Unlike the other high, mountainous islands of the BVI, Anegada is low and flat, like the islands of the Bahamas or the Turks and Caicos, meaning it cannot be sighted until only a few miles out. It is also surrounded by extensive reefs and sandbars, which can become a problem when Anegada still seems like a distant ribbon on the horizon. Before GPS became commonplace, the charter companies had a blanket prohibition about even heading in Anegada's direction. This and less-than-daily ferry service for the locals helped maintain Anegada's status as a sleepy backwater.
Now, of course, GPS is ubiquitous. Charter boat's chartplotters already have safe waypoints and routes loaded in, so that approaching the one approved anchorage on the island is no more hazardous than any of the other places in the BVI that they go. Because of this, especially mid-week in the period between pick-up and return, there are usually long lines of boats going both to and from Anegada. Anegada has now become the place where one can reliably see the largest collection of charter boats in the BVI outside of the pick-up bases.
Back in 2009, when Footprint had GPS, but most charter boats didn't, that would have been an excellent time for us to have visited Anegada and either have the whole place to ourselves, or possibly to share it with one other boat. At that time, though, there was also not much to do on the island other than to walk around in the heat and look at people's houses. It seemed a long way to go for that.
Now, of course, with the additional traffic, several businesses have popped up to help keep tourist wallets from falling into disuse. This created a problem for me.
While I am not generally a fan of the party hearty charter crowd, I am also married to Maryanne, who rankles at the idea of missing the one place in the country that literally every other boater gets to see. We have more time here than they do, after all.
Fine. We'll go.
As I mentioned before, there is basically one place to take a boat on Anegada, in the lee of Setting Point, on the western side of the southern shore. To deal with the volume of charter boats, a dense mooring field has been set up there (and a host of beach bars/restaurants to cater to the visitors). It is also possible for some overflow boats to squeeze into the shallows at the edge of the mooring field.
Our sail from Savannah Bay on Virgin Gorda was a comfortable, close reach in the line with many others. Our one small victory was that our small, old, blue-water boat was able to slowly pull ahead of the giant, sixty-foot condominium next to us, despite them being under full sail and us having two reefs in the main in an attempt to go easy on our rigging. We were able to further widen our lead with well-practiced sail hoisting and dousing techniques on either end.
As Anegada hove into view, the forest of masts at Setting Point looked like the boats there were in a marina instead of a mooring field. Just about a mile or so to leeward, at Pomato Point, billed as a possible overflow anchorage for the hardy, a small handful of boats were widely spaced. Maryanne took one look at both locations and decided we would be better off at sparsely populated Pomato Point.
The downside to Pomato Point is that it is farther from all of the "stuff". This is generally not a problem for other boats with fast dinghies. Since we don't have one of those, our option was to beach the Pudgy and walk to Setting Point to see if what the fuss was all about.
Pomato Point, Anegada
By then, it was the hottest part of the day. The concrete road offered no shade, so we walked the half-hour into Setting Point sandwiched between the heat of the blazing sun above and the hot, radiating concrete beneath our feet.
We walked to the nearest village - taking diversions to see if we could spot flamingos in the salt ponds. The other birds are the American Kestrel, the native Antillean-crested Hummingbird, and the Magnificent Frigatebird.
We had planned a whole, long walk to take advantage of the remaining daylight, with a plan to stop at Setting Point on the way back, in the likely chance that they have a beach bar at which to rest. We changed our plan on the off-chance that we might be able to rent some sort of vehicle the following day, so that we could have a plan before the rental place shut for the night.
Well, it was even better than that. The very first business we came upon while walking in from the main island road was a place that told us we could have a scooter for twenty-four hours for $45, plus an $8 fee for any gasoline used. Maryanne filled out the paperwork, agreeing with me that she'd much rather spend our money on that than a mooring ball for the night. Now we had the whole island at our disposal.
Having the scooter, we ventured to look for more flamingos (only a few very distant ones spotted), and to the Iguana Headstart facility where native/endangered iguanas are safely rasied to adulthood before being released into the wild.
Fisherman's Wharf, and (from the look out tower) the giant Arawak conch middens seen off the island
And a trip to the Anegada Beach Club for a walk on the northern beaches
It instantly became apparent that a thirty-mile-an-hour breeze does wonders for dissipating the tropical heat accumulated at our frequent stops. We went to the main town, The Settlement, to see the sanctuary and breeding center for the island's indigenous iguanas. We also saw the fisherman's wharf, and then took in several beach and ocean views along the north side of Anegada's sandy perimeter road (not really suitable for mopeds). We left the scooter for the night at Sid's Pomato Point Restaurant, on the opposite side of the building from our dinghy. They do a nice Painkiller, but we quickly learned the place is overrun with no-see-ums at sunset, so we beat a not-hasty-enough retreat to Begonia for the night.
After getting a reasonably early start the next morning, it didn't take Maryanne and I long to realize we had pretty much exhausted our list of things to see on Anegada. After dragging our feet at a last couple of stops, we decided to head back to Setting Point and return our scooter a couple hours early.
Day 2 we started the day continuing to look for flamingos, and took a trip to the (tiny) Botanic Garden at the Settlement. The black bird is a Smooth-billed Ani
We were glad of the paved roads to reach the beaches to the NE of the Island, Jack Bay and Loblolly Bay. Watching the birds run back and forth at the edge of the surf (Sanderlings and Ruddy turnstones) on the empty beaches was great fun. Of course we still found trash, but I was especially happy to see a collection of ram's horn squid "shells" washed ashore.
Donkeys (along with cattle and goats) are regularly spotted, and the bird is the bananaquit, the official bird of the BVI. Back at the Settlement (main town) we visited the The Theodolph Faulkner House Museum - childhood home of the activist who protested for better facilities for the "secondary islands" of the BVI - and known here as the 'Father of Modern Politics'.
By this point, we had not seen any more of Setting Point than the rental place. I was eager to walk toward the crowded mooring field to see what was drawing everyone over.
We were surprised to find things quite peaceful at Setting point, and enjoyed a conch ceviche demo at the Anegada Reef Hotel
Having seen it now, I'm still not sure. Knowing that each of the dozens of moored charter boats had six to twelve people aboard, I had expected a certain bustle of vacationers in swim gear going in and out of souvenir shops or telling loud sea stories at the bars. Instead, it seemed like everyone had sailed up here and then decided to spend a quiet day on their boats before sailing back.
To be fair, the bars were basic affairs, with chairs made out of plywood and little else to make for ambiance, other than the adjacent beach, with the mooring field behind. They did have rum, though, and plenty of it. Tourists love that stuff. Perhaps Maryanne and I needed to wait for nightfall for things to pick up.
No chance of that. We decided to belay our refreshing rum drinks until after the long walk back to Sid's. No offense to them, but we wanted to be out of there before the hour-of-being-overtaken-by-ravenous,-invisible-insects began. Luckily, we arrived with enough time to chat to Isabel, who introduced herself as the owner's wife. She was as nice as could be. We also had time to try their cauliflower tacos. It sounds weird, but they were amazing! Had I not been worried about ruining my Thanksgiving dinner back at Begonia, I could have easily wolfed down two dozen of those tacos instead.
Safely back home, and with no new bites to show, we ended up with a few hours of being the only boat anchored along the blinding-white beach. We both felt pretty pleased about making the trip to Anegada. Then, just before sunset, one of the extra-large catamarans with paid crew arrived and dropped anchor right next to us.
They were not loud or obnoxious. They were, however, on an extra-large catamaran. These boats use so much power, generally, that they need to have a generator running pretty much at all times. Theirs was not loud, but since it was running, like most extra large boats, they seem to share a compulsion to use the abundant electricity to light up their boat like a football stadium. Once it got late enough that it was supposed to be dark, their boat was the only thing that we could see. Maryanne and I had been previously enjoying watching the stars come out, while reclining on our trampoline. Now we were expecting some Detective to scream at us, "Where were you last Tuesday night!" I wonder if the people on such boats even realize there are stars to be seen above them?!
Back to Begonia at Pomato Point
Anchorage location >> On google maps
