After a few nights in Cane Garden Bay, our favourite spot on Tortola, we headed to Jost Van Dyke to catch the ‘bubbly pool’ that we missed last year. A very cool spot indeed and the conditions were perfect to enjoy the pool. A night in Great Harbour followed by two in White Bay and we are ready to move on. Chrissy is looking forward the great cuisine in Grande Case while I’m getting the taste for the outdoor BBQ they have.
Apart from Georgian Bay, the British Virgin Islands is now the only other place that we have accumulated 3 months of sailing in. While nothing we have found compares to the extremely quiet and flat anchorages in the 30,000 islands on Georgian Bay (except perhaps a couple on the Bras d’Or Lakes), the BVIs certainly makes up for it with pristine blue water, numerous snorkel spots and the assortment of dining options available. But, we’re young. We set out cruising to see new places. And now we have given ourselves a timeline. The BVIs will always be special, but we’re getting bored again. We had hoped to see central america and Cuba this winter, but some challenges with dog requirements and boat insurance and we decided that there was still a lot of the Caribbean to explore instead, hence our return offshore trip the BVIs.
So, south we will go, but first we have to go mostly east against the trade winds to St. Maarten. We went there a few years ago and really enjoyed it on land, so why not find out how it is from the water. The winds are forecast to be a bit lighter on Wednesday night so we are tentatively preparing to set sail then so that hopefully the seas don’t push us back as we try and creep east.
Anyway, back to Cane Garden Bay. A popular beach for cruise ship day trips, at first glance wouldn’t be my choice of a place to visit. But early morning wandering around and you find you are in a place where the locals live. School kids in their cute uniforms make their way to the school, a little hair salon occasionally open, the pastel police station and the pink grocery store with a convenient laundromat in the back. A certain charm. Late in the afternoon the cruise ship crowds take their taxis back to Road Harbour and the happy hour specials begin. Quito’s one of our favourites, has $2 beers, live music, $5 appetizers, and a great sunset view which you can follow by a moonlit walk down the beach. A little further along, Myett’s also has the best wings we’ve found since we left Moose Winooski’s in Kitchener, although they are set back slightly from the beach so the sunset is partially obscured. While their live music provided good ambiance, it was tough to compete with Quito himself from the night before.
Nestled a quarter mile or so hike from the anchorage on the east end of Jost Van Dyke sits a rock formation with a little pool and a beach known as the ‘bubbly pool’. We arrived to find the place to ourselves and enjoyed the refreshing water splashing through the rocks. With no North swell running we could enjoy the pool which otherwise can be a bit dangerous when a big swell comes crashing through. The anchorage was a bit bumpy, so we spent the night in Great Harbour so that we could see Foxy’s and the main strip along the sand-road. We had only seen it at night for the big New Years Party last year. And now, we are in White Bay having decided this morning to extend our 1 night stay to 2.
Tomorrow we will head to Soper’s Hole to get the boat ready to move on as well as Magnus’ paperwork.
Looks wonderful, we will be following you on your way south daily during our morning coffee hour, and look forward to your next blog.
Nan and Grandad ??
What have you guys heard about the Summit incident?
Believe it was a taxi-bus accident caused from some really heavy rains making the already poor roads rather treacherous.
Looks like you guys have found your own little piece of paradise!!?
Hi Jeff and Chrissy and of course Magnus.St.Marten is a place I’d like to visit but everyone in our group wants to charter in the BVI’s again. Doubt that will happen this year. Wayne has cataract surgery in April and one of the other men is having a heart ablation as I type. Don’t know if we told you but our boat is for sale and you did say you would like a bigger boat. Is Sapphire Breeze doing a blog at all and if so what is the title. Have a sunny Christmas. We’re heading to Charlotte NC to visit our son for Christmas and fitting in a quick cuise to Bahamas to stay on a resort for a few days. Good sailing.Alice and Wayne
Enjoy NC and the Bahamas! Our bigger boat dream is a 42-45′ performance cruising catamaran, but going to take some creativity and dedication to achieve. Don’t think Sapphire Breeze has a blog. I think they are in the USVI for a few weeks.
It’s a joy to find soeomne who can think like that