Tortola, BVI

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 28 Mar 2014 14:57

Tues, Wed & Thurs – 25th, 26th & 27th March

 

We have been rather unadventurous this week and spent Tuesday doing all the laundry and taking advantage of the strong wifi signal at Saba Rock in North Sound, Virgin Gorda.

 

On Wednesday we made an early start to sail down to the group of small islands called endearingly ‘the Dogs’ where we picked up a free day buoy so that we could spend an hour snorkelling on the reefs and caves there.  We had tried to go there on Monday, but the buoys were all occupied.  The idea is that the buoys are there so boats can stop and snorkel and then move on and let someone else use the buoy with a 90 minute limit, but to our annoyance there was one boat that had no swimmers in the water and were just sitting there doing nothing. We asked if they were moving soon and they casually replied that they were staying for a further hour!  Tough to take, but they were flying an OCC burgee which made this slightly worse in our eyes as they had seen that we too belonged to that club. Name, boat name and home address can be supplied……

 

Anyway we were fine this time and had a terrific swim and hopefully got quite a few good and fun photos although the barracuda I encountered was too big to fit in just the one photo. They are such mean looking critters.  Sarah was in seventh heaven as she found one shallow inlet that had the most amazing stones and she eventually swam back to the boat with any number stuffed into her swimwear!  If she is ever found drowned with her clothing full of rocks, I am probably not going to be able to dodge the rap, but it is all her own doing honest.

 

Once showered we immediately vacated the buoy to the joy of the nearest of the circling boats. The wind was a steady 12 to 15 knots from the ENE and so for the first time since Maine, we flew Flossie, our FMG headsail (Flipping massive genoa) and had the most wonderful sail right down the north side of Tortola all the way to Soper’s Hole.  We (well, Sarah) had opted for this route as she had been told about a mother and calf Humpback whales in this area and so an eagle eyed watch was kept as we flew down the coast and this was rewarded when Sarah saw one breaching to the north east of Jost Van Dyke island.

 

Made our way then into Soper’s Hole where Bill & Linda on Sapphire had arranged for us to again have the free buoy below the row of millionaire’s mansions.

 

On Thursday I went off into Road Town with Bill in a borrowed car, to do some shopping but principally to draw out some cash.  For some reason there are few ATM machines in the BVI’s and when you do find them they are normally empty! What is it about banks and common sense?

 

The forecast is for the biggest swells of the winter to come sweeping down from the NE starting on Friday along with some stronger winds and so we will probably just hunker down here for a while and let it all pass through before we press on back to the USVI.