Waylaid by Weather – Virgin Gorda, British Virgin Islands – April 6, 2023

Well we have been waiting out the weather the last few weeks and been moored hoping the wind and squall pattern changes.  We had hoped to be moving to St. Martin by now but have yet to see the appropriate window come up.  That means in the meantime, we have managed to find some pretty fun things to do here in the BVI’s.  It is a bit of a flashback of Luperon except that the BVI is 3x the price.

First off, we decided to go back to Anegada, and although it was a bumpy ride, I am definitely glad we took the only chance we had to go.  It is just as beautiful as I remember.  We rented a scooter for the day and toured the island, which we had not done last time we were here.  I even got to see the Flamingos!  Sadly they were too far away to get a decent photo but cool none the less.  The color of the water here and the white sand beaches are the most beautiful I have seen since the Exumas.  Outside of that, there isn’t much else here.

We then sailed back to Virgin Gorda to wait out the big squalls that were predicted in our nice protected anchorage.  Ron had been consulting a bit and after a day or two of catch up, we rented a car to tour the island of Virgin Gorda.  The BVI’s in general are very mountainous unlike Anegada, which is very flat like the Bahamas.  This makes the driving a bit treacherous but the views spectacular.  We even got to see how the other half live by driving through Nail Bay where an AirBNB rents for $12K a week!  It’s where Morgan Freeman and Bruce Willis have vacation homes if that gives you any indication.

We also took the chance to go and see The Baths again but even though we were there by 9:00am, there was an entire cruise ship of people already there and it was PACKED!! It is a strange rock formation and no one is really sure exactly how it got there. The theory is volcanos shot these huge boulders there but others think it was aliens…who knows?

At that point we decided to go and see the ruins of one of the old copper mines on the island which was pretty cool too.  It was abandoned in the 19^th century and is currently maintained within the national park here.

As far as the after effects of Hurricane Irma (which leveled the island in 2017) and was the first category 5 to ever hit here.  The island has largely recovered but there is definitely poverty here and a very wide gap between the haves and have nots and there are still signs of the destruction and a rebuilding effort going on.  We had a chance to walk with one of the locals who was here during the storm and has lived here 20+ years.  He hid out in his cistern (which he converted into a one bedroom) and after the storm when all was destroyed, he spray painted on his room “Dad’s OK” in white as the only option to let his family know he had survived the storm.  A helicopter flew over from the news media and the photo went viral.  Since his boat had been destroyed he had to paddleboard across the bay from Biras Creek to Leverick Bay to get groceries and supplies.  Pretty interesting guy to say the least.  Outside of that, we have had quite a few days to snorkel which has been great and although there are a couple reefs that are dead there are a few others which have been beautiful.  We hope early next week we get a chance to move south.