Although it was really nice in Francis Bay, we have an
agenda. We really need to get through the
Virgin Islands and heading south, out of the hurricane zone. We decided to head to the BVI where we are
closer to our jumping off point and wait for weather. If any of you have ever sailed in the BVI, you know there are a
thousand beautiful anchorages … some near resorts and nightlife, some more
remote and alone. But, because of our
time schedule, we blew past some amazing locations and settled on Virgin Gorda,
the furthest east of the BVI.
As soon as you leave Francis Bay, you exit
through a small channel between St.John and Whistling Cay and into a place
called the Narrows. It is a section of
water that flows between St. John and Tortola.
The border between the USVI and the BVI runs somewhere near the middle
of this cut. It’s another one of those
places they say can be very unpredictable, with high winds, high seas and
wicked currents. The guidebook says
this area is off-limit to most charter boats and that local captains usually
avoid the area altogether, choosing to sail towards Jost Van Dyke and around
the cut. Hmmm … does that stop us? Nope, we plow right through. Again, we had 30 knot winds but the waves
and current were minor. We had planned,
if it was too rough of a crossing, we would abort and head back or simply let
the currents/winds take us north of the cut.
We made it over to Soper’s Hole in western Tortola by 8:30am … a nice
uneventful trip!
We took a mooring ball (free if you’re just
clearing customs), lowered the dinghy and Larry went ashore. Our guidebook said this customs office was
only open Monday – Friday so we were taking a gamble and praying it would be
open on Saturday. After Larry was
ashore for about 20 minutes, he radioed me on the VHF and told me he had
success. He was just waiting the final
documentation and we were free to move on!
YEAH!!! If there are going to be mistakes in our guidebook … this was a
good one to find!
From where we were in Tortola to where we
wanted to go in Virgin Gorda, it was about 20 miles. Not bad considering we had all day to do it in. But … the winds were high … the seas were
building … and we had to cross some open waters that could really slow us down,
if not stop us. Someone at the customs
office told Larry it was a rather ambitious goal for today but what can I say …
we’re ambitious people!
We had to motor the entire way because we
were headed directly into the 30-knot winds but even with that … it was a
beautiful day! The route along Tortola,
past several of the surrounding islands and then over to Virgin Gorda was
amazing. The scenery was picture
perfect!
We got to the North Sound area of Virgin
Gorda about 2pm and maneuvered our way through the channel and past the reefs
into the sound. We went further east to
a place called Deep Bay. In our
guidebook it doesn’t reference this place at all as an anchorage point but it
looked very appealing to us. The North
Sound is where The Bitter End Yacht Club and many of other marinas and charter
boat facilities are. It is crowded with
charter boats and is mostly moorings ($25-$35/night). We were on a quest to find a quieter spot to anchor.
Deep Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI turned out to be
a very peaceful spot.
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