Tag: paradise

August 10, 2015

Cruising BVI: The Baths (round 2)

In December we took Dad and Stacy to visit The Baths on Virgin Gorda. It’s by far one of the most spectacular places to visit in the Virgin Islands. If the weather isn’t cooperating, however, it can be difficult to visit by boat. Dad and Stacy were in luck, the weather was just right to pick up a day-mooring and swim in.

Each time I visit The Baths it’s more breathtaking than the last. It could be that I’m always looking for a pretty picture and this place is plum-full of them! As if this weren’t photo-overload enough, check out the first post I did on The Baths for a totally different perspective.

Stacy, Dad and I swam in and stashed our fins in the bushes. The inner-Tarzan in Dad made a swift and limber appearance as he scaled a nearby boulder to find the perfect spot. I stood back and laughed a little knowing full well I was NOT going to follow. That one was just a bit too steep for my short, stubby, little legs.

In we go!

Can you feel the magic? This place is incredible. I’m so glad we timed it just right. Well, we planned for the perfect timing but Island Time ended up working in our favor instead.

Let me backtrack a bit to several hours before.

Knowing full well we’d visit The Baths next, we left Norman Island in the afternoon and anchored off of the West side of Cooper Island. The plan was to pull up our anchor before daybreak for arrival at The Baths at first light. We wanted to make it extra special for Dad and Stacy and we wanted to make sure to get there plenty early enough. Early as in 6:45. We know it can get crazy in there once the cruise ship passengers and charter boat guests start to arrive between 8 and 10am. We wanted to make sure there was no one in front of us, and no one behind us as we explored this majestic place all by ourselves.

Well, lets just say things didn’t work out as smoothly as we’d like. I turned on the engine, then the chart plotter and radar. Peter made his way to the bow to pull in our anchor chain with the windlass. Dad and Stacy were just waking up and thought we were crazy for leaving in the dark, yet they were super excited for what was to come.

All of a sudden Peter stopped the windlass. Shit. The anchor was stuck. “Must be wrapped around a piece of coral,” Peter mumbled into the walkie-talkie.

He had me motor around in a few different directions to see if we could dislodge the chain. What seemed to be an eternity later, Peter decided he had to dive it. IN THE DARK. We were in about 50′ of water and the sun hadn’t even begun to come up yet. A little sharky? Yeah, I’d say so! Dad wasn’t too excited to jump in either. So, we waited another 30 minutes until there was a little daylight. Peter took his new super bright underwater flashlight and his spare-air, then asked Dad to assist. Peter planned to dive down and unwind the chain while Dad stayed on the surface with a mask to communicate with me if I needed to pop the engine forward a jib or do anything else at the helm.

Peter’s an excellent diver but he was not happy about this little hiccup. I wouldn’t want to be the one to do it either. We could have just waited it out until full daylight when it would have been much easier to see, but then we’d be visiting the baths with boatloads of other tourists and waiting in line to get from one area to another.

What a guy! It took some serious underwater skills to unwrap that chain from the huge underwater boulder we had somehow swung around at night, but he did it. We were a bit behind schedule, but we would still get there at about 9-am.

Okay, back to our amazing day at The Baths…

Thanks to Peter and Dad braving it out a few hours before, we managed to sneak into our destination without anyone in front of us and without anyone behind us!! SUCCESS!!

It’s hard to see, but this stairway leads into a little pool of water brought in by the tide…

A view of Mary Christine with the mizzen sail up for stability on a mooring ball just outside The Baths:

I had showed them the secret area that not everyone gets to see, but now they had to come back out…

We made a new friend. This little guy followed us along the trails all the way to Devil’s Bay Beach. He didn’t seem to belong to anyone but acted like he’d been here a thousand times.

I almost caught a photo of this little dog leaping off the rock into the water! Dad was ready to get the photo too, though he didn’t make a second leap.

Cool creatures everywhere.

All in all, we had an amazing morning!

Don’t forget to see all the photos from my first time through: The Baths

What is ONE word you would use to describe this place?

February 8, 2015

Petit Tabac

Petit Tabac is a small, beautiful island on the outskirts of the Tobago Cays.

This little island happens to be where they filmed the scene from Pirates of the Caribbean where Captain Jack Sparrow and Elizabeth danced around the fire and drank rum before she set the whole stash ablaze. Read more

February 7, 2015

The Tobago Cays

Of all the places Peter and I have visited, the Tobago Cays are my favorite.

The water is warm, clear and the most spectacular shades of blue. The islands are scattered far enough away from all civilization so it really feels like you’ve traveled to a secret paradise. Turtles, rays and fish are everywhere.

Our first time to the Tobago Cays was in September. There were no crowds, no other boats, no one to bother us. Just us and our buddy boat, Brett Ashley. Patty and Luis had been there countless times before. They led us in, weaving between the islands as I sat on the bow with my camera and a tried to take it all in.

The little white boat with orange trim belongs to the Rangers that come around to collect the nightly park fees. When there are only one or two boats visiting, the Rangers may not even bother to come collect the fees. They came to visit us the first two nights, but didn’t bother coming by again for the last three nights we stayed. If they do collect, it costs 10 EC per person, per night.

We anchored near the main beach and watched the waves breaking along the reef.

Luis was excited to go kiteboarding. With no crowds, launching from the beach was easy and he had the entire anchorage to himself.

During our stay we saw a good number of squalls come through. The holding was excellent and the reefs provided a good amount of protection. It felt much safer than most of the anchorages we’ve stayed in, despite the high winds.

It rained and rained.

We had lots of visitors…

We snorkeled and swam with the turtles. The sting rays scoured the anchorage for food scraps like puppies.

On the inside of the reef in very shallow water, the four of us went out snorkeling one afternoon. We were all exploring on our own, but stayed fairly close together. I took a routine glance around to check our perimeter when I spotted a very large 300-400 lb Caribbean Reef Shark checking us out. I looked behind me and disappointingly realized I was the only one that had seen the shark. My initial reaction was to swim backwards as quickly and calmly as I could to alert the others, but it was harder than I thought it would be to control my heartbeat. Peter immediately knew something was wrong just by the way I was swimming toward him. A familiar feeling came over me as I grabbed onto his shoulders and swung myself behind him kicking as fast as my fins would take me.

As a Southern California native, Peter has been in the water with more sharks than I care to count. He felt that the shark was swimming in an aggressive nature and motioned for us all to make our way back to the dinghy as quickly as possible. We kept our eyes on the big grey beast, got out of the water and called it a day. Though we probably were not in any danger, this fearful moment underwater was as equally terrifying as our Bull Shark encounter in the Bahamas.

After the adrenaline rush dissipated, we explored the beaches and hiking trails.

Dogs aren’t allowed to go to shore here, but Betsy and Gunner were happy doing their daily patrols on deck. In such a remote place, it was very reassuring to have guard dogs on watch. We had heard of several recent boardings in the area so we were on high alert.

The view of Petit Tabac was picture perfect.

At night, the golden sun would set over the horizon and darkness fell. The stars would fill the black sky and I would gaze up from our cockpit with amazement. It was the most incredible place I had ever seen. If it didn’t cost anything to be there, I would stay forever.

We are currently in the USVIs while Peter completes the courses needed for his USCG 100 ton Near Coastal Masters Captain’s license.

January 7, 2015

The Grenadines: Saltwhistle Bay

After checking in to St. Vincent and the Grenadines sometime around mid September, we sailed around the North side of Mayreau and snapped a few photos of our friends Luis and Patty on the gorgeous Brett Ashley.

We laid our eyes on the famous Saltwhistle Bay for the very first time. It’s reportedly one of the most beautiful beaches around and commonly photographed for magazines.

Toward the back of the anchorage lay a narrow strip of beach separating us from the East side of the island. Palm trees and coconuts scattered the shoreline framing an incredible view against the turquoise waters.

Gunner and Betsy sniffed out their new paradise and did a few patrols on deck.

Luis and Patty were comfortably anchored before sunset when all of a sudden a charter boat full of French-speaking college aged guys decided they would anchor right in front of Brett Ashley. No care or concern was to be had by any of them and they let out a teeny bit of scope before their catamaran was practically on top of Brett Ashley. Eventually they pulled up and reset, but not much farther than they were to begin with. Craziness.

We saw half a dozen spotted eagle rays circling our boat all evening long! They were very interested in our BBQ scraps.

So far so good for our first experience in The Grenadines!

Next up, The Tobago Cays!

We are currently back in the BVI with several friends enjoying the New Year. Leave us a comment, we’d love to hear from you!