The BVI #1 -- Arriving Home

Coming back into the British Virgin Islands, I was hopeful of repeating an arrival I had had returning from my first trip south aboard Whisper in 1993.  That time we had sailed smoothly into the chain between Salt Island and Dead Chest at broad noon in time to experience a marked change of water color from ocean navy to vibrant Virgin turquoise.

This time, however, the sky was silver with cloud and haze.  Ah, yes, Sahara dust!....sucked up into upper atmosphere currents from sand storms in the Sahara and freighted across the Atlantic to land in pink coating on decks and rigging.  Plus we were hours later than we'd expected, and the captain was skeptical that we could make our Port of Entry before dark.  So we veered off a few degrees and aimed for the pass between Norman and Peter Islands, since Norman could offer better and more easily accessed alternative anchorages.

I confess to feeling a smidge of disappointment that my islands were not putting on their best show, until the sun poured through the haze turning everything white gold!   As we drew nearer, the islands revealed themselves to be surprisingly green.  It was as beautiful as I could have hoped.

Insinuating myself as navigator, I had two anchorages in mind, Benuris or Soldiers, two bays that were favorites and away from the crowd.  

I knew many things had changed, and, to be fair, the hour was well past when bare boaters should have their hooks down and rum punches in hand, but I was stunned to find Benuris, in slow season June, full of anchored boats, and not just boats,  the majority of them catamarans!

I was feeling a little panic as Soldiers is a much smaller cove, and when we rounded the point we saw two cats already there.  However progress has placed five moorings in Soldiers Bay, and the one closest to where I would have anchored in the old days was available.  We snatched it up.  Once the engine went off, the the lush green hillside was filled with birdsong, and the air surprisingly cool.  moments later a gentle shower drifted through washing off the decks of all the salt accumulated from the passage.

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I could tell Tom and Bette Lee were delighted.  Worldly sailors have this idea (not without some justification) that the Virgins are a parking lot of credit-card captains on rental boats partying their way through the islands.  Don and I had heard over and over reports of how much the Virgins have changed since we left.  Moorings everywhere (not a bad thing entirely, though the cost at $30 a night seems exorbitant), and the charter fleets have grown huge.

But all that leaves out the simple fact that the Virgins are beautiful.  I truly think they have no match.  Mountains and islands layer away to the distance in paling hues of violet.  Rock faces are craggy and copper colored and beaches (and bottoms) are white sand, not the blacks, chocolates and caramels of down island.  Many of the hillsides are still virgin, but lights come on in clusters following roads and ridge lines.  The islands here throw arms akimbo creating many anchorages, and the underwater terrain is diverse, from classic reefs to complicated rock architecture.

Once on the mooring and the engine shut down, Don and I jumped into the water with mask and fins.  Our snorkel swims in St Lucia and the Saintes had been grossly disappointing:  almost no live coral, few fish, and too many of the marauding lionfish, Pacific predators carelessly introduced into the Caribbean now wreaking havoc on the native ecosystem.  (To be fair, we were probably not in the best locations.

However in Soldiers, we immediately saw a good-sized green turtle, and after swimming the reef out and back the turtle total was up to three, a tarpon, mackerel, and plenty of typical tropicals but, better yet, no lionfish.  That's the good news.  The bad news was that the tops of the corals all looked burned.  My best guess is it's a result of sand stirred up and settled on the corals, probably by a hurricane.  Or it could be global warming.

We returned to the boat feeling refreshed and virtuous (for the long swim) and arrived back in time for the cherry on top of our return.  A dinghy whizzed up to Quantum to collect the mooring fee.  No, that wasn't the good part, because the $30 was unexpectedly so high.  But the red-headed fellow collecting it was instantly recognizeable as an old friend, Tom, once a cook at Latitude 18, a favorite hang-out in St. Thomas.  Nothing like being recognized by the first person you see.

We all slept really well that night!