The BVIs & Saint-Martin
It took us 57 hours to get to the British Virgin Islands (BVIs) - along the coast of the Dominican Republic, dodging floating logs and wrapping a floating fishing line around our prop, then Puerto Rico, international flights in and out of San Juan all through the night. There was very little traffic, the odd cruise liner, tanker and yacht with a thunderstorm lighting up the sky southeast of us.
Then we were in the BVIs, checking in at Jost Van Dyke; it felt good to be back in a familiar place. We had last visited in April 2023 and spent nearly a month there, playing with friends and exploring the islands, a well-deserved holiday after our busy 2022 year. This year however we had no friends to play with, Harry and Lynda were heading back up to Nova Scotia on Libra, Stuart and Lesley were swanning around on the Mon in Montenegro and were on a mission – finding a suitable engineering shop who could help us with our saildrive clutch install.
Main town Road Town seemed our best bet, as there are several charter boat marinas and supporting industries nearby, plus we needed to sort out our onshore telecoms and get fresh provisions. Starlink is great, but of course only works in close range to NOETA, therefore is no help on land, luckily, we were back in the land of Digicel. I had managed to get a great deal the previous year when we landed in Martinique, €39.95 per month, calls, texts and 130G data covering 21 countries, but disappointingly this did not appear to be possible through Digicel BVI so I had to settle for a 5 day 8G @ USD20.
The local engineering shops were not particularly helpful, one chap asked us to call him back the following week, as he was too busy to talk to us, whatever, but a contact of Harry’s came through and directed us to Parts & Power across in Fish Bay. The Service Manager Karim was superb, he quickly understood what we needed, directed us to take a berth at the Village Cay Marina, and arranged for Ronald to come on board and sweat away for several days in the engine room. Ronald was great, originally from Ghana, his family had managed to escape and he had grown up in the BVIs. It takes twenty years to get residency, he had only two years to go, was expecting his first child and had nearly completed an online electrical engineering degree from Deakin University in Perth, what an interesting, connected planet we live on. It was strange tying up in a marina, and it reminded us why we don’t - USD130 for two nights, hot and airless, no breeze and strong sewage smells on the second night. But it made provisioning easier at Riteway, Supa Valu and Bobbys, Bobbys is the best. The job took longer than expected, the clutch kit didn't come with shims. What are shims you may ask? They are things that fill gaps between objects and apparently, we didn’t have any. But Ronald came to the rescue, found some in his store of useful things and despite our two days being up in the marina, he was able to complete the job at anchor, port saildrive working!
We had three weeks before we needed to be in Antigua to meet nephew Alex, so decided to explore a few new bays and revisit old ones before heading west via Saint-Martin and St Kitts and Nevis.
The BVIs really are charter boat central, luckily we were in the off season, and don’t generally anchor in bays with mooring fields, nevertheless we were amazed by how many other boast were around, mostly cats and astounded by the thousands of boats tied up in marinas waiting for the start of the season in December.
New bays -
Ψ Key Bay, Peter Island – had the bay to ourselves, good snorkeling off Key Point, great variety of fish life, including blue honeycomb cowfish Acanthostracion polygonius, but not so much coral. A trip of goats on the shore, turtles and a small spotted eagle ray in the seagrass, a barracuda sheltering under the hulls, tarpon at night and laughing gulls by day, magic.
Ψ Rogue’s Bay - stunning secluded white sand beach, bookended by rocky outcrops, lush green hills behind, clear blue water, and with limited road access. No other boats here, bizarre. Suspect there is good surf in a northerly swell.
Ψ Lee Bay - small and rocky, a coral boulder beach with Cam Bay National Park at the head. Large schools of tiny fish - pelicans, gulls, and gannets, perched on rocks awaiting an opportunity to feed. Morning wander across to Cam Bay, a well-worn track the along the National Park fence line, goat signs and soldier crabs along the way, to the windward shore, sand strewn with washed up Sargassum.
Old bays -
Ψ Prickly Pear Island and happy hour at Saba Rock – rum punch USD5 and dark n stormy UDS7, no tarpon feeding but the foil board jousting was excellent entertainment.
Ψ Valley Trunk Bay - popular! 13+ boats anchored/moored off The Baths and up to ten, eventually, where we were, it is such a lovely spot, but hard to get a hold, rocky except for very close to the beach, Spotted Eagle ray, several Doctorfish, Smooth black and white Trunkfish and Mondrian looking Yellowhead Wrasse. Dinner at Asian Fusion restaurant CocoMaya – a lovely setting but expensive and menu wasn’t as extensive as last year, so one drink and a couple of small plates was enough.
It is hard heading west and the trip to Saint Martin was no exception, twelve hours motoring into head winds, tiring. Back to Baie de Marigot and French food and wine! Fourteen months had passed since we were last here and in that time the Port Authority had decided to charge an anchoring fee, it wasn’t too clear from their website, but the charges appeared to be the same as for mooring, in our case €11,96 per night with a multihull 50% surcharge. We were duly visited by the officials and not too keen to stump up, we accepted their information sheet, noting that we were anchored in Baie de Nettlé (beside Baie de Marigot) and waited to see what would happen. Four days later we left with no follow up appearance, a potential saving of €71.76.
We spent a week in Saint Martin, bookended by Island Water World clearances, the weather unwaveringly still, hot and humid, water and air temps 30 degrees. But achieved a lot in that time – we dined with our new FRAM friends (Jasmine, Chris & Ralphie), got rid of our waste oil for no cost at the messy, friendly Time Out Marina, discovered Marigot town with its wonderful swimwear shops, and Digicel shop (€34.99 per month for unlimited data, calls & texts in 23 countries) and revisited Caraibes Diesel for our Volvo needs. Across Simpson Lagoon to the Dutch side, we made the most of the superbly stocked Budget Marine, Island Water World, and Carrefour and discovered Electec not only had AQUA-BASE supplies but a technician. Unfortunately, he had just left the island that day.
We spent our last night in Baie de Grand case, not only would it put us in a better time and angle for our trip down to St Kitts the next day, but we had fond memories of our time there in 2023. A familiar and popular anchorage, with good holding, stone walls and goats, this time on verdant hills, there was no swell and rubbish dump smells this time. A snorkel at Rocher Créole was great, with new sightings of Pufferfish and Filefish, before a farewell ti’ punch at Max’s Place, frigate birds swirling in the sunset.