04/08/2009 This morning we are going to the British Virgin Islands. We pulled the anchor and motored directly into the wind out of Coral Bay until we could turn the corner of St. John and there on the view is the British Virgin Islands. The BVIs has become the mecca of sailing and cruising. The Moorings started their world-wide business here chartering boats. When we chartered here as a family in 1999, I would describe it as sailing on Pueblo Reservoir with clear water. The water is real clear here and all of the sailing is by sight. You barely need a chart here. There is a ring of islands around the Drake Channel that keeps the waters fairly protected and as I am learning on this trip, the trade winds make for consistent weather and wind direction.
We decided to sail into Jost van Dyke to check in with Customs and Immigration. After turning the corner of St. John we had to sail northwest that allowed us a downwind sail past West End and over to Jost. After we dropped the anchor in the Great Harbor, John said that there was a guy on the boat behind us waving his hands. I had not noticed as I was concerned about setting the anchor. When I looked over it was Christian from Camelot. I had not seen Christian since San Juan. He had his wife with him and we were able to have a beer before John and I set in for Customs. As I have been told, you will keep running into the same people along the cruising route.
After a painless check in with Customs we paid a visit to Foxy’s. Foxy’s is known world-wide amongst sailors. It is the bar everyone needs to stop at least once when in the islands. Foxy is a music man and created the ultimate beach bar for fun and craziness. We had our introductory pain-killer rum drink and lunch. It was pretty quiet when we were there, but I am sure that night it was hopping.
After lunch, we pulled the hook and motored over to Little Harbor. Christian was anchored there and we spent the evening having drinks on the bow of No Rush catching up on our experiences since we last saw each other.
04/09/2009 We made the decision to go all the way to the eastern end of the BVIs. This means that we need to beat into the wind all the way to Virgin Gorda. The destination is the Bitter End Yacht Club. We spent all morning and into the afternoon beating into the wind and waves. I wanted to make one stop along the way.
I need to get my snorkeling fix in and I had not been in the water in the last two days. We
stopped at George Dog. This is a small island I stopped at when we sailed here before. There is a good reef there to snorkel on. I was amazed at how crowded it was when we arrived. I have not seen crowds anywhere like I was seeing here in the BVIs. It is probably due to Spring Break, which is high season down here, and also Easter Holiday Weekend. We saw some good fish, but the highlight was seeing the sting ray and nurse shark. This is the first shark I have seen since December.
After a good snorkel we set the sails again and beat our way into the north end of Virgin Gorda. We then made it to the BEYC and picked up a mooring ball for the evening. It was crowded here also. It appears that there were many boaters from Puerto Rico that came over for the holiday weekend.
04/10/2009 After a late start today, we had a great downwind sail out of the bay and around the north corner of Virgin Gorda. After I gybed the main sail, we set the spinnaker for a fast run in the trade winds. This is we did all of the pounding for the day before. We made our way to The Baths.
The Baths are a large pile of boulders about 2/3 of the way down Virgin Gorda. After we anchored and had a light lunch, I got my first snorkel in for the day. I have never snorkeled here before. It is one of the most talked about areas in the Virgins. There was some fish life there, but the high light is swimming in amongst the boulders. I would time my runs in between the with the wave action. There are many areas to explore and beautiful conditions.
After snorkeling and taking a nap, we set the sail again and headed for Marina Cay. I have stayed here the first two times when I visited the BVIs. It is a small island with a large reef
around it. On the island are a marina, restaurant, and small resort. After we caught a mooring ball for the evening, I went for my second snorkel of the day. I need to work harder at getting a couple of snorkels in a day.
The reef is lot less lively than I remember, but the coral formations are really incredible. After dinner we went ashore to the bar for some of the famous Pusser Rum Painkillers. The Pusser Rum bar in Road Town was the originator of the drinks. I had some Painkillers at the Pussers in Annapolis and was disappointed as it did not appear that they put much rum in the drinks. That was not the story here in the islands. You are able to order Painkillers as #2, #3 or #4. That is two parts rum, three parts rum or four parts rum. When I make my own, I usually on make two parts, because three parts can put me over the edge real quick and I have never drank a #4. We ordered up #2s. I watched here mix the drink. It consisted of a glass of ice, then half the glass was filled with rum and the other with the Painkiller jungle juice. These are the real thing. Someone needs to talk to the bar tenders in Annapolis and get then straightened out. By the way, if you are interested in making your own Painkillers, the recipe is 1 part Cream of Coconut, 1 part Orange Juice, 4 parts Pineapple Juice and 2, 3 or 4 parts rum. This is served over the rocks and for the special touch, you can add a sprinkle of nutmeg on top.
04/11/2009 Today for me turns out to be a carbon copy of my first day ever sailing in the BVIs.
Carolyn and I came down here on a full chartered catamaran courtesy of a sales contest from Motorola. I am not sure if that trip changed my life forever, but it did introduce me to multihull sailing as the boat we were on was a 43’ Catana.
We pulled anchor and took off sailing from Marina Cay to the Indians. Once we turned the east end of Beef Island, we had a downwind sail. We popped the spinnaker and had a great sail all morning. On my first trip down here on the Catana, that was my first time ever seeing an asymmetrical sail. Here I am now living the life. We sailed to the Indians and found a mooring buoy to hook up to.
The Indians is a set of rocks located off of Pelican Island and just north of Norman Island. This a beautiful place to snorkel that I had experienced from past experiences. On one side of the rocks, the water is about 30’ deep with a straight wall down to the depth, and on the other side it is a shallow reef with many crevices. I believe this was the most fantastic snorkel I have had since I started this adventure. It was because the water was so clear and the assortment of fish and corals. None of these was the best by their own, but it was just a perfect combination. This is one experience that exceeded my expectations.
After lunch we slipped off of the mooring and motored over to the Caves. This is another famous snorkel area in the BVIs located on the west edge of Norman Island. We were lucky to find a mooring there. There are a lot of mooring balls in the BVIs. I always thought this was more for the charter boats or to keep boaters from dropping anchors on coral reefs and damaging them. The issue I run into is the water is so deep. I only carry 150’ of chain for my anchor. In typical weather that allows me to anchor in about less than 40’, but if the weather kicks up, I would not want to be in any water deeper than 20-25’. The reason behind this is what is called anchor scope. A rule of thumb is to put out 7:1 ratio. That is for every 1’ of water you should put out 7’ of anchor rode. With chain, you don’t need as much, but when the weather kicks up, you should have more.
We swam the reefs and I went into a couple of the caves to see what is to be seen. There is not much fish life in the caves as there are plenty of people in and out. The interesting sights are the high ceilings with the fragmented rock and the pick coral attached to the rock. It is a thin layer over the rocks and lights up really nice in the limited light of the caves.
When we made it back to the boat, I had planned on taking us into The Bight. This is a anchorage within Norman Island. It was still early in the afternoon and John and I decided to keep sailing and we went back to Jost Van Dyke. This completed the same trip as we took back 1995. I did have a sad moment though. As we were sailing towards Jost my second favorite hat blew off and was donated to the sea gods. It was my old faded blue Windrider hat. I started wearing it when my son and I crossed to the Bahamas in 2005 after I lost my then favorite Mount Gay 2003 San Diego NOODs hat. I alos wore that hat when I won the Windrider Nationals. It is amazing how we get attached to things. I will now need to find a back up hat for my favorite Mount Gay 2006 San Diego NOODs.
After dinner, John and I went into Foxy’s to see what kind of party life was going on. I have never seen Foxy’s so dead at night. All of the people there were eating a buffet dinner and just sitting around. We had a drink there waiting to see if things would pick up, but not a chance. We walked down the “main” street and found another bar at the end of town called Corsairs. We went for another drink to see what was happening there. It was the same with a few customers having dinner. For Foxy’s and Corsair’s, at least they had some customers. Every other place along the street did not have a customer. We noticed around the bar there was a lot of Colorado memorabilia. I asked the owner about all of the stuff and he said he was from Colorado. It turns out he lives there also. But not just Colorado, he lives in the same county as me. Some of you may know him. His name is Vinnie. He is more famous in the area as being the owner of Rocky Mountain Harley Motorcycles located on Santa Fe and County Line. If you ever make it down this way, stop in and see Vinnie. The pizzas they make there look like some of the best I have seen. I will make a stop on my way back through next week.
04/12/2009 Happy Easter. Today we motored over to White Bay. This is a picturesque little bay with a really great beach. There are not many beaches in the BVIs compared to Puerto Rico or the Bahamas. We slid in behind the reef and dropped anchor. This beach has changed a lot
since I was last here. The last time I was here the only business on the beach was the Soggy Dollar Saloon. It was named after the wet money people had in their pockets from swimming into the beach. Now the whole beach is covered in establishments. Also the last time I was there, there were four of us and we had the whole beach to ourselves. Within an hour we had power boats from Puerto Rico anchored all around us.
I did get a chance to swim to the beach and walk the beach from end to end. We decided to leave
there as it was getting extremely crowded with boats in the anchorage and sail over to Tabogo Island. This island is about 2 miles due west of Jost Van Dyke. This was more to my liking. There was only one other sail boat on a small beach. We dropped the hook and snorkeled around. There are very neat rock formations around the island to swim and check out. The coral was good also. 
After a relaxing afternoon we sailed across the channel to St. John and caught a mooring buoy at Caneel Bay. This is part of the National Park System. I have since found out that it is extremely hard to anchor anywhere in the park and we are expected to take moorings. The cost is $15 a night. This does help the coral and sea grasses, but not somewhere a cruiser can spend a lot of time due to the cost. We then took the dinghy into Cruz Bay to town. There we found a bar with some good live music and a Texas Bar with chicken fried steak for dinner.
04/13/2009 Today was a good lazy day for me. After breakfast we took the dinghy in and cleared through Customs and sought out a wi-fi hot spot. As we were catching up on email and such the rain started and stopped and started again. I am sure the locals are happy to see the rain as so much of the area is dry and brown.
After lunch we headed back to the boat and slipped from the mooring. We motored over to Francis Bay. This is another bay in the National Park. Located next to this bay is Maho Bay. This bay is famous for the camping available. The national park has built tents on wooden platforms that look out over the bay. This would be the ultimate in camping. We didn’t do a thing here the rest of the day. We just hung out, swam a little and just enjoyed the quiet. Pictured here is the best sunset I believe I have seen since Boqueron in Puerto Rico.
04/14/2009 Physical exercise day. Today we
went ashore and did some hiking. St John was owned by the Dutch until 1917. As most of the Caribbean, the primary crop was sugar. We hiked to the ruins of a sugar plantation that is being cared for by the National Parks. There is a nice walking tour of the plantation, or what is left of it. You can see some of the construction here in the buildings. I had read about how they would use brain coral as a building element as to its ease of cutting. 
We then walked out to Lanteen Bay. It is another
beautiful bay and you can see a lot of the BVIs from here. We made a 5-6 mile walk today and headed back to the boat. I could tell I haven’t been putting in a lot of miles on shore after that walk.
After lunch we pulled the anchor a sailed in a good stiff breeze to Christmas Bay. This is located on Great St James Island. This island is located on the southeast corner of St. Thomas. While there I went for a good long swim into the shore. It felt good to stretch out like that.
After relaxing there for awhile, we motored over to Red Hook for the evening. This is the second largest marine facility in St. Thomas. There are several marinas, marine stores, restaurants and shopping. I will let John go from here to catch his plane and I will prepare for Cliff’s arrival. We had a good dinner at a Mexican restaurant for our last night together on the boat. It has been a good trip for John to see his old haunts and I have had fun seeing new places.
We decided to sail into Jost van Dyke to check in with Customs and Immigration. After turning the corner of St. John we had to sail northwest that allowed us a downwind sail past West End and over to Jost. After we dropped the anchor in the Great Harbor, John said that there was a guy on the boat behind us waving his hands. I had not noticed as I was concerned about setting the anchor. When I looked over it was Christian from Camelot. I had not seen Christian since San Juan. He had his wife with him and we were able to have a beer before John and I set in for Customs. As I have been told, you will keep running into the same people along the cruising route.
After a painless check in with Customs we paid a visit to Foxy’s. Foxy’s is known world-wide amongst sailors. It is the bar everyone needs to stop at least once when in the islands. Foxy is a music man and created the ultimate beach bar for fun and craziness. We had our introductory pain-killer rum drink and lunch. It was pretty quiet when we were there, but I am sure that night it was hopping.
After lunch, we pulled the hook and motored over to Little Harbor. Christian was anchored there and we spent the evening having drinks on the bow of No Rush catching up on our experiences since we last saw each other.
04/09/2009 We made the decision to go all the way to the eastern end of the BVIs. This means that we need to beat into the wind all the way to Virgin Gorda. The destination is the Bitter End Yacht Club. We spent all morning and into the afternoon beating into the wind and waves. I wanted to make one stop along the way.
I need to get my snorkeling fix in and I had not been in the water in the last two days. We
stopped at George Dog. This is a small island I stopped at when we sailed here before. There is a good reef there to snorkel on. I was amazed at how crowded it was when we arrived. I have not seen crowds anywhere like I was seeing here in the BVIs. It is probably due to Spring Break, which is high season down here, and also Easter Holiday Weekend. We saw some good fish, but the highlight was seeing the sting ray and nurse shark. This is the first shark I have seen since December.After a good snorkel we set the sails again and beat our way into the north end of Virgin Gorda. We then made it to the BEYC and picked up a mooring ball for the evening. It was crowded here also. It appears that there were many boaters from Puerto Rico that came over for the holiday weekend.
04/10/2009 After a late start today, we had a great downwind sail out of the bay and around the north corner of Virgin Gorda. After I gybed the main sail, we set the spinnaker for a fast run in the trade winds. This is we did all of the pounding for the day before. We made our way to The Baths.
The Baths are a large pile of boulders about 2/3 of the way down Virgin Gorda. After we anchored and had a light lunch, I got my first snorkel in for the day. I have never snorkeled here before. It is one of the most talked about areas in the Virgins. There was some fish life there, but the high light is swimming in amongst the boulders. I would time my runs in between the with the wave action. There are many areas to explore and beautiful conditions.After snorkeling and taking a nap, we set the sail again and headed for Marina Cay. I have stayed here the first two times when I visited the BVIs. It is a small island with a large reef
around it. On the island are a marina, restaurant, and small resort. After we caught a mooring ball for the evening, I went for my second snorkel of the day. I need to work harder at getting a couple of snorkels in a day.The reef is lot less lively than I remember, but the coral formations are really incredible. After dinner we went ashore to the bar for some of the famous Pusser Rum Painkillers. The Pusser Rum bar in Road Town was the originator of the drinks. I had some Painkillers at the Pussers in Annapolis and was disappointed as it did not appear that they put much rum in the drinks. That was not the story here in the islands. You are able to order Painkillers as #2, #3 or #4. That is two parts rum, three parts rum or four parts rum. When I make my own, I usually on make two parts, because three parts can put me over the edge real quick and I have never drank a #4. We ordered up #2s. I watched here mix the drink. It consisted of a glass of ice, then half the glass was filled with rum and the other with the Painkiller jungle juice. These are the real thing. Someone needs to talk to the bar tenders in Annapolis and get then straightened out. By the way, if you are interested in making your own Painkillers, the recipe is 1 part Cream of Coconut, 1 part Orange Juice, 4 parts Pineapple Juice and 2, 3 or 4 parts rum. This is served over the rocks and for the special touch, you can add a sprinkle of nutmeg on top.
04/11/2009 Today for me turns out to be a carbon copy of my first day ever sailing in the BVIs.
Carolyn and I came down here on a full chartered catamaran courtesy of a sales contest from Motorola. I am not sure if that trip changed my life forever, but it did introduce me to multihull sailing as the boat we were on was a 43’ Catana.We pulled anchor and took off sailing from Marina Cay to the Indians. Once we turned the east end of Beef Island, we had a downwind sail. We popped the spinnaker and had a great sail all morning. On my first trip down here on the Catana, that was my first time ever seeing an asymmetrical sail. Here I am now living the life. We sailed to the Indians and found a mooring buoy to hook up to.
The Indians is a set of rocks located off of Pelican Island and just north of Norman Island. This a beautiful place to snorkel that I had experienced from past experiences. On one side of the rocks, the water is about 30’ deep with a straight wall down to the depth, and on the other side it is a shallow reef with many crevices. I believe this was the most fantastic snorkel I have had since I started this adventure. It was because the water was so clear and the assortment of fish and corals. None of these was the best by their own, but it was just a perfect combination. This is one experience that exceeded my expectations.
After lunch we slipped off of the mooring and motored over to the Caves. This is another famous snorkel area in the BVIs located on the west edge of Norman Island. We were lucky to find a mooring there. There are a lot of mooring balls in the BVIs. I always thought this was more for the charter boats or to keep boaters from dropping anchors on coral reefs and damaging them. The issue I run into is the water is so deep. I only carry 150’ of chain for my anchor. In typical weather that allows me to anchor in about less than 40’, but if the weather kicks up, I would not want to be in any water deeper than 20-25’. The reason behind this is what is called anchor scope. A rule of thumb is to put out 7:1 ratio. That is for every 1’ of water you should put out 7’ of anchor rode. With chain, you don’t need as much, but when the weather kicks up, you should have more.
We swam the reefs and I went into a couple of the caves to see what is to be seen. There is not much fish life in the caves as there are plenty of people in and out. The interesting sights are the high ceilings with the fragmented rock and the pick coral attached to the rock. It is a thin layer over the rocks and lights up really nice in the limited light of the caves.
When we made it back to the boat, I had planned on taking us into The Bight. This is a anchorage within Norman Island. It was still early in the afternoon and John and I decided to keep sailing and we went back to Jost Van Dyke. This completed the same trip as we took back 1995. I did have a sad moment though. As we were sailing towards Jost my second favorite hat blew off and was donated to the sea gods. It was my old faded blue Windrider hat. I started wearing it when my son and I crossed to the Bahamas in 2005 after I lost my then favorite Mount Gay 2003 San Diego NOODs hat. I alos wore that hat when I won the Windrider Nationals. It is amazing how we get attached to things. I will now need to find a back up hat for my favorite Mount Gay 2006 San Diego NOODs.
After dinner, John and I went into Foxy’s to see what kind of party life was going on. I have never seen Foxy’s so dead at night. All of the people there were eating a buffet dinner and just sitting around. We had a drink there waiting to see if things would pick up, but not a chance. We walked down the “main” street and found another bar at the end of town called Corsairs. We went for another drink to see what was happening there. It was the same with a few customers having dinner. For Foxy’s and Corsair’s, at least they had some customers. Every other place along the street did not have a customer. We noticed around the bar there was a lot of Colorado memorabilia. I asked the owner about all of the stuff and he said he was from Colorado. It turns out he lives there also. But not just Colorado, he lives in the same county as me. Some of you may know him. His name is Vinnie. He is more famous in the area as being the owner of Rocky Mountain Harley Motorcycles located on Santa Fe and County Line. If you ever make it down this way, stop in and see Vinnie. The pizzas they make there look like some of the best I have seen. I will make a stop on my way back through next week.
04/12/2009 Happy Easter. Today we motored over to White Bay. This is a picturesque little bay with a really great beach. There are not many beaches in the BVIs compared to Puerto Rico or the Bahamas. We slid in behind the reef and dropped anchor. This beach has changed a lot
since I was last here. The last time I was here the only business on the beach was the Soggy Dollar Saloon. It was named after the wet money people had in their pockets from swimming into the beach. Now the whole beach is covered in establishments. Also the last time I was there, there were four of us and we had the whole beach to ourselves. Within an hour we had power boats from Puerto Rico anchored all around us.I did get a chance to swim to the beach and walk the beach from end to end. We decided to leave
there as it was getting extremely crowded with boats in the anchorage and sail over to Tabogo Island. This island is about 2 miles due west of Jost Van Dyke. This was more to my liking. There was only one other sail boat on a small beach. We dropped the hook and snorkeled around. There are very neat rock formations around the island to swim and check out. The coral was good also. 
After a relaxing afternoon we sailed across the channel to St. John and caught a mooring buoy at Caneel Bay. This is part of the National Park System. I have since found out that it is extremely hard to anchor anywhere in the park and we are expected to take moorings. The cost is $15 a night. This does help the coral and sea grasses, but not somewhere a cruiser can spend a lot of time due to the cost. We then took the dinghy into Cruz Bay to town. There we found a bar with some good live music and a Texas Bar with chicken fried steak for dinner.
04/13/2009 Today was a good lazy day for me. After breakfast we took the dinghy in and cleared through Customs and sought out a wi-fi hot spot. As we were catching up on email and such the rain started and stopped and started again. I am sure the locals are happy to see the rain as so much of the area is dry and brown.
After lunch we headed back to the boat and slipped from the mooring. We motored over to Francis Bay. This is another bay in the National Park. Located next to this bay is Maho Bay. This bay is famous for the camping available. The national park has built tents on wooden platforms that look out over the bay. This would be the ultimate in camping. We didn’t do a thing here the rest of the day. We just hung out, swam a little and just enjoyed the quiet. Pictured here is the best sunset I believe I have seen since Boqueron in Puerto Rico.04/14/2009 Physical exercise day. Today we
went ashore and did some hiking. St John was owned by the Dutch until 1917. As most of the Caribbean, the primary crop was sugar. We hiked to the ruins of a sugar plantation that is being cared for by the National Parks. There is a nice walking tour of the plantation, or what is left of it. You can see some of the construction here in the buildings. I had read about how they would use brain coral as a building element as to its ease of cutting. 
We then walked out to Lanteen Bay. It is another
beautiful bay and you can see a lot of the BVIs from here. We made a 5-6 mile walk today and headed back to the boat. I could tell I haven’t been putting in a lot of miles on shore after that walk.After lunch we pulled the anchor a sailed in a good stiff breeze to Christmas Bay. This is located on Great St James Island. This island is located on the southeast corner of St. Thomas. While there I went for a good long swim into the shore. It felt good to stretch out like that.
After relaxing there for awhile, we motored over to Red Hook for the evening. This is the second largest marine facility in St. Thomas. There are several marinas, marine stores, restaurants and shopping. I will let John go from here to catch his plane and I will prepare for Cliff’s arrival. We had a good dinner at a Mexican restaurant for our last night together on the boat. It has been a good trip for John to see his old haunts and I have had fun seeing new places.
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