Virgin Gorda - in the BVIs
07 February 2017 | Virgin Gorda
Virginia and Dennis Johns
We had a long 12 hour sail yesterday, downwind. We left Anguilla at first light, which we thought would be 0530 to 0600, but we were sitting in the cockpit ready to go at that time and it was still very dark. We brought up anchor at 0615 and headed for Virgin Gorda. The wind was as predicted and so we thought we would have a nice long spinnaker run, making the sail less than 12 hours - perfect just what we had hoped. After we rounded the corner of Anguilla and got on our course we put up the spinnaker - went up so easy and as Dennis looked up from the bow and me from the cockpit, securing our respective lines, we both felt the anticipation of a nice smooth sail. Two seconds later we saw our workhorse sail that got us all across the pacific and around the world to this point, tear before our eyes. We had to quickly bring it back in and set up the jib and mainsail in a wing-on-wing configuration. It was still a nice downwind sail, but not as fast, so we were arriving Virgin Gorda as the sun set and by the time we got the anchor set it was definitely dark. Virginia was on the bow with a headlamp. But some of that was because we weren't happy with our first two tries - a bit close to some of the other (many) boats here and decided to try and get a bit further away. We had some fairly big swells on the journey, but coming from behind not as bad as other angles for us.
When we had said our goodbyes to the cruisers back in Sint Maarten they had told us that we might have swell on this passage but when we got inside that first BVI set of reefs at Virgin Gorda we would give a big sigh of relief, as we shouldn't see any swell during our time in the BVIs.
We are in the North Gorda Sound anchored behind Prickly Pear Island, near the Bitter End. This is a huge bay with many different spots to explore. Today we will move the boat over to Gun Creek where we can supposedly check in. We had first planned on clearing into the country in Spanish Town, but some other cruisers in Sint Maarten had directed us here where there is now an additional check in and it is not as busy as the port of Spanish Town. We will spend one more night here and then go onto Nanny Cay Marina in Tortola tomorrow where we have a reservation to await the arrival of our next set of visitors, college buddies. We are hoping to find a sailmaker there who can repair our spinnaker, or make us a new one. It came with the boat and looked well used then, so it has had a nice life.
All's well aboard.