18 April 2009

Tortola, BVI

Cane Garden BayAnchored Cane Garden Bay
Tortola
British Virgin Islands
18'25.7N/64'39.5W

  • 1185 nm to Charleston, SC
After a morning swim ashore Team Sandpiper up'd the hook and headed south 5 miles to where we are presently anchored. We are in yet another white sandy bottom anchorage in crystal clear waters along a picture postcard beach. There is just a small town here with a few shops and a laundry. Mostly there are small beach bars/restaurants that line the beach right off where we are anchored with beach chairs full of tourists getting burned red.

We wandered ashore and found the tiny Callwood Rum Distillery that has been in operation for over 200 years and is still in operation with its original equipment. We were given a short tour and got to see this tiny distillery in operation, then we partook in the mandatory rum sampling that followed. Check out the new 'BVI Rum Report' when it comes out and you can get all the juicy details.

After that it was back to the boat for a swim and back into town to see what happens around here on a Friday night. We stopped at one of the beach bars for their 2-for-1 happy hour and 50 cent chicken wings. After that we had a very tasty dinner at Quito's restaurant bar that has a nice upstairs that looks out over the anchored boats and the lights of St Thomas off in the distance.

At 10pm the downstairs bar opened up with a kickin' Reggae band that played till about 1am, followed by a DJ that was spinning Soka tunes till about 4am. Just like the other islands we have visited, the white charter boat tourist crowd stayed till 10pm then vanished back to their boats leaving the place to 'Team Sandpiper' and the locals. We represented well making it till about 3am returning to the Piper being able to hear the music out in the harbor just about as loud as it was in the bar.

Today's plans are to swim around a bit and then motor-sail 8 miles to Coral Bay on the south end of St John.

More Later,
Tom, Amy & Shannon

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