The BVI’s consists of approximately 60 islands – of which only 15 are inhabited. Many of them are just splits of land, rocks or national parks. Although officially called the Virgin Islands they called the British Virgin Islands to distinguish themselves from the USVI because they are…wait, wait…you guessed it a British territory.
Entering Soper”s Hole
Town dock at Soper”s Hole
This beautiful yacht’s name is Regina
It’s said that Christopher Columbus named the island of Virgin Gorda, or “Fat Virgin,” because he thought the mountain on the island looked like a protruding stomach of a woman. Try as we might we did not see this but maybe Columbus had more rum than we did when we were looking at it!
NORMAN ISLAND – Legend is this was place that inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Treasure Island” – This is one of the deserted islands in the chain, and is located across the Drake Channel from Tortola. It offers some of the best snorkeling caves in the BVI where you can view colorful coral and spectacular marine life. Adventurous hikers can climb to Spy Glass Hill, the island’s central ridge.
Normand Island, Jost Van Dyke and Bellamy Cay were named after pirates. Dead Chest off of Peter Island was reputedly the island where Black Beard marooned 15 of his sailors with just a bottle of rum. Hence the ditty: “Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.”
The Caves on Norman’s Island
Some of the other islands were named to serve as signposts for ships captains for provisioning. Beef Island is where ships would go for beef, then they would head over to Salt Island to preserve the meat, and then finally stop at Cooper Island for barrels to store their provisions so you get the picture on how many of the BVI islands got their names.
Cane Garden Bay, one of our favorite bays.
Pusser’s in Road Town.
Pusser’s in Road Town…did you know that you are not allowed to take pictures inside the Pusser’s store? We did not know at the time but quickly found out as we were asked to leave! At least they did not make us turn over our camera 🙂
It’s strange but the BVI’s have a different feel to them then the USVI’s. They seem more posh or fancy maybe that’s just because we thought of them as “British”.
The Baths – Virgin Gorda
The Baths – Virgin Gorda
It’s no wonder this is one of the world’s top sailing destinations with more than 40 islands within an hours sail of each other.
Bitter End Yacht Club
Rachel’s first solo dinghy ride.
See, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows…that comes after the rain 🙂
Saba Rock
The trade winds are mostly steady (we did have some days with little to no winds which they say is rare for this time of year), and the seas are calm when you are in between the protection of the islands. Once you set sail into the channel, there are hundreds of protected bays to anchor and enjoy. This place is a sailors paradise!
Jost Van Dyke the fourth largest island in the BVI’s. JVD is internationally famous for Foxy’s New Years Eve Party. The bar/restaurant was a bit sleepy when were were there…not much going on. We had hoped for at least some live music that night but no such luck.
We made lots of stops and made new friends along the way. Rachel even made some friends that she got to hang out with while we sailed along the same paths. Nice treat for her and for us too!
And the mega yachts that we’ve seen have been something else…just incredible! We even seen Johnny Depp’s Boat!! Wished that we would have seen him too!
Johnny Depp’s yacht!
Very hard to tell what this black dot is but it was a humpback whale that we saw as we sailed to Anegada…wow!! We figured that it was sleeping. We kept our distance as not to disturb it. It would float with the peak of it’s snout up in the air and then dive down about every 10 minutes or so and come up for a breath. No cool tail shot for us but it was still awesome seeing this magnificent creature!
ANEGADA is located just north of Virgin Gorda, and the island actually floats on a remote reef. Can you even see it? At its highest, its just 28 feet above sea level. It’s best described as a fantasy oasis with large salt ponds, giant rock iguanas, flamingos and blooming cacti. The pristine beaches are surrounded by a maze of coral called Horseshoe Reef. This island really reminded us of being in the Bahamas. We also called this “Reservation Island” because forget eating dinner anywhere unless you made a reservation by at least 4:00! And if you eat here it is lobster…that is what everyone comes here for and at $50+ dollars for a dinner…ouch! Spaghetti dinner hit the spot for us while we were here. 🙂
Is that lobster on the right big or what??
OK if you have a really big computer screen you might be able to see the pink flamingos way in the center background…they were really far to get a picture of but they were there…loved seeing them!
To all of our friends and family up in the freezing great white north…just so you know…we are sweating our buts off down here!
Hopefully our pics will warm you up 🙂
Jennifer, Brian and Rachel