Benares Bay
Norman Island, British Virgin Islands.
A gorgeous Easter Saturday, hot cross buns baking, Alan off diving…a peaceful hour or so. I have dragged myself away from watching the pelicans fishing in the bay. They fly high up onto the land side of the water so their shadows don’t frighten the fish then dive in scooping up the fish darting about in the crystal clear edges of the bay. I suppose they don’t really dive they swoop down then at the last minute they blunder into the water with a huge splash. The little shags following in their path dive elegantly right under the water and pick up the left overs.
After leaving the lovely Barbuda we went up to St Barths where we spent a night anchored amongst the beautiful large sailing yachts gathered for the St Barths Bucket a regatta for yachts 100ft and over. The next day we continued on to St Martins/St Maartens, a small island with French govern on one side and Dutch on the other with a huge lagoon in the middle. The lagoon is accessed through an opening bridge on both sides. The Dutch bridge is busiest as it is wider and accesses the deepest part of the Lagoon which has several marinas and every service that you need for yachts and motor launches. You could say St Maartens is the Marine shopping mall for the Caribbean. The Dutch side is for chandleries as well as all things practical the French side as you would expect is for food, clothes and laundry.
We followed a large superyacht through the bridge, he had centimetres to spare, we had metres to spare. I am not sure how much he had under his keel at most we had 2 metres in the channel. We gingerly went around the channel and found a spot to anchor on the Dutch side but shifted the next day to the French side as we needed to check in and be legal. The French side costs 5 Euros for the official procedure of clearing customs the Dutch charge about 40 Euros consequently the French portion of the Lagoon is packed with cruisers leaving ample room on the Dutch side. The Super yachts fill up the marinas. There seem to be two types of cruisers in St Martin Lagoon , those who come to access the chandleries and many services before continuing on with their dream and then those who have arrived, found a job and stayed, the dream shelved for years if not permanently. The unfortunate thing is that many of these working “cruisers” have forgotten to keep up the boat maintenance. There were many abandoned looking boats but in reality most had someone living on board. The state of their boats is probably due to spending time helping those of us who are passing through. The Chandleries and many businesses are staffed by these knowledgeable people who will freely tell you where to get something if they cannot provide the item you need. Every morning there is a Net on the VHF giving information for yachties, where anything can be bought, sold or traded. Want a wind generator rebuild? One of the permanent yachties says yes he can do that. Where to buy a whosit for a whatsit? Someone replies and says yes he has one of those things where he works, go and see him.
We were joined at St Martin’s by Yindee Plus, Tactical Directions and Innamorata all having dragged themselves away from Barbuda a couple of days after us. We hadn’t seen the Yindee family since Las Palmas so great to catch up and note the boys had grown another inch or so. After a week of shopping and fixing it was time to leave. A forecast of no wind stretched well into the following week so no point delaying the overnight motor sail to the British Virgins. Tuatara followed Tactical Directions and Innamorata out of the bridge, waved to the Happy Hour drinkers at the St Maartins yacht club and turned north. Well the other two did, I decided my stomach cramps that had been bothering me since lunch( dodgy Chicken ???) weren’t good for an overnight passage so we anchored in Simpson Bay to see what would happen. Near us was another Kiwi boat, Muskatelle with Barbara, Peter and Wifi the cat. We had emailed and talked on the radio but never met. The next morning I felt a lot better so Barbara and Peter came over for a long morning tea, which filled up a chunk of the day before we left for our overnight passage to Virgin Gorda.
We motor sailed through the night across the unusually smooth Anegada Passage. Lights of yachts, cruise liners and fishing boats floated past in the dark. By 7am we were entering Necker Island passage just 3 miles from our anchorage in North Sound and the wind came in! We decided to forego calling in to enjoy breakfast with Richard Branson on Necker Island instead we furled in the genoa and motored into the Sound to catch up with our Aussies and Brit friends. Sid and Wilf (Yindee Plus)gave us a cheery wave as their dad hauled up the anchor, they assured us they would be back for Carols(Innamorata) birthday the next day.
North Sound is home of the Bitter End Yacht club as well as Saba rock which is a very small island covered in resort buildings. The most buildings I have ever seen on such a small island, just a rock really. The wind was zapping in through the gap past Saba rock, the kite surfers were having a great time. Our anchorage off Prickly Pear Island was calm and we had front row view of some yacht racing. Tuatara and Innamorata were obviously anchored in the territory of a large turtle. In the space between us he would pop his head up every half hour or so give us a leisurely look and just as I got my camera focused he would disappear into the blue.
We gathered for Carols birthday a nice celebration but also a little sad as it was to be the last time we would see the Yindee Plus family for a while. They are heading off to America for the summer, hopefully our paths will meet again next year.
We left North Sound and headed to the Baths just south of Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda Island. The Baths is a national park. Huge boulders along a sandy beach create a maze of paths and tunnels through shallow pools. There are mooring buoys in the bay for the big boats to pick up then another set of buoys for the dinghy and you swim the last 30 metres to the golden sand. The Virgin Gorda Baths are in my book of 1001 natural wonders of the world… so been there ticked that off. They are worth the listing.

The BVIs have been a pleasant surprise not as crowded as we expected. There are lots of charter boats and some very popular anchorages but there is plenty of room to spread out and lots of nice places the charterers don’t venture because there are no mooring buoys. Alan has also been enjoying some diving and snorkeling. He has company of other divers and it helps that Tactical Directions has a compressor to refill the bottles. They have dived on the 150 year old wreck of the mail ship the Rhone as well as off Deadmans Island and the Indians. A mix of wreck and coral dives. Alan also snorkeled into the caves on Norman Island, where pirate treasure was supposedly hidden by Blackbeard and some of his mates.
Our favourite place here has to be Deadmans bay on Peter Island. A couple of lovely sandy beaches, clear water for swimming, good company and the all important free Wifi. Deadmans Island off the bay is where the piratical saying.. “fifteen men on a dead mans chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,” comes from. Blackbeard upset with his crew marooned 15 of his errant crew with their sea chests and a bottle of rum.
Peter Island is privately owned with a resort amongst the palms, a few discreet Villas spread over the hills and some walking tracks for all including yachties who are welcome on the island. The charter yachts are told that it is really only a lunch stop so they all come at 11 and go at 3 leaving lots of room for those of us who stay the night.
Today is now Tuesday time to get this completed and posted before we head off to Culebra Island, one of the Spanish Virgins(Puerto Rico) tomorrow. This morning we have picked up a mooring in Grand Harbour on Jost van Dyke Island where we will check out and have a drink at the famous Foxy’s Bar. Tuatara is going to be a few days ahead of Innamorata, Tactical Directions and Eye Candy, not sure if we will catch up with them again this year as they are all heading north to the US. It has been great traveling with them all, Alan especially has enjoyed their company for diving. This time we have had in the BVIs has been like a lovely summer holiday, a bit different than the usual cruising. We have had lots of sun, sand, diving and swimming. We are looking forward to the Spanish Virgins as they are reputedly lovelier than here, so tomorrow afternoon we will see for ourselves.