It was another amazing day out on the water between Culebra and the British Virgin Islands. We were up early and on the move from our anchorage at 7 am. We were trying very hard to time our arrival at Current Cut for around 11 am. The cut is between St. Thomas and Great St. James Islands (USVI) and we were trying to hit an ebb tide so we could have the current flowing with us! With little wind and no waves, we were able to reach the cut with a wonderful ebb current that boosted our speed into the mid 7 kts range.
The terrain of the USVIs and the BVIs is beautiful. It’s very hilly with lush vegetation. I was very surprised by the amount of urbanization on St. Thomas – not much space left, even way up in the hills!! St. John Island seemed less populated but still had housing way up to the tops of the hills. Both were very picturesque!
We arrived at our destination – Soper’s Hole, Tortola, BVIs around 1 pm. We could tell from a distance that the harbour was very busy so we were prepared to have some fun finding a spot to anchor (we’ve done George Town anchoring so we felt prepared!!). We weren’t prepared for a harbour that was over 70ft deep!! How exactly do you anchor in that depth? We do have 250ft of chain plus a rope line but do you really want to trust that you’re secured in a harbour full of boats!! We quickly decided to pick up a mooring ball. That was a challenge – no wind all day and as we tried to pick up that ball, the wind piped up to 12 kts off to the side which really made things interesting. Unfortunately the line from the mooring ball (called a pennant) had many little barnacles on it and Mark cut his hand on them. He had to drop the pennant and we went around for a second go at it. No problems the second time (although it was a struggle with wind and a sore hand) and we were secured by 1:30pm. Mark went off to customs and immigration (crew is not allowed to leave the boat) and got us cleared in!! Now we’re in the BVIs for a few weeks!!
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 