Sailing in the British Virgin Islands for 10 days – day 2
This is Day 2 of our sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands with BVI Yacht Charters on a Lagoon 450.
Needing a little hair of the dog from Willie T’s, the crew elected to sail to Jost Van Dyke island for our next stop over in White Bay where the famous Soggy Dollar bar serves the most delicious Pain Killers and other concoctions. My favorite however, is the Vanilla Killer and our bartender Sana serves them with a great smile. She has worked at the Soggy Dollar for 11 years.
Sana at the Soggy Dollar will take care of you
The beach at White Bay is one of the more awesome beaches in the BVI. It is not to be missed. There are also several other restaurants and bars along the beach. Just be aware to leave the beach prior to dusk. No See’ems come out and will eat your legs off. Otherwise, during the day there are no bities.
There are two entrances to White Bay on Jost Van Dyke through the reef. The BVI is under IALA-B rules which means red right returning. Of course, me being from New Zealand, we had a heated discussion about which system is right including who drives on the correct side of the road. My point is that we have the steering wheel on the right side of the car. But … we’re in the islands who the heck cares who is right? Right? Hmmm what we we stayed on island philosophy?Just maybe that’s the answer to the world’s problems. I’ll be sure and send that to Washington.
Inside the reef next to the beach the anchoring can get little tight and it is pretty shallow. Expect 4 feet under your keel and 50 feet to your neighbor.
Shallow in White Bay. Anchor with Caution.
Swim your anchor and make sure it is dug in properly.
Check the anchor
Day 2 was a little short due to the time aberration of Willie T’s which made us get up late. So pretty much all we accomplished that day was a sail from Norman Island to White Bay JVD and a Vanilla Killer and lots of laughs.
We did have one technical issue however where the Autopilot even though it said it was off was still controlling the helm. That was freaky. We rebooted the Navigation and everything was fine.
Ducks: There is a blue duck with is a sailing faux pas, then there is a black duck with is a sailing faux pas which costs money and then there is a Red duck with is the spillage of alcohol. That night a series of events lead us to riffle through them all but making a tremendous come back from a black duck to end in just blue and red. It started with Tim slipping down the stairs and spilling his red wine all over the cushion – Red Duck! So we immediately washed it off and set it up to dry. The blue duck was not ensuring it was secure. The potential black duck was that it blew away during the night. The downgrade to a blue duck was that we recovered it on the beach in the morning – now full of sea water and sand. We unzipped it, washed it all out, dried it in the sun on the front trampoline (secured this time) and zipped it back up better than new. Red –> Blue –> Black –> Blue+Red. Embarrassing all the same. Tie down the cushions durh!
See Day 1 of Our Sailing Trip to the BVI
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