January 19th – Leverick Bay to Cane Garden Bay via The Dogs

Our first night on a mooring ball was very noisy and windy. A strong wind came through for many hours and the boat was rocking and halyards were slapping against the mast and the boat was groaning. It was nothing to worry about, but with the wind and rain we decided to leave things alone. In the morning when we awoke it was a great day – typical for the BVI – so we went an collected a couple of bags of ice, walked with Pelicans and set sail for our first snorkeling location.

To the west of Virgin Gorda are a series of small islands called “The Dogs” where we moored on a National Park mooring ball for a couple of hours to view the wild life and to eat lunch. I think that everyday the snorkeling was excellent with 30+ feet of visibility and abundant sea life there was little to complain about. I will show movies of snorkeling later in the blog posts.

We had originally intended to head north to the island “Anegada” but time was creeping on so we decided to go to a favorite spot from our previous trip – Cane Garden Bay.

Given that the tradewinds are typically from the northeast we sailed on a broad reach or on a direct run. Then one of the brief squalls came through – winds rose and we got soaked for about 5 minutes. However, we drip dried and with a little liquid refreshment were able to continue to our destination.

Something impressive about the squalls is that you can see them coming for a long time in advance. You see the clouds and the vertical rain in the distance and can anticipate the arrival.

We entered into Cane Garden Bay, and after attaching to a mooring ball another squall came through which treated us to a beautiful rainbow – not the first that we would see on this trip.

In the evening we ate good Caribbean food at a local restaurant. Cane Garden Bay is a favorite spot of ours since it is more authentic than many. Its great to walk along the streets with the roosters, hens and their chicks and to mix with the locals.