January 20th – Cane Garden Bay to Norman Island via The Soggy Dollar Bar.

The Soggy Dollar bar is an institution at the BVI. It is alleged that the painkiller was developed here. So this sounded like a challenge that we should respond to. After being woken early by Roosters in Cane Garden Bay, and reprovisioning some minor items, we set off across to Jost Van Dyke and the Soggy Dollar Bar.

You may ask why is it called the Soggy Dollar Bar? There is no dingy dock so one is supposed to swim in, drink and swim out. Of course this means that the available cash in your pocket gets wet and you have to hand over soggy dollars to get your painkiller. The painkiller recipe is a guarded secret – although at another island we were able to purchase mugs which included the recipe – Mr Goolge can also help in this area.

All sorts of people arrive at the bar – most over 18. The bar tender – Mic – estimated that 6,000 painkillers would be made the day that we were there (not all for us). At $6 each drink that’s pretty good revenue given the limited overhead.

After ‘relaxing’ on the beach, and having a drink or two, we headed back to Up Next and then sailed between the British and US Virgin Islands over to Norman Island. It was a great sail and we raced a bigger boat than ours that was from New Zealand. Of course we lost and we had many excuses why – bigger boats sail faster, their boat was private ours was from a charter fleet and not ideal for speed, and of course there is always the possibility that the crew was not up to tip-top performance given their earlier activities.

In our previous arrival (2012) at Norman Island all of the mooring balls within the channel called “the Bight” were occupied and we needed to anchor in a tight space. Consequently, we pushed hard to the mooring field to try to get one of the last balls. We saw one in the distance in a prime spot near to the beech. As we headed to it we approached at a 90 degree angle compared to another boat – a boat from New Zealand! They shouted to us “Its ours given than we beat you in the race”. So we gave way and circled. However, they had approached the ball from the wrong angle and had to pass it by. So after a quick 360 degree turn on our part, we took the ball and claimed this as the ultimate victory.

We headed into the beech for dinner. Although dinner was fine, we were a little disappointed because the facilities have been fully renovated including a gift shop (oh no I hate shopping – although others in our crew enjoyed this feature) since 2012. Previously the restaurant was very rustic and more authentic. As we were eating, speed boats full of too many people were arriving at the dock for dinner. In my opinion it’s a bad change, although for the island, business will, I am sure, increase.

After dinner we dropped some of the crew back at Up Next, while four of us decided to head off to a floating restaurant named “William Thornton”. This is an experience that we have enjoyed previously. The William Thornton is a metal ship with food and a bar. Casual is an understatement of the atmosphere with youngsters jumping off the deck into the water, climbing back on board and drinking again. Its quite a sight. The guide book states “The ambience is casual and often riotous fun!” Based on our previous visits this is not an overstatement. Unfortunately, as we arrived we were unable to find any space for our dingy so we headed back to Up Next where we had our own riotous fun. However, no wet T-shirts on our crew this night – that was to come later in the week.