The following pictures were taken along the path that goes
from the fuel dock to the little provisioning store where we went to get some
more sun block lotion—my goodness we really go through the sun block! Anyway, the path was lovely with lots of
bougainvillea, etc. And, there was a
nice shady stone arch built to keep the bench sitters cool.
And for our desert friends and relatives, here are some prickly plants that might look familiar to you.
So, off we go sailing down the Sir Francis Drake
Channel. What a glorious, beautiful sail
it was! This is just exactly what we
signed up for—deep blue water, 12 to 18 knots of wind, lots of sails, and a
warm sunny day! As we sailed south along
the Channel this is what we saw—Beef Island off in the distance and the Dog
Islands off to the side.
Then we headed west so we could sail north of Beef Island
and Tortola (have you got your map out?).
There are lots of things to see along this route. We sailed right past the end of the Beef
Island Airport runway and the little mooring field of sailboats at Trellis
Bay. When we flew in on Monday, it
seemed that our little plane was coming awfully close to those sailboats tucked
in there near the runway. Here’s a
picture of Marina Quay which is just off the southern tip of Scrub Island. Right in front of Marina Cay is a huge reef
that is called Mother Turtle Reef. It is
the light blue water right in front of the red roofed marina buildings.
Next we took down our sails and motored north between Great
Camanoe and Little Camanoe Islands. The
first picture below is the channel and the second is a little blow hole in the
wall of the channel.
Here’s the view of Guana Sound as we raise the sails and
continue to head west.
At the southern tip of Guana Island is a great snorkeling
spot maintained by the BVI National Park: Monkey Point. The first picture below shows Monkey Point
from the outside looking in. The second
one is from the inside looking out.
We moored the big boat in the bay and motored over to the
reef with the dinghy so we could snorkel.
The water was cool and nice, but a northern surge was making things
rolly and stirring up the bottom. Even
though it wasn’t the best visibility, we could see pretty little tropical fish
and some handsome yellowtails. Also, the
water was full of little minnow fish that the pelicans apparently love. As we snorkeled, a huge pelican or two would
crash land in the water right beside us.
They didn’t seem to mind that we were there so we got to see close up
and personal how they right themselves and shake that pouch full of fish right
down their throats. Sorry we didn’t get
a picture of that!
Our plan was to take a mooring on the protected side of
Guana Island in White Bay. We looked at
the area and decided that it wasn’t as protected as we had hoped. It was just a little after noon, so we ate
lunch in the cockpit and agreed to a new plan---sail the rest of the day to the
far side of Tortola Island—Cane Garden Bay on the west end of Tortola.
This sail was mostly down wind and it too was lovely. We got into Cane Garden Bay around 4:30 pm
which is late for claiming a mooring ball which are rented on a
first-come-first-served basis. To our
delight there were 5 or 6 balls still available. To our despair, however, these moorings were
all in a part of the bay that was rolling with that northern surge. We briefly considered anchoring, but that
would be in the rolly water too. So we
tied on to the mooring and rocked and rolled all night long. Honestly, it was like the boat was leaping
around from side to side. Everything in
the boat and out on the deck clanged and crashed. Somehow we managed to get some sleep as we
were pretty tired from a full day of sailing.
The beach front at Cane Gardens was wonderful—the perfect
Caribbean beach with rows of beach chairs in front of rows of bars &
grills. The dinghy trip to shore and
back in the dark was challenging as the water surged and crashed, but we made
it. Here are some pictures of beautiful
Cane Garden Bay on the western end of Tortola..
No comments:
Post a Comment