certainly a lot of fish, some coral and very pretty rocks. In the past few days we have done a lot of snorkelling in various spots and seem to have swapped Turtle spots for Sting Rays and Barracuda plus all the other fish.

Prior to arriving at Norman Island we had been on Peter Island - private beach belonging to the hotel which was originally built by a Norwegian but there is a notice welcoming yachtsman to use the beach. Another lovely anchorage and we did a walk to the top of the island in the morning before we left. Amazing views of the bay and the islands surrounding us with such clear turquoise blue water around. We going to miss this.

Before Peter Island we had spent the night on a mooring just off a very small island with a red telephone box called Marina Cay with a hotel on it Pussers. This was close to the airport on Tortola and where we had agreed to pick up Alex and Oliver's cousin Sarah and family the next day Sunday.

We had in fact already seen them at The Boulders where we were heading the last time I wrote the Blog after Anegada. I apologise as everything has got quite out of sync with my blog writing partly poor internet and a lot going on in our final days.

After our morning spent trying to unblock the toilet we had a short sail to The Boulders. ( very similar to the ones in Cape Town and on The Similans in Thailand). Amazing granite boulders heaped on top of one another both on the land and in the water creating wonderful little pools amongst them and tunnels to explore . On the first afternoon there we just had fun exploring and swimming. As its a marine park you moor off but either then have to take the dinghy to tie up to some buoys just off the beach and then swim in or swim from the boat. Quite a busy spot but overnight only 3 boats actually stayed there and we still not sure whether it was an overnight spot but we weren't challenged and it did mean that very first thing in the morning around 7.00am we were able to take the dinghy and all swim ashore (taking a body board for Sam to lie on wearing his swim jacket and Merryn partially swimming on her own or getting a ride on Alex's back ) and explore the path through the boulders, up and down ladders and at one point using a rope to haul oneself up a very large Boulder. A beautiful spot and we were the first ashore that morning.

The next excitement of the day was cousin Sarah and family arriving to see us by speedboat ( they couldn't wait for the original plan of meeting us on the Sunday ) that they share with some other families living on Tortola. This was the first time David and I had seen them for several years and Alex since she stayed with them in December and January before joining us in Barbados. Merryn and Sam have seen very few other children in the past 5 months and the end goal in Merryn's mind throughout the trip and long before was to visit 'cousin Franks Island ' so here we were finally.

They left just after lunch and we then sailed to Marina Cay.

On the Sunday morning we motored over to pick them up from a spot near the airport in Beef island and then had a great sail over to Cooper Island for lunch. Great lunch with the 11 of us and the children had great fun playing in the water and good ice creams followed by a sail back to Beef Island where we dropped them off at around 4 before sailing to Peter Island.