Anegada, BVI

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Mon 23 Apr 2012 02:28

18:43.31N 64:23.06W

Friday, Saturday and Sunday – 20th, 21st & 22nd April

Another early morning for poor Simon and Caroline (hardly a holiday, this more like a route march by sea) so that we could get to the ‘Baths’ on Virgin Gorda and nab a buoy rather than have to dinghy over from Spanish Town about a mile or so away.   Believe it or not we left at 0630hrs and secured one ahead of the gang of charter yachts about 20 minutes behind us….

It was again a wonderful experience:  the water was much clearer than our previous visit and although the seas seemed calmer, the surges were worse – perhaps it is to do with the almost non-existent tides?   And we almost had the place to ourselves at that time in the morning.

After a second breakfast, we headed off for a leisurely sail round upwind to North Sound anchoring near Saba Rock, just in front of Il Sogno.   This is where we will be dropping the Evans’ off later in the week.   We all had a swim and while showers were ensuing, I swam off to Il Sogno to invite them to join us for Happy Hour at Saba Rock.   As I approached I spotted an enormous, ugly, evil, lurking Barracuda about 4’ long, underneath their keel.   For the first time in ages I was wearing my watch (they go for shiny things) and panicking big time; swam fast for Il Sogno’s swim ladder and was going to beg a lift back, only to discover they were ashore -  no dinghy, no lift and the swim ladder was not down.   Hasty retreat to Serafina where Simon was kind enough to point out that I couldn’t hope to out-swim the damn thing anyway!

We had a happy Happy Hour or so, including feeding the Tarpon again and their ‘pet’ Barracuda (nowhere near as big as mine), and supper ashore as well.   We concluded that as Anegada was only 14 miles away, we could have a more measured departure and left around 0900hrs.

Anegada is another island almost completely surrounded by reef and the small harbour within the reef was going to be quite a challenge for a yacht with a deep draft such as ours, but I was keen to go:  when I had worked out here (yes, very familiar phrase now) we used to take the flotilla up there every fortnight but other charter yachts were banned, in pre-chart plotter days, in attempting to find their way through the reef.   In those days there was one hotel with a beach hut bar, beautiful coloured water and the rays used to leap out of the water at dusk.   I had also seen a Humpback Whale breach on the way up there once.

Sadly today it was very well populated with buoys (and a flotilla was in), the sea is very milky/murky and the whole bay is developed with another small hotel,  several restaurants (all serving expensive lobster) and a rather ugly quay with street lighting.   Inland there were even concrete roads, a roundabout, and time enough for a quite extensive car graveyard to have developed! (No cars at all in my day!)

When we arrived there were several kite surfers very expertly threading their way through the mooring field.   Later in the day the surfers launched their kites again and Simon spotted Richard Branson through the binoculars!   His group appeared to have kited up from Necker to Anegada for lunch and were now returning (15 miles).   Luckily they did have a launch with them as one amongst their number was not demonstrating such skill and was disappearing downwind!  

We took a short walk inland to try and find the salt pond where they have reintroduced the flamingo.   We did eventually find this up a short path, but it was very smelly and not a bird in sight.   So back for a sundowner and then back to Serafina for supper.   Actually there is a nice atmosphere of a more chaotic Caribbean flavour than in the rest of the BVIs which was nice to find.  We rounded off the evening with another game of Mexican Train which Simon was tactless enough to win.

We had contemplated hiring scooters for the morning but at $50 a shot and a grey sky we decided to follow the other departing yachts and headed back to Virgin Gorda.   The wind had swung round to due south, so we were going to be close-hauled again but with fairly light airs apart from the occasional rain squall going through. We had a great sail down and only motored the final half mile into the sound.

We had a cooling-off swim on our arrival and after lunch delivered Simon and Caroline to their hotel (Bitter End Resort).   Unfortunately during the dinghy launch I did spot that damn Barracuda loitering under our boat now.

In the evening the Evans kindly invited us for a sundowner and then we returned to a very sultry Serafina and thought longingly of their air fan the cold running water in their swanky hotel room!