After the departure of our friends in the new year, our minds turned to getting the dive kit serviced and jumping back in the water, alongside a few boat jobs that we needed to do. After a night at anchor back at Scrub Island, we found ourselves on a lovely downwind sail to Nanny Cay Marina to spend a few nights, cleaning, fixing, provisioning and doing a mountain of laundry.
The weather had turned squally and we stayed an extra night before heading back to Peter Island and a our first dive of the year at the Willy T’s dive site on the southern side of Peter Island.
The swell at the dive side was lumpy and rolly but undeterred we kitted up and dived in. Following the mooring down to the sea bed below we were greeted by pirate skeleton sculptures and the wonderful Willy T’s wreck. I wish I had photos to show you but alas on our first dive I forgot the GoPro so here’s a link to the website for the wreck. (https://1beyondthereef.com/willy-t-wreck)
It was teeming with fish and the corals were really starting to grow. We swam through the wheel house and explored the various sculptures. Off the starboard side there were two beautiful stingrays lying peacefully still and covered in sand, all you could see was their outline and long tail. It’s was a relatively short dive of 30 minutes (my air consumption needs work that’s for sure) we climbed back aboard and headed round to The Bight through the squally weather, I’d kept my wetsuit on as it was only a 2NM sail and to be honest it was warmer that way.
We stayed overnight on the opposite side of the bay to Willy T’s, before heading the next day to the small anchorage just to the south, their were meant to be two good snorkeling and dive sites. At the north of the bay were some caves which were pretty cool but quite barren, the dive site to the south had very little visibility and we decided to not dive in the end and waste the tank air.
As we have been in the BVI for nearly 30 days one of our main tasks short term was to head into Road Town on Tortola to extend our stay. We’d originally planned to anchor and dinghy in but the swell was uncomfortable and we didn’t feel it was wise to leave the boat. A quick radio and we managed to get a berth in the Village Cay marina for the night, enabling us to head out at 8am to immigration and customs.
We were due to check out of the marina by twelve on the Monday and were hopeful we’d of completed everything before our deadline but Immigration took hours, Customs was simple and they were super helpful, although we would have to come back to pick up our paperwork which meant another visit to Road Town. We ended up late back to the boat, having to move berths and staying another night as we still hadn’t done a bunch of boat jobs we needed to do on land.
The weather hasn’t been great since our guests left. It's been squally most days and we’ve had high winds and rain causing the sea state to be sloppy. We decided to hide ourselves away in Great Harbour, Peter Island as it’s only 3NM from Road Town but is very sheltered, this would mean the shortest journey possible when our paperwork at customs was ready.
By the Thuraday we had received notification that our paperwork was ready so Friday morning we picked up the anchor early and headed back to Road Town. Ross stayed onboard in the still lumpy anchorage whilst I took the dinghy in. Everything went quickly and we were heading back to Peter Island by 10.30am with our extension certificate and a few extra groceries as the weather was picking up again next week so we planned to do boat jobs and admin till we could get up to the wreck of the Rhone for a dive.
We ended up spending just over a week on Peter Island, as the weather did turn and we had a safe anchored position in the bay. Doing boat jobs, a beverage at the resort Oceans7 which was now open and beginning out planning for our next destination Sint Maarten.
There was a dive site on the southwest side of the bay so in a gap in the weather we kitted up and went in. It was a lovely dive, quite a lot of current and lots of little fish but no lobster which would have been ideal. After we got back Ross finished cleaned the hull with his remaining air and got covered in the tiny shrimp that seem to cling to our hull. It was quite fun to watch the large shoal of small blue runners darting in and out to get to the shrimp as Ross brushed them off. They had an excellent meal.
Since the dive Ross has got an ear infection so he’s taking some antibiotics and hopefully this will clear up soon, but it’s his second in the last month so we’ll not be diving for a while.
Our friends on Sail La Vie are back in the USVIs and should be catching up with us soon as the plan is to buddy boat to Sint Maarten together. Fingers crossed the weather window continues to improve for our next 80NM passage.
We made the upwind journey Back to Virgin Gorda as the weather improved and a clear window appear for our crossing to Sint Maarten. Our buddy boat arrived and we prepped for departure, making the journey to Spanish Town to check out. The cruising community is smaller than you think, as a month ago, I'd been e-introduced to another boat who was also heading back to the UK, by shipping their yacht from Antigua. Standing in the queue we found ourselves chatting to a lovely Scottiah lady who when we heard each others boat name the dots connected that we'd been speaking already.
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