The prevailing winds have clocked right and are now just south of east -what  this means to non-sailors  it makes for a sparkling sail northbound along the Francis Drake Passage with Tortola, Beef Island, The Dogs etc to our left and Cooper Island, Dead Man's Chest, Ginger Island and Virgin Gorda to our right.  The weather was idyllic and to make things even better we finished the passage to North Sound, Virgin Gorda amongst at least five J Class Yachts practicing in the straights between Virgin Gorda and Anegada.  (Apparently there are only 7 active J Class Yachts world wide so this was some gathering indeed).   Emulating the 9 bowman on one of the Js the two of us dropped our headsail on our final approach through the channel heading into North Sound, Virgin Gorda.    Mainsail down, Nigel spotted Magnum, last seen in Antigua and we found an anchorage near them very close to Saba Rock and Bitter End joining them for a few drinks and exchange of stories since we had last seen each other.   

Next morning we explored around in the rubber dinghy in calm, desert island conditions and explored the area.  We visited the Bitter End Yacht Club (a hotel complex really rather than a Club) and then Saba Rock itself - another hotel restaurant famous for it's three Toucans (known as Threecans) and the daily feeding of the enormous Tarpons - some of which weight 60lb!  Like Pavlov's dog they turn up each evening to the dockside at 4.30pm ready for the 5 o'clock feed!    When we drifted round the seaward side of Saba we found ourselves approaching the idyllic Caribbean beach on the north coast of Prickly Pear Island facing Necker Island (Richard Branson's Caribbean hideway).   What a beautiful spot this was, the beach was deserted apart from one other couple who engaged us in conversation.  They were an American couple, Kelly and Todd, from Minnesota who were sailing their HUGE  catamaran, "Parrot Play".    This beach was so far the best beach we had visited on our trip, a long white beach and shallow clear blue water.  We also had the fantastic sight of a lone flamingo which decided to settle nearby.     

Later in the evening we decide to go to the Saba Rock bar for happy hour - in time to see the huge tarpons being fed - we bumped into Kelly and Todd and had a few cocktails with them which eventually led to having even more rum on board Parrot Play!    

We spent a couple of evening on Saba Rock and we were then going to move on back to Tortola to Trellis Bay (easy dingy access to the airport)  to await the arrival of Kayleigh and George who were coming out to join us for a 10 days.  

After George and Kayleigh arrival late on the Friday, we set off on the Saturday to show them the island we were now fairly familiar with.   We took them to the Baths, The Caves, Willy Ts in the Bight, Saba Rock, and the aforementioned beach before setting off the following weekend on a short sail of 14 miles to the island of Anagada.      This is a low lying coral reef island protecting the Virgin Islands from the Atlantic swell.