Position 26.01.2014 Trellis Bay, Beef Island, Tortolla

Stream
Darrell Jackson and Sarah Barnes
Tue 4 Feb 2014 13:22
18:26.78N 64:31.92W
26th January
After leaving Road Town after breakfast last Sunday we had a short sail to the east end of Tortolla and, after rounding Sprat Point (or Bird Shit Rock to the locals), were safely moored in Trellis Bay by late morning. Trellis Bay is a very popular place for yachties ad we wanted to be certain of a mooring so managed to get there early. There were a number of vacant moorings and so we picked the one nearest to the shore. We dinghied ashore and visited the Trellis Bay Market and Delli to re-provision. We managed to get most basics, but at a price. Still no "real" milk though. No items had any prices on them and there was no pricing on the shelves, so check out is a bit "heart in the mouth" with some items eg 4 frozen fish fillets (Red Snapper) came to $29, about £18. We haven't had them yet, but they'd better be good! I wanted to pay by credit card, so first the machine had to be found and then I had to sign the receipt which was a problem as no-one had a pen. The whole queue were looking in bags and pockets and not looking too pleased with us! Eventually a non-working biro was found and the signature scratched onto the paper, much to everyone's relief, although those who had drunk the drinks they were waiting to buy were put out that they hadn't been added to our bill. C'est la vie!
27th January
Monday was spent relaxing and getting Stream ready for our new crew who were arriving that night. We had some good snorkelling from the beach in the afternoon and for the first time saw a turtle with a sucker fish (Remora sp) in close attendance. Since then we have seen this with several turtles when we have been swimming. The snorkelling was very different as it was mostly seagrass or plants, which act as a nursery for the smaller fish, rather than coral. David and Jane were due to arrive at 21.50 and expected to be on the beach waiting to be picked up by 22.30. Fortunately Tortolla's Beef Island airport is only 5 minutes walk from the beach and so when we saw a large plane land at 19.45 we commented that we would be able to see their plane land and then go over in the dinghy to pick them up. Soon after 8 the heavens opened again and we had torrential rain for over half an hour. We just hoped it would not be like that for our trip ashore. The idea of waiting for their plane to land before going ashore was abandoned due to the weather and a dry spell was used to go ashore and I arrived in the airport in time to watch the plane land.
One feature of the BVI seems to be that mobile phones are not very reliable and when I was in the airport I managed to pick up a wifi signal and get my phone messages. Imagine my horror to find that Dave and Jane had managed to get an earlier flight from Antigua and had arrived at 19.45, the plane we had watched landing! Fortunately they know the bay and I found them in Trellis Kitchen, the local cyber cafe having eaten and had a few drinks while waiting. The rain held off and the trip back to Stream with their luggage passed without incident.
It was a late night for us all, Dave and Jane were 4 hours ahead of us and we've been going to bed by 10 we've been so tired, so 12 o'clock seemed very late.