British Virgin Islands to Bermuda, Part 1
British Virgin Islands to Bermuda, May 2017 Entering the British Virgin Islands, through a stretch of water called the Virgin Sound, we passed Necker Island, owned by Virgin owner Sir Richard Branson; his yacht anchored nearby. A small island encased in white sandy beaches and palm trees.
Sir Richard Branson’s very large Catamaran We arrived at Virgin Gorda Island and motored around Leverick Bay to find a suitable spot to drop the anchor. On approach to our chosen spot Ken eased back on the revs. to slow us down. The engine faltered a little so he upped the revs and we continued on. Were we now so paranoid about our engine that maybe the falter was in our heads?! Ken put the gear lever into neutral ready to drop anchor and to our absolute horror, disappointment and lots of other non favourable emotions, the engine cut out. We were once again gutted. I dropped the anchor over the bow in silence. This scenario had become such a tedious routine there was no need for words! Plus, there was no point saying ‘reverse’ as without an engine Ken couldn’t do this to set the anchor anyway. Luckily the wind blew us astern and the anchor dug into the sandy bottom holding us in position, thankfully. Once assured we weren’t dragging onto the shore behind us the butterflies eventually left my stomach, my hands stopped shaking and the feeling of nausea eased off, however the new bout of disappointment stayed. So much for a relaxing day discovering a new island. We went through the now very familiar routine of doing everything we could to try and start the engine. Nothing. At 1500 hrs we gave up and went ashore to check in with customs and immigration at Gun Creek. We got absolutely soaked in the rib as it was quite a distance in a choppy sea. La Mischief arrived shortly after and once the paperwork had been stamped we went in search of the Salty Dawg Rally members, with whom we were sailing to Bermuda, who were meeting at Jumbies Bar. The BBQ, live music and stilt dancers made for an excellent evening and took our minds off our engine issues.
Saturday 6 May 2017 – Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda We tuned into the Salty Dawg net at 0930 hrs on VHF channel 69, then dinghied over to yacht Sapphire Blue, Bill and Linda, the Salty Dawg founders and rally organisers. They knew the island very well as had been sailing the Virgin Islands, from the US, for many years and could thus recommend an engineer. We collected our rally flag from them and registered for the couple of social events that were taking place – a trip up to Hog Heaven; a high vantage point over looking the Virgin Islands and a meal. After arranging for the engineer to come out on Monday we found a bar with wifi and listened to Worcester V Tigers and caught up on our emails. Following the provisioning in St Martin, where we stocked up with a large variety of tinned produce to see us across the 850 mile passage to Bermuda and during our stay there, as food was renowned to be expensive, especially during the America’s Cup event, we decided to try the lentils with our lunchtime salad. On opening the tin and spooning out onto our plates, the lentils appeared to be in a thick gloopy brown liquid. Scanning the French label with our Google Translate App. we discovered we had purchased fifteen tins of lentil soup. Just what you need in 28 degrees of heat! So …. rich cold gloopy lentil soup with our lettuce and tomatoes it is then! Ken printed out the Salty Dawg Rally Handbook for ourselves and a couple, Cindy and Raleigh, on a catamaran called Cinderella and we invited them over for sundowners and to collect the paperwork. It was interesting to chatter to new people and hearing their sailing stories, even if they did leave the document behind when they left! Sunday we spent aboard sorting our battery chargers and solar panel wiring. It was the first day my ankle hadn’t given me grief. Finally it was on the mend. However, by the end of the day, having been bent double in lockers, the engine bay and hanging upside down in other hard to reach places, trying to hold the heavy battery charger invertor in position above my head, while Ken screwed it in place, my foot was throbbing and I was in tears of frustration. Cinderella invited us for sundowners, which went down a lot quicker than the sun and were much appreciated after the day we’d had! First thing on Monday, having woken up more positive, Ken went ashore to collect Neron, engineer number 6. Neron seemed very thorough and found a slight fuel leak at the pressure gauge, which he tightened, plus a lose elbow joint that could potentially have been letting air into the system. He bravely tightened the joint with his adjustable spanner, where other engineers had just put PTFE tape around it saying that would suffice. They hadn’t been brave enough to tighten it fully for fear of breaking it, as it needed a complete turn to remain inline with the system. He bled the engine to start it and we ran it at varying revs., in and out of gear and it seemed fine. Whilst Ken was taking Neron back to shore I noticed fuel leaking from the pressure gauge. Ken tried to tighten it on his return, but it threaded so he removed it from the system. The engine ran fine so we weren’t too concerned. We had arranged with Neron that we would take the boat down to Spanish Town at the Southern end of the island, where he was based, for him to do some routine work on the engine mounts. It would a) give our engine a proper test and b) save paying Neron’s travel expenses to the North of the Island. That evening we met up with more Salty Dawgs, some doing the trip to Bermuda, some taking the rally to the USA. Tuesday 9 May – Leverick Bay to Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, 10 miles, 2 hrs, 2 engine hrs, 5kts av, speed Total miles: 5703.9 since leaving Falmouth August 2016 The short hop to Spanish Town Marina was in torrential rain with extremely poor visibility, so much so we had to have our fog horn blasting out every two minutes. It is a very busy area for cruisers, both yachts and motorboats of all shapes and sizes and the ferries think nothing of charging around at great speed. They have their set routes and blow their long lengthy horns if you get in their way, even if the seaman’s rules of the road state that motor vessels should give way to vessels under sail. Luckily we learned this by witnessing rather than experience! The engine didn’t falter whilst we moored up in the marina. A positive sign!
The following day it continued to rain heavily but it didn’t matter as Neron (engineer no. 6) was aboard to sort the engine mounts and the leaky joint he’d left us with on his previous visit. He started the engine to check the mounts weren’t vibrating and all was fine. When he came to start the engine for the second time it wouldn’t start. This was, by now, no surprise to Ken or myself and thank goodness it faltered whilst we were in the marina with the engineer on board and not once we’d set off for another remote Virgin Island with no facilities other than a bar! Neron opened the atomisers to bleed the engine and when it roared into life he was convinced it wasn’t air in the system as first suspected, as the fuel spurted out immediately. He said if it had air in it, the flow would have spluttered out. He went off to liaise with his boss who immediately said it was more likely an electrical fault. Ken and I looked at each other with a ‘here we go again’ expressions; we’d been here before, several times, each time costing hundreds of dollars. We had no option but to trust Neron and we had good vibes about his engine knowledge. He came back after lunch and set about testing the wiring, junction boxes, motors etc. He noticed inconsistent readings at the junction box that contains the stop solenoid. After re-wiring this he started and stopped the engine several times, running it at different revs., in and out of gear. All we could do was pray this was the fault, but until we’d done some more passages (a lot more passages!) we wouldn’t actually know, or trust it, for sure. The torrential rain continued throughout the night with huge blasts of thunder and lightening; quite scary with a 64 foot metal mast! Thursday 11 May – Spanish Town Virgin Gorda to White Bay, Jost Van Dyke (another British Virgin Island) – 23 miles, 4.3 hrs, 4.3 engine hrs, 5.35 knots average speed. Total miles: 5726.9 Today was an ‘emotional’ day. My Birthday. I opened the card and present from my Mum and Dad that they’d secretly arranged with Bill and Nicky B to bring out with them to Antigua back in March. A turquoise and silver sea horse charm for my Pandora bracelet. It is perfect and meaningful and I love it. I had an e-card and lots of lovely messages on Facebook and via e-mail. Suddenly I was feeling extremely homesick, missing family and friends, the stress of the engine over the past few months not helping the situation either. The rain cleared and we started up the engine, moved to the fuel dock, paid our marina fees whilst refuelling and were away by 1130 hrs to meet La Mischief and Oyster Bar, two of the boats who’d also done the Barbados 50 rally, at an island called Jost Van Dyke. We’d seen a lot of La Mischief on route, but not seen Karin and Holger from Oyster Bar since before Christmas. We motored to our destination, weaving through various other beautiful islands. We will need to come back to the Virgin Islands, maybe next season, as there is so much to see and do and it is so beautiful. We picked our way through the reef to the anchorage off the beach but it was fairly crowded and very shallow, in fact we could clearly see the golden sandy bottom. Perfect for catamarans, but not so good for us. All the mooring buoys were taken and there was little room left to anchor. We decided to motor back outside the reef and anchor there instead. The water was deeper, but the bottom formed of rock. After two attempts to dig the anchor in, without success, we were starting to get a bit ‘tetchy’. La Mischief arrived just as a mooring buoy became vacant and picked it up. They noticed a boat on the buoy next to them packing up to leave so radioed us to say the buoy was about to become available. Without hesitation we speedily motored back inside the reef to pick up the buoy before anyone else got there first. It was perfect and time to relax and celebrate my Birthday.
La Mischief came and picked us up in their dinghy (Dee armed with a glass of champagne for me) and we went to meet Karin and Holgar at the famous ‘Soggy Dollar Bar’. Famous for swimming ashore, handing over your soggy dollar in exchange for a drink – a lethal, but gorgeous Pain Killer – rum, coconut milk, orange juice with ice and a sprinkle of nutmeg. We were moored too far from the bar to swim with our dollars, but still had the Pain Killers. The setting was stunning and we were soon in afternoon party mode.
Prior to eating out that evening we went back to the boat for a leisurely swim with La Mischief, showered and they collected us again in their dinghy and we headed off to Great Harbour where Oyster Bar were moored, just around the corner. A fabulous meal at Foxy’s with live music and dancing on the tables. The Pain Killers had certainly numbed the pain in my ankle and I was making the most of it!! We met some other yachties and generally had a great fun time.
The following day we returned to the Soggy Dollar Bar, had more Pain Killers (purely medicinal), met up with our sailing friends and others we’d met and invited everyone back to Lady Rebel for drinks and nibbles at 1730 hrs. After they’d all gone, Steve and Dee invited us onboard La Mischief for a BBQ before going on to another bar for more live music. We quickly got changed, lowered our dinghy and went over to them armed with some beer and wine. It was very quiet on board and on entering we noticed Dee asleep in the cockpit and Steve spark out in the saloon. We decided not to disturb them so went back to Lady Rebel and promptly fell asleep out ourselves!! Sat 13 May – White Bay, Jost Van Dyke to Nanny Cay, Tortola (BVI’s), 11 miles, 2 hours, 5.5 knots av speed Total miles: 5737.9 The Salty Dawg rally were departing from Nanny Cay Marina to Bermuda on Monday 15 May and had organised some social functions, weather meetings, SSB radio meetings and a bus to the large supermarket for provisioning, on 13, 14 May prior to departure. We moored successfully in the new outer marina without engine issues and checked in to the marina office. We finished wiring in the new SSB radio, then following a weather webinar by the weather guru for this area, Chris Parker, joined the others for happy hour and a beach BBQ. It gave us a chance to meet some of the other participants, chat about our sailing experiences, the future passage and our plans in general. Sunday 14 May – Nanny Cay Marina, Tortola We tried listening in on the morning net on our new SSB radio, but without much success and it appeared we weren’t able to transmit. This was very disappointing as SSB radio is such a vital piece of equipment for staying in contact with people many miles away and boats certainly get spread miles apart on a long passage. The morning and evening net would keep us in contact with the other boats, plus we would receive daily weather reports and other important information. We took the shopping bus and did our last minute provisioning. Ken spent the rest of the day programming the radio and trying to fathom out the instruction manual, which we soon learned was a language unto itself and I cooked up some meals ready for our long trip. We calculated it would probably take 6-8 days to reach Bermuda so we wanted to be well prepared in case of rough weather. We attended the weather briefing at 1630 hrs, showered, caught up on e-mails as we’d be offline for a while and phoned family. After all, we would be nearing The Bermuda Triangle! We then relaxed at the Salty Dawg farewell party. |
Necker Island 
