Tuesday 7 to Friday 10 April 2015

 

After some more barnacle scraping the propeller is now clear and we motored the short distance to Cooper Island.  We had been losing nearly 2 knots under engine because of the muck on the propeller and hull, which is a lot when we would only expect 6 knots at economic cruising revs.  We also had some vibration from the prop.  Now we were nearly back to normal speeds and the vibration was gone.

 

At Cooper Island boats were lying in all directions which means they were swinging in the current.  The mooring field occupied the shallower waters (always the case at Cooper) and the areas available to anchor were in very deep water.  The amount of anchor chain we need to let out is a minimum of three times the depth of water which is not normally a problem when boats are not swinging.  But at this depth our arc of movement would be very large and therefore the risk of collision with another boat doing the same thing would be quite high so we reluctantly picked up one of the three remaining mooring buoys.  Within 15 minutes the other buoys were taken as well.

 

The resort on Cooper Island was bought out by an English couple a few years ago and considerably upgraded with some nice accommodation.  We booked a table for dinner and set about finishing off the hull scraping.  Not too much of a chore in 26 degree clear water but we were glad to finish the job.

 

After lunch we explored ashore but the position of the new buildings means they are completely sheltered from the wind.  Ideal in the UK but it makes it intolerably hot in the Caribbean when the afternoon sun beats down.  But everything had been done very nicely.

 

The evening menu prices were high enough to suggest fine dining.  We thought we would ‘push the boat out’ but were surprised when water was served in plastic cups.  It turned out to be very Americanised and there was a feeling of ‘process’ about the evening.  So for us it was good but not good enough to justify the cost.

 

 

Some of the accommodation ashore:-

 

 

 

 

The resort is in a nice setting under the palm trees:-

 

 

 

 

Our next intended stop was Savannah Bay on Virgin Gorda but this required a slog upwind and as the breeze had picked up a lot we concluded we were too lazy to bother with that!  Instead we sailed under genoa only slightly downwind across the Francis Drake channel to Maya Cove on Tortola where we anchored for lunch.  The anchorage was pretty but turned out to be rather rolly so during the afternoon we moved around Buck Island into the Fat Hog’s Bay and took a mooring ball. 

 

We have not been to Fat Hog’s since picking up a charter boat here on honeymoon, the three subsequent occasions we had started from elsewhere.  The pilot book talks breathlessly of redevelopment ashore and there has been but much of it is on hold and what has been finished doesn’t seem to be well supported.  We did find a good Riteway supermarket, the best so far in the BVI’s, a chandlery and a good laundry.  We used all three but the place was, in Lin’s words, rather desolate.  We would return in future only to use one or more of those facilities but would make it a brief stop and move on again to avoid an overnight stay.

 

The next day the wind was still blowing pretty hard so we motored a few miles around the east end of Tortola and Beef Island to anchor again in Trellis Bay where we waited a couple of days for the wind to blow through.

 

 

 

When at Cooper Island we did see a lot of turtles.  Most of our attempts at photographs failed as they are usually too far away but you can just about make out this one before it dived down again:-