After leaving cdc to cross the mona passage we had a successful night-sail across it picking up the Puerto Rican coast with no problem, only to find that the wind was 20 knots on the nose and tide against us - what's new! Short tacking for a good few hours didn't give us very good headway so Captain Dog suggested we try some long tacks, which we did, going 20 miles out and 20 miles back, only to discover only to discover we'd managed to progress the sum total of 12 miles! After sailing all day and through the night we'd made 50 miles in a 24 hour period so decided to pull in under yellow flag into caje de muertos for a bit of respite from the bashing. Also, Dave wanted to get into a bit of lee so he could drop over the side and inspect the prop as we were uncertain as to whether we may have picked up yet something else around it because our progress had been so slow. As it happened it was clear.

As we approached the anchorage a police launch left the small dock and headed out straight towards us. We thought "here we go, they're not going to let us stop" but were relieved when they just gave us a friendly wave and carried on towards the mainland. We were the only boat at this beautiful anchorage and had a very peaceful night after a refreshing dip in the water. There are a few guys on the island who are rangers or researchers, looking after the wildlife, along with some buildings housing, we presume, visitor centre etc. At least we could tick off Puerto Rico as another visited Country.

After a good scoff and a few beers we had a kip and made an early start in the morning. We motor-sailed for a few hours and then decided to put up the full rig and go for the BVI's through the night. It was a great sail up the eastern side of Puerto Rico making a perfect landfall at the BVI's just after daybreak. We sailed through the island passages past St John's (USVI) and dropped anchor in Road Town Tortola which is a clearing in point.

Clearing in was fairly straightforward but the immigration officer lady was the most miserable, rude, unfriendly and unhelpful person we have ever come across in the Caribbean. She moaned at Fi's mistake on the form (easily remedied by crossing it out!) and asked for a dollar. When Dave asked what this was for she replied that it was for the forms we had just completed. Dave asked for a receipt at which point she threw the dollar back and said she couldn't be bothered to write a receipt for a dollar. She must make a few bucks this way. It's sometimes hard to keep your mouth shut when such officious officials are rude but we have to remember that they can easily refuse us admittance so it's great training in discipline!

The outboard engine was found to have finally given up the ghost so after a lot of deliberating we decided we would have to splash out for another. In the meantime, we pulled into a marina for the night to enable laundry, water, fuel and supermarket shopping where we bumped into cruising friends Jan and Richard on Scorpio. We knew they were in the BVI's but didn't expect to see them quite so soon! We made arrangements to meet up again in a few days at one of the other islands where they are anchored.

Hole in pocket later, with outboard engine bought, we headed off for Norman Island just a few miles away and had a very enjoyable sail there under headsail alone. After dropping anchor we made a dinghy trip around the point to go snorkelling where we saw baraccuda, parrot fish, tangs, damsels, rainbow runners and FI's FIRST SHARK! (she didn't realise it was one for a while and then, after Dave had been pointing it out to her for ages, was needless to say quite taken aback when she did finally spot it and the penny dropped!).

We celebrated this first snorkel we'd had for ages with a great night on the "Willy T", a floating bar-restaurant where it appears it is the tradition to bare as much as you dare with a rolling screen of photos to prove it! The next day Fi spent recovering so it was fortunate the day was unusually overcast and cool.

We headed around the corner to Soldier Bay for a night and had no option but to pick up a mooring as there was no room to anchor. We had the whole bay to ourselves until the evening and spent the day sunning, snorkelling and walking on the beach to find a pebble or small rock to take home for Dad from Norman Island as a momento. We thought we'd got away without paying but lo and behold a very nice lady came out on a boat at sundown to collect the $20 for the mooring (after which we made the decision never to pick up another mooring!).

The next day we moved on to Benures Bay where we eventually managed to anchor in fairly deep water. We were joined, unexpectedly, by Scorpio which was a great surprise and we went aboard, armed with our veggie curry, to share and have sundowners with them. Again a lovely anchorage.

The following day we all headed to Road Town for supplies before meeting up at Peter Island in Great Harbour where again it's deep anchoring but we found a great spot - lovely and quiet and peaceful with great views of the other islands. Richard and Jan suggested a dive on RMS Rhone the next day and came to collect Dave whilst Fi stayed onboard at anchor and caught up with some chores. They came to us for sundowners that evening before parting company the next day as they had to get ready for a boat show the following weekend.

We headed on to Deadman Bay, the next anchorage around, where the Peter Island Resort has a bar/restaurant on the beach as well as watersports, hammocks, sun shades etc. We went for a few drinks at their bar and watched a small steel band playing. It was enjoyable seeing the pans again but unfortunately the atmosphere was lacking, which was just as well as we couldn't afford to stay very long! We also went snorkelling but, apart from a really good sighting of a turtle we didn't see too much. A couple were brought onto the secluded beach where we had landed our dinghy, apparently celebrating their 30th anniversary, and warned Dave as we went off snorkelling that "you don't want to be here in an hour". When we got back to retrieve the dinghy we didn't know where to look as they both sat their lounging around starkers - not a pretty sight I can assure you!

From their we headed to Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, via "The Baths" where a pathway through giant boulder formations lead you to another beach, with pools of water amongst them. It's quite a tourist attraction so "it had to be done".

Spanish Town was a handy stop for provisioning, getting the laundry done, and watching the FA Cup and the England v Australia cricket final. We also met "Doc" Dick and Lizzie, on Indian Summer, who happen to know our good friends Roger and Vicki (there again, who doesn't know them!?) so again, a small world. We had evenings on each other's boats and a few drinks at the bar watching sport before we parted company as they prepared to sail down to Curacao via Puerto Rico.

After almost a week we set off for North Sound, an easy sail of a few hours up island. We anchored just off the Bitter End yacht club and resort in very deep water and went ashore for a couple of hours to get a few supplies. It was sooooooooo expensive we didn't stay long and the next morning sailed over to Gun Creek where we were the only boat at anchor.

A visit ashore took us to the local, well stocked supermarket where we bought a few provisions then asked the storekeepers to hold them whilst we went for a walk. A discussion with them and a lady shopper resulted in her giving us a lift to the top of the very steep hill (we'd never had made it walking in the midday sun!) and a little walk further on brought us to a local bar (how unusual) where we had a great chat with the very friendly owner and his friend whilst we recovered our strength for the downhill walk back to the bay. We stayed at this anchorage, relaxing, for two nights before moving on to Marina Cay, just at the north end of Tortola.

Marina Cay is a small island with a bar, restaurant, Pussers store and about 4 holiday cottages as well as a fuel and water dock, laundry etc. It has a reef behind it which promised good snorkelling but we were very disappointed as it lacked the key ingredient - fish! After a quick trip back to the boat and a shower and change we went ashore for happy hour, to find about five charter boat crews, with a husband and wife team of "holiday organisers" who promptly started competitions between the crews, the first of which was to sing a pirate song. We were invited to enter so, even more to my surprise than theirs, we stood up and sang the Hardway song. We got a lot of applause and cheering at the end and, guess what - we won! The prize was a couple of shots of rum (oops!) so we downed them in one then refrained from entering any further competitions for fear of winning again!
The next morning we headed off towards Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke but decided to pull in to an anchorage on Monkey Point, Guana Island. Guana Head is a point of the island where a large rock protrudes from the cliffs and looks just like, yes you've guessed, an iguana (so why isn't it called Iguana Island?) There were several moorings but we managed to find a large patch of sand in about 5m of water and dropped the hook for what turned out to be 3 really enjoyable, relaxing nights.

We had some of the best snorkelling here that we've had perhaps ever in the Caribbean for variety of fish. Amongst them were: several types of parrot fish, a morray eel, at least 3 turtles that I can recall, two spotted eagle rays swimming along together right in front of us, a few fair sized baraccudas (one of which loitered menacingly under the keel as we swam back to the boat!), a nurse shark, French angel fish, butterfly fish, damsels, butterfly fish, tangs, bar jacks, trunkfish, first ever spotted drum, a long fish with a black 1in vertical stripe in the middle of it's belly, a couple of large fish we couldn't identify, a beautiful electric blue and yellow angel fish (must look it up on the net!), something like a boxfish, trumpet fish, grunts, and others we're not sure of so won't guess....

So, we then went to Foxy's, for the "Wooden Boat Regatta". It was a great place and we were pleased to see our old friends from Grenada Classics, Buxom II with (Mad!) Lindsey and Colin aboard, sail into the harbour. Only four boats took part this year but a good time was had by all and dancing every night was the norm. When we finally said goodbye to the BVI's and headed out for St Maarten we had heavy hearts as we had fallen in love, once again, with islands of the Caribbean................