Monday, March 31, 2014

We dropped the buoy pendant at 8 am and headed out of Round Bay, around Privateer Point into the Sir Francis Drake Channel. As we rounded the headland the sails began to draw, and we had a fine downwind hour and a half run to Soper's Hole, BVI, at the far southwest end of Tortola. We rounded up there, dropped the sails, entered the bay and picked up a mooring ball. The harbor was pretty choppy because the wind accelerates through the mountain gap at the head of the bay, sustaining 20 knots in the mooring field.

We dinghied over to the customs and immigration building on the west side and spent $40 getting checked into and out of the British Virgin Islands. Then we dinghied across the bay to the dock at Pusser's restaurant and had lunch there. $50 for one drink each and a lunch plate. This side of the bay is fronted by beautifully painted, gingerbread trimmed buildings in bright pastels, housing quaint-looking shops and restaurants. The waterfront places were jammed when we first got there, but then a young boy carrying a bus number sign passed through, and the place emptied out as the cruise ship passengers exited.

After our lunch we went back aboard, hoisted the dink and headed back out into the channel eastbound 6 miles to Norman Island where we picked up a mooring and took a swim. Then we took the dink to a rocky beach inside the bight for Toby to take a walk. We dinghied out the bight, around the south headland to some caves that also have mooring buoys with a two-hour limit for people to snorkle the caves. We did that while Toby watched from the dink. The buoys were quite busy, with boats coming in, all aboard jumping in for the caves, then leaving soon after. We tied to the dinghy mooring with 4 other dinghies. I didn't find the caves very interesting, with very little coral evident on the rocks inside or outside and consequently few fish. The biggest cave goes back into the vertical rock face about a hundred feet and shallows up until you can stand on the gravelly bottom at the back.

Back at the boat we used the cockpit shower to get the salt off, then relaxed a couple of hours before dinner. We had decided to delay celebrating Sherri's birthday to tonight with dinner ashore at Pirate's Restaurant, at the head of Norman's Bight. The fresh tuna dinner was very good, helped along with a nice chardonnay, and the setting was beautiful. The restaurant is set at the top of the sandy beach in palm trees. There is a huge dock extending into the bay for dinghies or smaller powerboats, and the view from the restaurant is down the bight with its hundred or so moored boats highlighted by the sunset over St. John.