Jost Van Dyke
In my travels, I find that for most destinations, there is usually something which is so evocative that it triggers a flood of memories -- which may or may not have anything to do with the trigger. Just scraping a nutmeg, even if it's into a Painkiller, reminds me of Grenada. Even if I'm picking them off a South Carolina beach, sand dollars make me think of the Abacos. And in the BVI, hearing "This is David Jones, your Zed-BVI weatherman," reminds me immediately of past journeys to the BVI. No BVI sailing trip has really started until I've picked up that first weather report. David is not sounding as robust as on past visits, and later in the week he intrepidly reports the weather from the surgical ward at Peeble's. Today's weather is partly cloudy, and we're hoping that an oncoming tropical wave will pass south of us.
Since we only have a few days here, we have to decide now whether we want to head to Anegada. After a breakfast of berries and cream, we conclude that we missed going to Jost Van Dyke last time we were in the BVI, and decide to focus our efforts there this time around. The wind is fresh and gusty from the ESE and seas are 3-4 feet with whitecaps. I take a prophylactic Dramamine II. By 11:30 a.m., we've navigated the Little Thatch Cut and are attempting to anchor off Sandy Cay, which we've never visited before. With the wind and seas, it takes 3 tries before we manage a good set.
After a lunch of chef salads, we go ashore. The beach is gorgeous, with a steep drop into the water. Swimming is not as fun as it might have been because we sight a good number of jellyfish. We walk the botanical trail, making it almost all the way around the island except for a rocky patch our bare feet can't tackle. By 2 p.m., our bottoms are sandy and we've had our fill for now. Next stop: Great Harbour.
In 4 past visits, we've never managed to visit the legendary Foxy's, but not for lack of trying. A couple of times, it was off-season and he was off-island. Another time, we tried to anchor in Great Harbour but failed. Last time, the weather marooned us for a couple of days in the Trellis Bay/Marina Cay area. This time, we are going to give it another try. We cautiously scope out a spot to anchor, but after 3 attempts, we can't get it to set. So, we choose another spot, close to a sailing mega-yacht with a dark blue/black hull named Rock Me (does this belong to someone famous?). The people on Rock Me have decided we're just too close to them, so they stand on deck, arms crossed, glaring at us, as if the force of their negative energy is enough to get us to leave. Of course, I can hardly blame them -- how many clueless morons have anchored right on top of us? How is the crew of Rock Me to know we're not clueless morons (just regular morons)? This attempt to anchor fails, so we turn tail for Little Harbour, though I'm sorely tempted to motor alongside Rock Me to ask them if they wouldn't mind us rafting up with them
Theoretically, I suppose we could have moored in Little Harbour and taxi-ed over to Great Harbour. But Little Harbour has its pleasures as well, and once settled in, I'm not in any hurry to move. We dink ashore to Harris' at 3:30 for a few drinks and to make dinner reservations. Cynthia greets us warmly and is excited to have lobsters for dinner; so are we! A bushwhacker and a Carib and we find ourselves deep in conversation with another group on a 402CC, Grand Cru in the Tradewinds fleet. These BVI veterans have a few stories to share with us! We match their Hurricane Bertha with our Hurricane Georges experience, but their lightning strike (!!!), following a crew member's complaint about the all-day-gospel music instead of weather reports on Sunday, can't be topped. We head back for showers and sundowners. We are joined yet again by the PRN boats this time tied stern-to the dinghy dock at Sidney's and knee-boarding through the anchorage.
We set off for our 7:00 p.m. dinner reservation. En route, we have some dinghy problems, but the German guys from the next boat over offer us a tow. Perfect timing, since Rick gets the motor going for good just as they arrive. (Ladies: isn't that just like having great hair days once you make that salon appointment?) We enjoy the fresh lobster and banana caramel pie for dessert. This is a relatively late night for us; bedtime is about 9:00 p.m.
Saturday morning and we are up-and-at-'em pretty early, in the hope of beating the crowds to Sandy Spit, where we saw a dozen or more boats anchored yesterday. We're out of Little Harbour by 8:00 a.m. Two other boats are already anchored here, at least one of which seems to have spent the night. I love this little islet, but the years have really changed its contours. 3 steps from the water's edge and you're in up to your shoulders. My favorite leaning palm is no longer there, and the other palm tree, on the south end of the island, is losing ground.
