Virgin Gorda, BVI

[Kyle]Another of the things in the BVI that has changed since our first trip through in 2009 was the mooring situation. Pretty much every anchorage in the BVI has been filled with moorings to pick up for a fee. This protects the seabed from repeated anchoring, gets more boats into a given area and also makes arriving and departing convenient, saving the charter fleet from having to do much anchoring, which to be honest, is not a skill at which they typically excel. The national park areas also provide mooring balls in exchange for advanced payment possible in only a few select locations.

The downside to the mooring ball situation is that there are only so many and some (for those within the national parks) have time limits. Some moorings can be pre-reserved (which helps) but most are on a first-come-first-served basis. This means that at 8am, the whole fleet races from one anchorage to another to try to get to the next ball before the others. The most popular of these is those at The Baths, on the south end of Virgin Gorda.

Maryanne and I had no intention of getting into that melee, so we left Begonia at the Spanish Town anchorage with the plan of walking from there to The Baths. As I was deploying the dinghy, a small cruise ship arrived and anchored right behind us. Oh, here we go!

For some reason, it took the ship a while to prepare their own launches. Maryanne and I were halfway to The Baths before we started getting passed by truckload after truckload of tourists. Maryanne noted that not a single one of them was smiling. I guess the ride is not that much fun.

At the park, we paid our nominal entry fee and joined a long queue of what turned out to be mostly Germans for the walk to the beach. One sensible thing that has been done at The Baths was the institution of a one-way loop system for their two main trails. This keeps all of us cattle moving in the same direction, without the need to wait extended periods for a gap to go the other way, but there are still plenty of bottle-necks.

The Baths is a beautiful section of Virgin Gorda, famed for its littered giant rocks - unfortunately we were there on Cruise-ship-day so the actual "Baths" area was very much a shared event

We did manage to find a few moments at The Baths when we could snap a photograph without the throngs of other visitors. Even with the crowds it is still a beautiful site

A crowd-free lunch with a view - so odd!!

At one point, we encountered one couple trying to traverse upstream. This annoyed the Germans in front of us, who reminded them in German that they were on a one-way trail. Once they were past, the Germans complained to each other, still in German, that English people don't know how to follow rules, even though the couple were pretty obviously German, with the same cruise ship wristband, and could be heard speaking nothing but German to each other the whole time we could see them. We were just waiting for our chance for Maryanne to say, "Excuse me. Coming through!", when they peeled off to take the shorter loop trail. Apparently, the cruise ship itinerary does not allow for time to take the long loop, because we lost everybody else there, too.

We had the same thing happen at Top of The Baths, the slightly expensive restaurant on the hill with the great views, where we were able to enjoy a peaceful lunch while the others waited in the parking lot for their ride back to their launches. We were also able to pick up our park mooring permit at the ticket office at the Baths; there was some confusion so it took a few phone calls, and it wasn't possible to purchase the monthly pass there, so we made-do with a day pass for the following day.

From The Baths, we walked the connecting beaches as much as we could and found them near empty and with mini-patches just as beautiful as The Baths (Spring Beach Bay, Little Trunk Bay, and Valley Trunk Bay).

One place that Maryanne and I had wanted so see, which was billed as a less-crowded alternative to The Baths, was Fallen Jerusalem Island. This was a place with only two park moorings, each with a ninety-minute limit. Fortunately, we could see them from where Begonia was anchored, so our plan was to get up early and hopefully beat the crowd. We could see that one of the boats there had been on the mooring since the previous day (also a no-no), so we figured, at the least, our arrival could hint to them that their time was up.

We didn't end up having to to that, but they very conspicuously ended up watching our every move, while at the same time avoiding any direct eye contact, as we picked up the other mooring. That mooring which was way too close to the other, leaving us only about a boat length away.

Fallen Jerusalem Island - ashore

And our first fun snorkelling of the year!

We had a quick swim to the beach and a scramble on the boulders. The island is nice, but saying it's like The Baths may have been a bit of an oversell. When we made it back to Begonia, the original occupants of the other ball had been replaced with a new boat and another one was hovering nearby to take our spot.

We snorkelled "The Chimneys" at Great Dog Island

We headed to Great Dog Island for another quick snorkel, with the same mooring experience. Afterwards, to try to get a break from the crowds, we headed for the anchorage at Savannah Bay, back at Virgin Gorda. There we had a whole big bay of clean, hard sand to drop the hook. Apparently, this was supposed to be a place that is generally off the charter itineraries, but more and more of them seem to be getting that memo.

After a few hours of privacy, a few of them started showing up to join us. With such a large bay, I figured we would all have the luxury of spacing out a bit, but then four boats came in and dropped their anchors RIGHT next to us, so that they were only one or two boat lengths away. I realized this was less because of rudeness, or even cluelessness, than that's just a distance that looks normal to them from their experiences in the mooring fields, where fouling each other's anchors is not even a consideration. As the crowds came and went, it happened over and over again. One group of boats after another would show up in the big wide bay and anchor right on top of us. Fortunately, the trade winds are pretty steady, so none of us did much swinging around during their stay.

There is some decent snorkeling in the bay, as well as a nice, long beach, so in the between times, we could feel like we were in a nice tropical bay and not a line at Disney.

Savannah Bay offered beach walks and snorkelling

{Maryanne: We have absolutely nothing against cruise ship holidays, but time and again we have experienced the very different feel of a town on "cruise ship days", so we relish the privilege of treasuring the town and sites without the crowds whenever possible. We also have nothing against charter boat holidays either (a great idea that I recommend to many wanna-be cruisers!); where charter boat centers exist, there is generally a much better chance of finding boat parts and repairs as needed (all to our benefit). While many charter boats are captained by professionals, or visitors with great experience, there are just enough of them that are captained by those who don't follow the general etiquette of boating and anchoring, nor even the skills required (at our first anchorage in Spanish Town, we spotted two separate boats dragging towards us in fair conditions). Also the folks on charter boats are in full time holiday mode (which is perfectly understandable) both budget-wise (eating out, etc) and party-wise (staying up late), while we tend to seek out grocery stores and laundry options in addition to the tourist sites, we also like things a little quieter and head off to bed early, we are in our own very different nomad mode, so where possible we try and anchor away from the party-mode center of things.}

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Anchorage location >> On google maps