BVI’s Part II

I’ve come to understand why everyone speaks so effusively about sailing in the BVIs. In a year that has held a lot of time in beautiful oceans around the world, from Greece to Australia, New Zealand to South Africa, I have never met a more inviting and entirely agreeable ocean than this part of the Caribbean. The water is consistently the most perfect temperature, just cool enough to feel refreshing yet warm enough you never once consider getting out because of a chill. It envelopes you, begging you to jump in at any and every interval, and rewards you with purple coral fans, thousands of rainbow fish and endless ocean treasures every time you do. Every day there is a delicate breeze, just enough to bring reprieve from the heat and to fill your sails, but never so much as to be annoying or make sailing a challenge. There are dozens of small islands, all conveniently spaced so you can explore a new anchorage each night without ever having to dedicate too much of your day to getting there. With 6 weeks on our hands, we had a luxurious amount of time to slowly move between islands and suitable anchorages, discovering the best (and worst) of each one, then returning to our favorites time and time again without ever feeling like we were missing out.

Norman Island quickly claimed its spot in our hearts as a favorite, bookending our first and last nights on the boat with the calm and relative solitude that is Benures Bay (at least at this time of the year… with 20+ moorings, it could likely get raucous when busy, but on our last night it was just us!).  It offered us endless adventures from snorkeling to hiking and even a few blissful runs thanks to a network of dirt roads and trails winding up and down the small island. Tucked over on the south end of Norman is a tiny inlet called Money Bay, completely protected on 3 sides, and consisting of little more than a tiny beach littered with conch shells and a quiet bay just big enough for one boat with an adventurous lean to sneak into. Needless to say, we spent a fair bit of time in Money Bay, taking advantage of the complete isolation to swim naked and venture out on kayaks and paddle boards to hunt for buried treasure (it happens to be the island Treasure Island is based on and there is quite a bit of lore surrounding buried gold and jewels).  Sadly we never found any, despite the boys best efforts. We did however discover that you could hike from Money Bay over to The Bight, the main anchorage on Norman, which turned out to be a great excursion, backpacks loaded with school books and laptops, settling into the shade of a palm tree and ordering virgin pina coladas, aka ‘brain fuel’ for a session of English and math.

As beautiful as Peter Island was from the ocean, we were a bit turned off by the extremely aggressive signs covering every landing warning you to keep off so we tended to pass it by in favor of the other islands other than tucking in on the undeveloped south side of it once.  We snorkeled the shipwreck of the RMS Rhone off Salt Island and explored the wild salt lake tucked in the middle, crackling our way along the salt flats and ogling the rock sized salt crystals formed, doing our best not to crack through and sink into the very hot mud below.  Not the most protected spot to anchor for the night, but when wind and swell aligned, it was an easy one right off the west side.

We returned to Cooper Island anytime we needed a night off cooking for blended drinks and scrumptious conch fritters at the Cooper Island Beach club. A tiny eco resort the CIBC has a delicious restaurant, rum bar and brewery along with a remarkably good coffee shop and, perhaps most exciting of all, a dart board.  We would grab a mooring for the night or drop anchor just outside of the mooring field and take advantage of their shade and comfy lounge chairs in the mornings to drink coffee, devour freshly baked cookies and pastries and homeschool off the boat. Recess came in the form of dart competitions and we devoured plenty of their homemade ice cream in between math problems.

Virgin Gorda was a wealth of riches, seemingly holding a hundred different island experiences on one land mass, from completely isolated coves with no one around to fire dancers and dj’s to the Baths and so much good snorkeling in between. Long Bay and Savannah Bay became two of our favorite anchorages, each one boasting storybook calm turquoise water (in May…) and epic sunsets, both connected by a wonderfully steep windy road that made for a brutal and efficient quick spot to go for a run. We nicknamed Long Bay ‘Hermit Crab Beach’ as nearly every shell you started to collect got up and walked away.  The boys built sand mazes in which to race hermit crabs and designed stick villages with drift wood washed up on the beach. Savannah Bay may have been the prettiest beach we discovered in our six weeks; white, sandy, just long enough for a little walk and littered with driftwood, i.e. fuel for epic beach fires.  It’s a ‘tricky’ entry, threading between reefs, but highly worth it.  Just don’t tell your charter company;)  At the southernmost tip of Virgin Gorda are the Baths, probably one of the most famous attractions in the BVIs that are well worth the hype. A National Park Trust protected area, it is made up of giant granite boulders that the ocean washes between creating beautiful pools to swim in and giant rocks to slide down.  The boys each ripped the seat out of a pair of board shorts doing so many laps down one giant rock face. Luckily, we had backups! Up toward the northern tip of Virgin Gorda were the Bitter End Yacht Club and Leverick Bay, without a doubt home to two of the highlights in the boys 6 weeks. The Bitter End Yacht Club is a beautifully designed mini marina with a boutique grocery store, scrumptious restaurant, beach club, and a laundry service by the pound, a hot commodity in boat life! Best of all they rent Hobie Cats which Will gleefully introduced the boys to, essentially presenting them with a very simplified version of sailing that they could do themselves. It took about 4 minutes for Holden to fall in love.  We would race across the water, tacking and jibing, boys attached to the trapeze with a little harness, hanging their bodies off the sides trying to keep the Hobie from tipping over (we came realllllllyyyyyyy close twice to going fully horizontal). Reprovisioning at BEYC became one of their favorite activities because it meant a virgin daiquiri and a Hobie adventure. Leverick Bay is another provisioning and laundry stop, but more importantly is home to the Friday Night Fire Dancer and Jumbie Performance, in other words, heaven on earth, because really, is there anything better than a fire dancer?! Will and I were dreading the threat of the promoted buffet BBQ, DJ and fire dancer but the boys contagious glee quickly changed our tune. The buffet BBQ that would normally make us cringe turned out to be shockingly delicious with piles of ribs, fresh fish and brimming bowls of beans, rice, and salad. A DJ played wonderfully awful throwback songs like the macarena and Kris Kross singing JUMP, and the boys danced their little hearts out, jumping, spinning, and twirling with the abandon that only comes from the sugar rush of your first virgin daiquiri and the freedom of being somewhere where you know no one. Then the Jumbies came out, 3 towering island men on stilts that were 10-15 feet tall, blowing the boys minds and setting them both on a new career path, soccer player, scientist and astronauts be damned. Finally, the aforementioned fire dancer appeared, living up to all their expectations, neither boy caring that he was really pretty b-list and kept dropping his flaming torches, because he put lighter fluid in his mouth and breathed fire for the finale. Once again, a shift in career goals may have taken place. 

We ventured up to Anegeda several times, to visit the storied Conch Island, which was even more impressive in real life than we expected, and to snorkel the outer reef, an experience that turned out to be shockingly in-line with the Great Barrier Reef and the Galapagos. Conch Island is a towering pile of nearly 2 million conch shell that have been collecting over a hundred years, started by some clever fishermen who realized it was much easier to aggregate all the empty conch shells in one place so that the conch divers aren’t wasting time picking up empty shells, and also that that conch tend to shy away from empty shells, somehow aware that it is a sign of impending doom, so keeping the shells all in a pile ensures ample conch supplies for years and years and years. The barrier reef north of Anegeda was teeming with what felt like millions of fish, in every shape, size and color, all inches from you because the water is so shallow, which means you experience them so intimately you can actually watch their behavior. We watched parrot fish eating the reef and pooping sand, two surgeonfish kissing each other and a monstrous eagle ray swim alongside and around us for minutes; we fell in love with tiny Fairy Basslets whose purple and yellow bodies darted between coral heads and chased after Stoplight Parrotfish that look like mosaic tiles.  On our second visit to Anegada we anchored at an inlet called Pomato Point, searching for a little peace and quiet away from the all-night dancing, music and whooping that seems to dominate the main anchorage and mooring field. A beautiful strip of white sand and a few picnic tables scattered along the beach, the sailing guide told of a little restaurant called Sid’s that you call on the radio to place your order, and they bring it out to the picnic tables when its ready. It turned out to be one of the best meals of our trip, with insane lobster, fish and steak tacos on handmade tortillas, a perfectly crunchy creamy slaw and a damn good margarita to wash it all down. We made a giant bonfire on the beach using driftwood we collected and the finished pages of the boys math books, a pretty perfect culmination and celebration.

We sailed down into the USVIs to reset our passports (apparently, you’re only allowed to stay in the BVI for 4 weeks without extended clearance) and fell in love with the island of St. John with its long, sandy beaches (many of the BVI’s beaches are small and predominately rocky) and network of national park trails that wind up and down the island giving us the opportunity to sneak out for a run and take the boys on a few hot, humid hikes to old sugar mills and petroglyphs, adventures they dubbed half cool, half death-march.  At our first anchorage in St. John we were swimming ashore (It became our ritual to swim ashore to the beach anytime we dropped anchor, sometime 100 meters from shore, sometimes closer to 300, no small feat for a little 6 year old!) and happened upon a giant green sea turtle, quietly swimming along eating sea grass from the bottom. Unlike most of the turtles we saw, he was completely undeterred by our presence and seemed almost interested in the boys, swimming up to check us out, then returning to his sea grass munching while we swam along beside him, watching his sweet little mouth chewing away and marveling at the beauty of his tiled shell. We spent almost an hour caught in the magic dance of swimming along with him before we finally tired and decided to head to the beach where boys instantly built sea turtles out of sand, decorated with shells from the beach.

We ventured up to Guana Island, Greater and Lesser Camanoe and Jost Van Dyke. We found beautiful snorkling on Camanoe, a pristine beach on Guana and the bubbly pool on Jost Van Dyke. We fished every time we set sail and caught many a barracuda (they are everywhere and eat pretty much anything you throw into the water) before finally lucking into a tuna which the boys learned to filet off the back of the boat while still under sail and we turned into the most delicious fish tacos. We considered that homeschooling for the day. The barracudas became steadfast companions on our adventure, finding our boat most times we dropped anchor to nibble some of the little fish who would eat the algae growing on our keel, and giving us a shock every time we jumped in the water, despite knowing to expect them each time. Often they were 3 or 4 feet long, glistening silver with giant teeth, but they never bothered us and we never seemed to bother them, so onto our list of friends they went. We kept ourselves sane with ample swims and a series of strength workouts designed for us by our friend Jesse, a PT and trainer who sent us down with a small bag of resistance bands and has been building us boat workouts we complete by attaching our bands to the mast and stays and killing ourselves in an hour of resistance/strength work. It turned out to be a fun contrast in activity to our cardio focused selves and the boys fell in love with it as well, insisting we create them mini strength workouts after our own, squatting, jumping and using every available inch of the boat for push-ups and pull ups.

One of our last nights we put the boys to bed after a day that had been long, hot and humid and decided to jump in the water for a pre-bed swim/cool down. As soon as I touched the water what looked like a thousand shooting stars cascaded out from my hands and feet and it took me a second to realize that the water was filled with bioluminescence. I started screaming in excitement to Will to wake up the boys to come and see, which of course woke the boys because, well, we were all on a tiny boat, and before long all 4 of us were swimming in the pitch-black water, kicking our feet and swirling our arms, squealing with glee at the sheer beauty and magic of it all, the shimmers in the water mirroring the stars in the sky. The boys kept darting through the water, their little naked bodies leaving trails of sparkles shouting “look!!! I’m a constellation!!!” I hope that is a memory that will never fade. I don’t think I could have asked for a better ending to the trip, a moment to step back and remember the magic that the past year has held.

The past six weeks, while sweet and beautiful and filled with magic and adventure have also been challenging at times, all of us feeling a little frayed by the closeness and togetherness of life on a boat, unable to have any physical separation of space, compounded by the fact that we never really slept solidly through a night, constantly awaking to creaks and moans, weird smells and sounds, oppressive heat or rain drenching us through the hatches. Our boat was an awesome little home but it definitely wasn’t luxe. I counted and we’ve been together for 282 days at this point, without school, work or childcare to create space, and it can get intense at times. Huxley is young enough he isn’t fazed, and as long as he has his brother and Rufus, his giant stuffed snow leopard, he can face anything. Will has one of those incredible calm, even constitutions that never seems to fluster and holds us all steady, but Holden and I have so many more emotions, more ups and downs, and needs for our own space. Holden discovered escaping into books to ground himself, often reading for hours a day, popping up to practice flips off the boat or swim ashore and go treasure hunting with Huxley, then curling up in the shade when his system needed a break. I rediscovered the joy of a super simple yoga routine, often taking place at night after boys had gone to bed, setting up my mat on the bow of the boat and taking 30 minutes of complete quiet to breath and stretch. But even more than figuring out how to escape, what we all learned this year is how to find peace and stillness in our constant togetherness, to appreciate what an incredible gift it is, to adventure, explore, learn, and grow together, to get sick of each other and then collapse into a snuggle pile to read a book because at least then no one has to talk to each other. Of course, we still daydreamed plenty of what it will be like when the boys leave the house to go to school for a whole day, but I also wish we could freeze time and stay like this forever, our little pack of four discovering the world, and who we are along the way.

As the trip wound down, I started getting increasingly nostalgic, reminiscing on all the adventures we’ve had and how much I would miss our constant motion and togetherness, challenging as they can be at times. One night over dinner Holden chimed in “well don’t worry, you’ll get to do it again sometime because I plan to do this with my kids, and to make sure they do it with their kids, and you can come visit us along the way”.  My heart broke and exploded at the same time and I realized, for the umpteenth time, what incredible little humans we are raising, and how lucky we are to tag along on this adventure that is life.