To get the trip started I first have to catch a flight from Buffalo, NY to Los Angeles, CA, it’s 24 degrees in Buffalo!!!. My wife Laura will be driving up from San Diego to LA to drop off our dog at her sister’s and then we will meet up at the LAX Hilton (got a nice Hotwire deal) at around 8pm. My flight goes well and I catch the shuttle over to the hotel. Laura meets me at the hotel and we grab a quick dinner before going upstairs to our room.
This will be our 3rd bareboat charter and we have discovered that our list of “stuff to bring” has become very long. Now the trick is to get all 4 allowed bags to be under 50lbs. It takes about an hour, and many attempts but we finally get all the bags within a pound or two. We take showers and get to bed because the alarm will be going off early!
Well Laura’s phone goes off at 0323! It’s AA with a flight update for us, no more sleep for us. We catch the hotel shuttle over to the airport and unload the pile of bags. Luckily my luggage scale and AA’s are about the same and so we don’t have to make any adjustments to our bags. On to TSA. We both get the x-ray with no ill effects so now I think some Starbucks is in order.
Our flight to Dulles goes as planned, now onto San Juan. We arrive in San Juan and wait for Patrick and Sara to show up. Their flight was a little late but we all made it on to the flight to Beef Island. We arrive on time and get in line for B.V.I. Customs. It takes us about 30-40 minutes to get through the line. Once we finish we have the bags hauled to the curb where Dave is waiting for us with the rental car. It took a bit of finagling but we finally are able to get all the bags and ourselves wedged into the car, off we go!
We arrive at Conch Charters and grab a couple carts to haul the bags down to the boat. Our boat for the next 10 days is Hazelnut, she’s a 43’ Belize built by Fountaine Pajot. Although she’s been in service since 2003 she looks like she’s in great shape! Dave, Jana, Matt and Kristy arrived earlier in the day and have already unpacked. By the time we get all our gear stowed and relax a bit it’s 2 am, time to hit the hay.
DAY 1
We wake up at 7 to a nice warm clear day. We check in with the staff at Conch and complete our paperwork. Dave, Jana, and Laura head to Riteway for a few small items. In the meantime the Kayak we have rented from Last Stop Watersports arrives. Our orders from Riteway and Tico also show up. After checking our Riteway order it appears that a few items are missing. I make a few calls to Riteway but since it’s Sunday I’m having no luck raising anyone. I head up to the Conch office and after one call Irene has located someone from Riteway that is going to help us out. Sure enough within 60 minutes the missing items show up.
Ross from Conch comes aboard and we go through the checkout process. All looks good! I get a chart brief from Kirsty and we are cleared to go. Dave went to return the rental car so looks like we will be away from the dock at about 1 pm. We shove off at 1:15 and we are on our way to the Bight on Norman Island.
We arrive at the Bight at about 2:45 and grab a mooring ball at the western edge of the field. We realize we have no Nutmeg so Dave jumps in the dinghy and heads over to the Willy T. The guys give Dave a Nutmeg nut and the crisis has been averted.
Our first dinner onboard will be marinated filet mignon.
After dinner we we're just hanging out talking when I hear a chirp from the engine alarm. We had the engines running because we had loaded the reefer and freezer up with food and thought it best to chill them down as much as possible. After a few more chirps with no indication of the trouble we decided to secure the engines and have a look around. I opened the port engine access and could see oil in the bilge. After a bit of research I was able to find a small leak on a steel oil line that wrapped around the back of the cylinder head.
I called Conch and left a message. A few minutes later I received a call back and explained the problem. We agreed to talk again in the morning.
DAY 2
Dave was up early this morning to whip up some delicious breakfast burritos!! I called the mechanic from Conch and he will meet up with us while we are at the Indians snorkeling. After breakfast me move the boat over to the Indians and grab a ball. A few of us jump in the dinghy and head out to snorkel.
While we are snorkeling the mechanic shows up and replaces the line and cleans up the bilge. By the time we get back to the boat he has already left. We moved the boat over to the Caves to check them out.
Jana will be making dinner tonight. After snorkeling we move the boat back over to the Bight and grab a mooring ball. Jana's dinner was great!! Green chili chicken stew and corn bread!
After dinner we head over to the Willy T for a little fun.
Wow do they get some drunk folks over there!! We watched a guy do 2 separate face plants on to the dock. After the second plant the bartender had the guy's buddy take him back to their boat.
On to Pirates...
DAY 3
Dave and I are up 6am to get underway for Virgin Gorda. Since the wind will be right on our nose we may have to motor the entire way :(
The weather so far this morning is VERY nice!
After a 5 1/2 hour motor/motor sail we arrive at Leverick Bay. It's too early to get into our slip so we grab a mooring ball. We all go ashore and meet the folks from the Mahogany rental car company. They were able to get a Safari Bus, which is very cool!
We all load up and head out to go to the Bath's which will enable us to see pretty much the entire island.
Time for a little lunch at the Top of the Bath's
Now down to the Bath's
After a few hours hanging out at the Bath's we decide to get back to Leverick for Happy Arrrrr with Michael Beans
Dave tried to compete in the conch blowing contest but it was not to be...He couldn't quite get the sound out after his first attempt
Nick's weather rock
DAY 4
Up early but we didn't shove off until 10:30. We got our TTOL deal of 200 gals. of water and 2 bags of ice and we were off to Anegada.
We anchored at about 12:30
We stayed on the boat to read and relax then went ashore the Anegada Reef Hotel for some appetizers. Janet was our server and she's pretty funny!!!
DAY 5
Got a pretty good rain shower during the night. Matt whipped up some breakfast burritos for breakfast this morning...yummmmm!
We are going ashore at around 10 to pick up our rental Safari bus from ARH. We all load up in the Safari bus and off to Loblolly we go.
After a bit of beach time we strolled up to Big Bamboo
Charlie took very good care of us
Dave and his handy work
Next we head over to Cow Wreck Beach
I went over to Walker's place but I think they left the island a day or two ago. Belle took good care of us at Cow Wreck, and so did Dave!
We all went to ARH for lobster dinner!!
DAY 6
Today we are going to take a little look around Anegada. First stop is the salt pond to see if we can spot any flamingos
Next stop was the Rock Iguana Rehabilitation Clinic
Now on to Flash of Beauty
The crew ate on the boat and Laura and I went ashore for another lobster and bar b q chicken dinner
DAY 7
Dave and I got up before the sun to get u/w to Soper's. I had our route into the anchorage on my GPS so I just went out the same way we came in. It was a little interesting leaving before the sun came up but we got out without any trouble. We had a real nice sail all the way to Soper's.
We pull up to the fuel pier for some water and fuel. After topping off the fuel tank the guy tells us they are out of water and we have to go to Nanny Cay. Actually they had water but for some reason they don't want to sell it. So off to Nanny Cay.
Hugo was real nice to us so I think we'll bypass Soper's in the future and just plan to go to Nanny Cay. We took on about 130 gals. of water and picked up a couple bags of ice. We leave Nanny Cay to our stern and we are on our way to Jost Van Dyke.
We've never done an overnight at Garner Bay so we thought we would give it a try, plus Laura wanted to go to Sydney's Peace and Love.
We pick up a mooring ball and we proceed to relax . We'd only been on the ball a few minutes when we see dinghies coming are way. The first one is pitching us Sydney's and the other is pitching Ivan's.
After about 30 minutes we notice that the flies are really starting to congregate in the salon. We hang out for a little longer and the amount of flies just becomes unbearable and we drop the ball and high tail it out of there! So for us Garner Bay is now refereed to as Fly Bay.
We motor/sail over to Great Harbour in hopes of finding an open mooring ball. After a couple spins around the harbour we see one open up and we make a bee line for it.
Laura, downtown Great Harbour
Since it's Saturday Foxy's bar b q is a must!
After dinner the crew headed over to Ali Baba's
DAY 8
Laura and I went ashore to see if the bakery was open. While we were onshore we ran into Foxy. Here he is doing his thing...
As some as you may have heard Foxy's sign was stolen a few weeks ago, here's the one in its place
We dropped the ball and headed over to White Bay
The famous Soggy Dollar Bar
After a great day at the SDB we left White Bay and are now heading over to Sandy Cay.
Laura, Dave and I took the trail to the top of the island. If you look close you can see Sandy Spit in the background
After our island tour we make our way over to Diamond Cay and drop the hook
We thought we would take the trail to the Bubbly Pool and see if there are any bubbles today.
Some friends on the trail
The Bubbly Pool had bubbles but nothing significant
After the hike back from Bubbly Pool we stopped at Taboo for some refreshments
DAY 9
Today we will be meeting Tony from UBS at the wreck of the Rhone for a rendezvous dive.
We leave Diamond Cay and head to Nanny Cay to top off the water tank. Another great stop at Nanny Cay and we are off to Salt Island.
Tony showed up to take us down to see the Rhone
The lucky porthole
Patrick, Sara, Dave, and Jeff
At first we were checking out the giant Angelfish but then we all spotted the Green Moray. He looked to be at least 4' long!
We stayed at Salt and had a great bar b q dinner
The sunset was awesome!
DAY 10
Today is our last full day so we are going to spend it at Cooper Island
The snorkeling at Cistern Point was amazing!
After snorkeling we all went ashore to enjoy the sunset and a few of us had a great dinner at the Cooper Island Beach Club, dinner was fantastic! We will definitely be back!
DAY 11
Well today's the last day of our charter. We drop the ball and begin our short trip back to Road Town. We stop at the Delta fuel dock to top of the tank then onto the dock at Conch. Since we will be spending the night at Sebastian's we call to see if we can get a large rental car. The rental company has 2 ultra small vehicles so we take um.
Here's a picture of the rest of the crew in theirs on our way to Sebastian's
We get checked in and take our gear to our rooms. Here's our view from room 1
Since we haven't been to Cane Garden Bay for about 9 years we jumped in our ultra small rentals and head to CGB. Laura and I go to Myett's and the rest want to check out the Callwood's Distillery tour.
We enjoy a nice dinner at Sebastian's and then we all call it a night, Laura and I have an early flight.
DAY 12
Laura and I are up at 5:30 to make the drive to the airport. All go well and we leave the rental in the parking lot. We get all our gear checked in so we relax a bit until our flight is ready to go.
We are on our way to Los Angeles, what a great trip!!
I sure hope we'll be back soon.....
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