British Virgins do still exist.....

After our recuperative week in St Thomas from the beatings, we headed to St John, another of the US Virgin Islands, to anchor in Caneel Bay - a beautiful bay with a sandy beach, clear waters and blue skies. Like most anchorages in the area now, in order to accommodate more cruisers safely (and to generate some income), the bays are filled with mooring balls.  You sneak slowly up on one of these balls with someone (me) hanging off the front of the boat, grab the short tether line with a boat hook, pull it up and tie your two mooring lines to the massive eye on the mooring line itself. The line disappears down into the water to be attached, usually, to a large block of concrete on the sea bed.  These moorings leave you unnervingly close to the other boats, but with a short line to the bottom, the boat does not move much as the winds and currents change, making for a higher density of visitors and income for the locals at $30 a pop.  Honestly, we didn't mind at all since the whole process is actually easier than anchoring and the income helps to maintain the moorings to a safe level.

After a quick overnight in Caneel Bay we set off to the British Virgin Islands, a short hop away.  We started off heading for Soper's Hole at one end of the largest island Tortola, but for some reason halfway there we changed our minds and decided Jost van Dyke would be a better starting point. The BVIs have many beautiful spots to visit and we tried to create an efficient route that kind of started at one end and finished at the best place to stage for our next destination St Maarten.  So Jost VD became the place we would check into customs and immigration, and happily is the location of the famous Foxy's bar on the beach.  Dara has visited here many times, but I have never, so I was the virgin as I sipped my first Painkiller looking across the pretty bay.

There isn't much else to do on Jost other than swim and drink so the next day we moved to the iconic Cane Garden Bay on the west side of Tortola.  This is another breathtaking bay with crystal clear waters and white sands.  We stayed for a few hours to paddle board and swim, and for Dara, to see how it has changed over the years.  As with most places that she visited in the 90's in this area, the changes are mostly lots of expansion through building and increased tourism, and then some destruction from recent hurricanes.  The land and seascapes, generally, remain as stunning as ever.

From Cane Garden bay we moved back south to Sopers Hole, our original, but aborted starting point, but found it to be full of reconstruction following hurricanes Irma and Maria.  It was noisy and an eyesore, so after mooring for an hour, we took off again, headed for Norman Island, the most southerly of the BVIs.  Here there is a large bay with a protected position, deep water, and a great snorkelling spot called the Caves.  Large boulders that fell into the sea thousands or even millions of years ago have created an underwater labyrinth of caves and crevices which is an ideal environment for fish, sharks and coral.  You can see some of them in the video clip below.

We overnighted at Norman Island, then the following morning we moved to Road Town, the major town and administrative seat of the BVIs.  Only a short sail away, we were moored by afternoon, and went ashore to sample the famous Pusser's Rum at the original Pusser's Pub on the waterfront.  More painkillers, and we decided to try the local Indian restaurant for dinner.  Indian food is the national food of Britain, so it was no surprise to find at least one here in this British Territory.  It didn't disappoint, and we made a new friend in Prasad, the owner.  He was interested in our Indian travels, our passion for Indian food and the fact we had named our boat 'india'.  Since Road Town has all facilities, we took the opportunity to shop for supplies and found, to Dara's delight, a liquor store stocking Stowford Press cider, one of her favourites from the UK.

Next day we were off again, this time to Peter Island, a large deep water bay.  We anchored in about 50 feet of water, and found ourselves in the middle of a party centered on the infamous 'Willy T' - a large trawler permanently anchored in the bay and transformed many years ago into a bar and restaurant.  Later in the evening we dinghied over to take a look and have a drink, but it was overcrowded with dinghies and drunk kids somersaulting into the water off the boat.  Wow - we felt old!  We turned around without tying up and went home to india to have a quiet sunset cocktail on our own. 

Next stop the following morning was to The Baths on Virgin Gorda. This is the second largest island in the BVIs, and named 'fat Virgin' due to its mountainous shape.  The Baths are another, even more spectacular, spot where many huge boulders have come together to form a maze of tunnels and caves, both above and below sea level, which can be safely explored by snorkelling.  We picked up a mooring ball just outside, and readied ourselves to dive.  I took the GoPro, of course, and was a little surprised to see three largish sharks cruising along, maybe 20 yards away in the 20 feet deep water as I lowered myself off the rear swim ladder.  I managed to take some hazy video, as Dara wouldn't have believed me.  Actually she would, because we have seen more sharks since leaving Florida than we could have imagined, they are flourishing and everywhere.  Mostly the innocuous kinds, but one can never be sure unless you are an expert on shark identification, so we always give them a wide berth.  The remainder of the swim was full of the usual colourful reef fish and interesting shapes and contours under the water from the rockfalls.  This was a quick lunchtime stop and after drying off we started engines to motor up to North Sound, which is the northern-most part of Virgin Gorda to overnight anchor, ready to depart to Anegada the next morning.  North Sound is a large quiet bay close to Necker Island, the Caribbean home of Richard Branson - himself a famous 'Virgin'.  Anegada is an island about 12 miles north of Virgin Gorda and the furthest north of all the BVIs.  We had a relaxing but fast beam reach sail (wind coming directly onto the starboard side) all the way North, taking just a couple of hours.  Anegada is a little off the beaten track, having nothing much of interest other than solitude, fabulous beaches with white sand and clear seas. The island is flat, so uninteresting from that standpoint too.  We anchored off the beach at the west end of the island, where Dara remembers staying many years previously.  At that time there was a beach bar you could swim to called Wilfred's, and now we found in its place - Sid's.  Inevitably we made our way to Sid's bar - literally a bar in paradise - to find that Wilfred is still around but Sid had taken over, and upscaled, the little beach bar.  It actually was a beautiful place, with some lovely touches like marble tile floors, mahogany bar and a simple but delicious menu and cool drinks.  For me the best part was that Sid had partnered with a Belgian guy to set the place up, and so we found Belgian beers on site - Ommegang on tap, and Duvel in bottles including some double strength monastery beers.  Just lovely.  It was so lovely we went twice, in the evening the day we arrived and the next day for lunch after snorkelling and before setting off on an overnight sail to St Maarten - our next major port-of-call.

And so it turns out - Britain still has Virgins, and although they are not quite as virginal as they were when Dara was here back in the 90's, they still have a lot to offer, as any good virgin should.

Our pirate route,  plundering the British Virgins

The infamous Foxys beach bar in Jost Van Dyke

Caneel Bay in St John

The original Pusser's Rum bar in Road Town, Tortola

The mighty Painkillers at the aforesaid bar

We found Stowford Press cider!!!

The 'Willy T' boat bar in Peter Island

Sid's beach bar in Anegada - just a short swim from our anchorage