British Virgin Islands and Culebra

 

After some great dives in Jacques Cousteau bay, unfortunately no piccies as GoPro is broken, we headed up to Deshaies on the North west of Guadaloupe to sign out of the French Antilles. 

Another lovely safe harbour where we took a mooring ball for the night, got our exit stamp and left for the British virgin islands which would take 2 nights. On the second day on a crazy shallow bank near the island of Saba I caught a massive fish. Sadly it was a cooda which can carry ciguatera so we let him go. They look a bit scary though.

We arrived on Sunday and dropped the anchor on the south side of Peter Island, British virgin islands as the customs and immigration was not open until Monday. A lovely empty anchorage except for 1 charter boat full of super friendly South Africans who gave us lots of bottled water as they were leaving the next day. After a peaceful nights sleep we sailed around the corner, about 8 miles, to the Capital of the BVIs, Road town, on Tortola, to check in, pickup some parts I ordered from the chandlers and stock up at the supermarket. Nothing much happening at Road town except cruise liners and charter boats so after doing our chores we upped anchor and went across to the North side of Peter island. After driving around for an hour looking for an anchorage we finally dropped it by an amazing reef and spent 2 days snorkeling and swimming.

So we are on a bit of a timetable - again! as we have to explore Puerto Rico before Richie leaves us. So it's going to be a quick tour of the BVIs. We head over to virgin Gorda to a place called the Baths national park. A collection of rocks, pools and caves. You can't land your dinghy on the beach and have to tie it off the shore and swim in. For a place so popular it was really well kept.

After walking around and before swimming back to the dinghy we had one of the best ever Pina coladas on the beach made by Carl. Well we had 2 which made the swim back a little more interesting.

Next day it was onto a place called the Bitter end at the north end of Virgin Gorda recommended to us by the South Africans we met earlier. 

The BVIs are expensive and this place was the worst. No prices on some of the restaurant menus. $45 for a burger, $60 for a pizza, $50 for a mooring ball for the night, $800 for a room in the hotel. Some nice boats around though. We were the smallest boat in the bay, I felt decidedly poor.

We didn't stay long at the bitter end, couldn't afford to. So we moved back down to Spanish town and found a great bar with great burgers. 

Everywhere we go there are chickens wandering the streets.

And there was a band playing reggae versions of country music tunes. My favourite was "You picked a fine time to leave me Lucille". And to add to the great atmosphere it rained.

Next day we had a lovely sail between loads of islands and shallows heading to our last BVI, Jost Van Dyke. We stopped on the north side of Tortola at Cane Garden bay so we could visit the shell museum and rum distillery. The guy who runs the shell museum was 104 years old and had lots of stories to tell of times gone by, for example he remembers the first car on the island, a land rover. It broke down after a month and wasn't repaired for 6 months. He and his wife made us breakfast and it was the fist time I felt like I wasn't getting ripped off in the BVIs. When we left his wife gave us some plantains and mangos from their garden.

Then onto the Rum Distillery so Richie could stock up on his growing Caribbean rum collection. It was only a dollar to taste 6 rums. We were all a little tipsyed and bought more rum than we should have. A great marketing ploy.

Then over to Jost Van dyke with a short top at Sandy spit a real desert island.

Then it was on to Great harbour, Jost Van Dyke, to check out of the BVIs. It was a bit windy on arrival and we lost our boat hook trying to pick up a mooring ball. Well Richie lost our boat hook. But....The next day walking along the beach we found it washed up onshore and to make things even sweeter the following day, whilst sailing, we found another boat hook floating in a patch of sargassum. Woo hoo! That night we went to the famous Foxy's bar which was lovely with it's own super covered dinghy dock, steel band, Karaoke and trendy clothes shop but again it was very expensive, 2 rounds of rum punches was close to $100. 

We checked out of the BVIs the next day and headed for Culebra, an island off the coast of Puerto Rico know as the Spanish virgin islands. The weather was a bit uncomfortable so we sheltered for the night in Magens Bay, St Thomas USVIs. To check into Culebra, Puerto Rico, which is American, we had to check into America which was soooo easy. We had our US visas so just had to log in via an app which ended with a video call to a US customs guy. He chatted with us for a few minutes, asking where we planned to go, have you got any guns on board, drugs etc. And that was it "Welcome to America". We can now go anywhere in America for up to 6 months in any 12 month period for the next ten years.

Culebra was a great find. A dead calm anchorage surrounded by bars with their own jetties and a channel cutting the island in half with loads of homes and bars dotted around the mangroves. Richie got his American breakfast. We went to Zacos Tacos and the only complaint Richie and Mandy had was the service was too quick. I have never heard that before. We played pool and stocked up with food. A lovely few relaxing days.

There is an airport in Culebra which at around 5pm every night has loads of small planes taking off. I could help but think of that film American made with Tom Cruise. All of them smuggling drugs and guns. :-) Ok they are probably just taking tourists home to Puerto Rico. It's an impressive sight though watching a stream of planes take off in such short succession.

Cero Luis Peña is an island off Culebra which is an island of Puerto Rico. (An island off an island off and island) It is uninhabited and had some wonderful snorkeling so we grabbed a mooring ball for the night as it was only 20 miles to Puerto Rico then next day.  After 2 hours the mooring ball snapped, I didn't have time to check it, so we grabbed another one, dived on it, and had completely uninterrupted, peaceful day and night. You can see Puerto Rico in the drone shot towards the sun. Stunning place.

The next day it was onto Puerto Rico