British Virgin Islands (Day 5)
A one legged bird decided to hand around the boat the next morning on Cooper Island. There was a snorkeling spot near a rock formation that we didn’t have a chance to check out as we had to get underway in the morning.
The first stop was Bight Bay on Norman Island. This is the home of the Willy T. I believe this is the 3rd iteration as the last one was sunk by a hurricane. It is a basically a floating bar and grill and pretty busy as everyone loves to come here for some partying and drinking. Everyone jumps off the boat just past the “No Jumping” sign. They will give you a temporary Willy T tattoo when you jump off. Back in the day with the old Willy T - my understanding was that you got a t-shirt if you jumped off naked (I also believe that the offer was also only available to women). It does get busy which is good or bad depending on what you are looking for.
On shore was the Pirates Bight restaurant. Again - looked brand new with additional buildings being built. The crew went on shore to sample their Painkiller drinks.
The next stop was Soper’s Hole on Tortola. It is a big anchorage/port on the West End of Tortola and is a stop usually only if you need provisions. In this case we were picking up the last late arriving crew members who took a ferry over from the US Virgin Islands. There is also a Pusser’s restaurant here as well. There was almost no one there during the day as it was mid-week and late in the season.
Having now picked up everyone that was supposed to be on the boat, we headed to Little Jost Van Dyke for the night time anchorage. We originally intended to go to White Bay on Jost Van Dyke but we were not sure we could get a mooring ball. White Bay is more of a party beach where as Diamond Cay of Little Jost is very peaceful.
We went to Foxy’s Taboo (not to be confused with Foxy’s in White Bay) for dinner and enjoyed the view of Tortola lit up at night. This boat also had a blue light that shone underneath the boat which allowed you to see the tarpon and other big fish that congregated under the boat at night.
The BVI’s now have an online mooring ball reservation system called BoatyBall which is pretty convenient as you can reserve your mooring ahead of time to be ensured that you are able to get one as opposed to searching for one or having to put down an anchor because you couldn’t find one.