BVIs Part III

With our cruising buddies gone we continued our visits to the islands. We did stop in Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda and arranged to have Frolic hauled in mid-September so we can go visit the kids and family for the holidays. We also went to one our favorite bays, Cane Garden Bay on the back side of Tortola. It is a beautiful long sand beach with many eating and drinking establishments right on the beach.

Cane Garden Bay beach

Still Cane Garden Bay

 We also had to visit the BVI’s only rum distillery, Callwoods distillery. It has been in operation for 400 years and nothing has changed! They still grind the sugar cane by hand and distill it in a copper pot in a stone furnace heated by wood. It drips into a bucket in the building where it is put in big class jugs or wood barrels for ageing. 

Callwood Distillery

The still at Callwood's

 We spent many pleasant happy hours at Myett’s, a really cool restaurant/bar/guest house with great outdoor showers in bamboo huts.

Myett's enter

Bamboo Showers at Myett

Leslie in front of Myett

Sunday we connected with a former student of Carl’s from NEIT.  She just graduated in May and is now in the administrative office for Customs and immigration in BVI.

We did have an unsettling experience while anchored in Cane Garden Bay. At 1 AM Leslie heard a taping outside and went to stop it. As she stepped out of the door into the cockpit she saw a man in the process of lowering our dinghy into the water! She screamed and the man ran across the stern and dove into the water! I came stumbling out and she said someone was trying to steal our dinghy! I looked and sure enough the dinghy was half in the water. I quickly pulled it up and secured it and she said, “He’s out there you can hear him swimming!”. Up to that point I did not realize she had seen the man. I thought she came out and found the dinghy askew. I could hear someone swimming towards shore. I thought to lower the dinghy and run him down, but it was too late as I could hear him splashing ashore. Sleep did not come easy that night even though we locked the dinghy to the boat. The next day we made a report to the police on our way to church and told all the local

Frolic sitting quietly at Cane Garden Day

establishments about our encounter. This is the kind of action that drives charter boats and cruisers to avoid an area.  Cane Garden Bay is a wonderful close knit community and will stop this activity before it becomes a real problem.   We also started to work out plans of how to react to the situation in the future. However, with this incident we felt it was time to check out and head for the American Virgin Islands. 

Soppers Hole Customs

Houses perched on the point a Soppers Hole

We headed to Soppers Hole to check out and explore another place we had not yet been in the BVI. 

Pussers in Soppers Hole

Houses at Soppers Hole

 We met a couple from New Mexico that were camping around the Virgins and were heading by ferry to Jost Van Dyke the next day.  They gave us some good info on St. John as they had camped and had traveled around island without a car.  Good financial info for a cruisers budget. One thing learned in small countries, many buildings and people serve many purposes…. In Antigua it was a distillery/post office/ general store etc. In the BVI it was hospital/jail/fire dept. and naturally everyone goes fishing as soon as they start jumping.  It was time to wrap up BVI and cross the short passage to Us Virgin Islands, USVI.

multifunction building