Road Harbour, Tortola, BVI

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Tue 11 Dec 2007 20:04
18:25.451N  64:36.735W
 
On Thursday (12/6), we made the quick four mile trip across the Sir Francis Drake Channel from Benures Bay on Norman Island to Road Harbour on Tortola.  Our main mission in Road Town was to have our mostly non-working depth meter looked at.  We had an appointment with an electronics guy from Cay Electronics at 10am Friday morning (12/7). 
 
We knew based on the chart that the anchoring space in Road Harbour is limited due to boat traffic, marinas, moorings and cruise ships, but we figured we could find a spot for the one night we needed to be there and avoid paying big bucks for a marina.  As we rounded the two cruise ships that were docked in the harbor, the tiny, triangle shaped anchoring area came into view.  Hmmmmm.  Four boats were already there.  As we edged in closer, paying lots attention to the water depths marked on the chart since the depth meter was still on strike, the guy on the closest anchored boat stood up in his cockpit to be sure he could give us the full brunt of his 'don't you dare anchor so close to me and my boat' evil eye stare.  We anchored close to him anyway and sat back to watch how our boat settled in.  The boat settled in fine and was a respectable distance away from evil eye guy.  However, as we sat there, we realized just how rough the water was in this area.  'Must be all the boat traffic', we said, 'it'll calm down later'.  Several hours later, after three more boats squeezed themselves into our little anchoring community - one of which was a giant catamaran from France with about 20 people on board (lots of speedo-wearing men, not that there is anything wrong with that) - it was still really rough.  Not the up and down kind of bouncing action, but more the really annoying side-to-side rolling action.  We ate dinner hanging on to our plates and drinks, and thought, 'it'll calm down'.  It didn't.  Sleeping in this rolling atmosphere was almost as bad as the night of the flying pears.  Every few minutes, just when we had drifted off to sleep, the boat would roll to one side, then the other, and repeat, one side, then the other, over and over.  Don and I would do the same in the bed - both rolling first to one side, then the other, and repeat, both rolling to one side, then the other, over and over.  All in all, a whole lot of rolling and not a whole lot of sleeping went on.
 
Never fear though, we got up in plenty of time to be ready for the electronics guy.  The plan was for Don to pick him up from shore and dinghy him back to the boat as soon as the guy called.  Ten o'clock approached and passed.  We busied ourselves doing this and that, waiting for the phone to ring.  Nothing.  By 10:30 we decided the guy must be running on Caribbean time - which runs anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours behind what the rest of us would consider to be normal time.  Not too much longer after that, the phone did indeed ring.  The electronics guy was very nice (an ex-pat from the UK, been in the islands for 23 years), determined that our problem was the transducer (Don had kind of figured that, but wasn't sure), just happened to have brought along a new transducer, popped it in (no small feat given that when you take the old one out you essentially have a gaping hole in the bottom of your boat - never fear, the switch was done smoothly and only a couple of gallons of water made it's way into the boat in the process), tested it, and proclaimed success.  We were reminded that no boat fix is cheap as Don paid the $397 it cost us, and took the guy back to shore.
 
After that, Don picked me up in the dinghy and we went to a real grocery store where they had a nice selection of produce (more than just onions and bananas).  Once back on the boat, we headed out across the Sir Francis Drake Channel again to Great Harbour on Peter Island (northeast of Norman Island), leaving Road Harbour and its rolly waters behind.
Anne