BVI journey

Since we have no internet I am posting this after the fact.
Day -1
We left St Thomas by Fast Ferry and headed to Tortolla with our crew and half of Glen’s crew. That was a 45 minute run through the islands that we would be sailing through during the week. Arrived at Tortolla and found Moorings after a short taxi ride. By the way, Taxi’s were a bit pricey in St Thomas, government fixed rates but it is per person and per bag. You don’t save anything by cramming more people into the rig. All of them are pickups with converted beds into rows of seats. Pretty crazy narrow and steep roads.
Mixed reviews on Moorings. They are all nice folks but they work on island time and your emergency is not theirs. We got most everything on the boat we ordered with a couple exceptions. Our boat was almost new so except for trying three different coffee pots to find one that worked we had a functioning boat. Can’t say the same for our dink. The dink engine ran for about 30 minutes and stopped never to run again. The good thing is that Moorings is responsive and came out with a new engine the next day. Several others had more significant problems with their boats that took hours to resolve stranding them dockside in Tortolla. One boat’s engine refused to start but finally did but when they went to grab a mooring buoy for the night in the Bight on Norman Island where we were the engine would not go in forward and they backed into another sail boat on the next buoy. Luckily no damage except for nerves and pride. No screw-up award for that one thought, the cable broke on the controller and so their was no way to go forward. Moorings came out and fixed it that night.
Other boats are well worn and have an amazing strong odor about them. The holding tanks are small and have been stuffed full many a time as they are only about 12 gallons each and those are for 2 heads. You dump every day out in the open water but if someone uses them without understanding that it is quite possible to overfill. Most of the older boats had that nagging odor in the beginning but it got better with use or so I was told.
Day 1
We stayed at the Bight on Norman Island after completing our training with our friendly captain learning how to sail. Lou was a bit energetic and obviously had a colorful life prior to this occupation. Stories of drug running from south America are most believable and the adage if you can’t do the time don’t do the crime fit. He was a good teacher and after an hour of sailing around in the harbor (sort of) we were off on our own. We chose to motor to our destination and arrived in time to find plenty of mooring balls to grab. Lou had advised us to grab a mooring ball right off the rocks half way between the pirates bar and the Willy Thornton Floating scow. We did and discovered that we could snorkel from the boat into a wonderland of underwater wildlife. Pelicans entertained us constantly by diving into the water for fish from the rocks. The abundance of fish life below was amazing. Spotted stingrays, large and do mean large groupers, millions of small blue fish in schools that allowed you to swim right in them, parting slightly as you and the groupers glided through, occasionally a pelican would dive right next to you grabbing up a few for their meal. The variety of fish and coral was amazing and colorful and the visibility was amazing, nothing like up here in Puget Sound. And the water was warm.
We snorkeled for hours and then headed over to the William Thompson just to say we had done it. The Willy T’s reputation is sketchy and it lives up to its name. Highly over rated, the Willy T is a floating scow with a bar and sleazy restaurant that draws from all the anchored tourist boats. The drinks were bad, the kitchen would not meet health standards in a forth world nation and there is no such thing as sanitation concerns in the bathroom, yes bathroom, a single toilet plumbed to the bay.
We sampled the drink while watching the porno show on their TV of past times when women ran around half naked in the bar and earned free drinks by jumping naked from the top of the ship. After several fatal jumps, it’s not that high but when you jump onto someone else the results are not favorable to either one, the government stepped in and curtailed some of the frivolity.
We were going to eat on the boat but Chris demanded some food after her bad drink on the Willy T and so we motored over to Pirates on the opposite side of the bay. What a difference, this place is a definite winner with really good food, a clean establishment and a surly staff. We met up with Gina and Byron and his crew which included Dave and Andrea and Doug and his wife.
Steve and Michelle were also in the bight and had said we needed to snorkel at the caves, which are just outside of the bight so we dingy’d over to them and swam for a while there but were a bit disappointed. The rocks next to our mooring ball were far better and had much more to see than the caves did so we appreciated the local knowledge that led us to them in the first place. The Caves are one of those must see spots in the BVI according to all the guide books.
Day 2
We motored out with destination unknown. The wind was blowing about 12 to 15 so we decided to attempt to sail. After some frustration with the main which we could not do anything with. It simple pulled us around head into the wind no matter how much rudder we had over. Finally we hauled out the Gyb Sail and we were sailing. We got it up to 7.2 knots which is the same speed we get underway by engine. It was a hoot, but we could not sail into the wind very well, a broad reach was no problem but anything we did to try to get more than 60 degrees to the wind we lost power and lost speed. More practice is needed. Hopefully by the end of the week we will have it down. We sailed most of the way to Cooper Island where we grabbed the last available mooring Buoy. The Bar at Cooper is beautiful. A perfect setting on a sand beach with palm trees and big soft cushy seats and big tables. The Pain killers were superb. After happy hour we were feeling no pain and returned to the boat for burgers and hot dogs. Actually it was a great tasting meal. Meals down here run 60 bucks for two at a minimum so eating out will damage your budget real quick. But it’s hard to pass up the great food and let someone else do the cooking while on vacation. So plan accordingly and don’t let the cost bother you too much because you get what you pay for in most cases.
By the way I caught a cold somewhere before departing and I have not been feeling the greatest but I can think of worse places to be feeling under the weather.

Day 3
Left cooper early and headed for the Baths. The surf was up and the red flag was up warning people not to attempt to swim or boat to the beach as 5 foot rollers were breaking on the beach and between the rocks.
We opted to head up to Spanish Town where we entered the tricky harbor. It is a narrow entrance that makes a 90 degree right angle turn 50 feet from the shorline with breaking waves over a reef to your right. Fun! We made it and picked up a slip for about three hours. We rented a cab and drove to the Baths and hiked to the beach. Its a great place and the hike through the "cave" is a fun experience. don't miss the opportunity to go there even if the surf is up.

Hopefully we can get back later in the week when the surf is down.

We left there and headed over to Marina Cay and caught the next to last bouy. Met up with Jim and Cheryl and Steve and Michelle there as well ad Jane and Roger. more painkillers and some more snorkling were in store for some of us and some beach exploring for others. Another perfect day. tomorrow were off to the Bitter End were were supposed to meet up with all of our group of 9 boats. Should be entertaining.