Monkey Point Guana Island BVIs

Back in August 2017, Nicky had been very organised and had asked family and friends to send to her cards for me for my 50^thbirthday. She had kept them hidden for the intervening 8 months and, on Charlotte’s last day on board, Saturday 14 April (my birthday was actually the 15^th) she produced the great stack of envelopes as well as an excellent ginger cake complete with candles [Ed: a very rare occurrence, me baking]. It was lovely to have so many cards from friends and family. Very many thanks to all who had the opportunity to send them to Nicky in the short time we were in Guernsey.

Alex and Charlotte had got me 2 solar powered rechargeable LED Luci lights; a great present. They store flat but when inflated are the size of a large mug. Left out during the day, they recharge and can then provide 24 hours of light and so are perfect for lighting up the cockpit during the evening (see below). Recognising our priorities for ensuring a good quality of life, Neil and Nici Strevens had sent a very trendy wine bottle carrier made from sail cloth; ideal for picnic runs ashore to idyllic Caribbean beaches.

Monkey Point on Guana Island

Since it was Charlotte’s last day on board, we could hardly spend it sitting in Trellis Bay. We had planned to go snorkelling on Diamond Reef, just west of Marina Cay, and a short hop north from Trellis Bay, where the snorkelling is said to be excellent. However, with a strong southeasterly wind blowing, Diamond Reef would have been a lee shore and whilst we could have anchored BV in the lee of Marina Cay, we felt that the snorkelling site would have been too exposed to have been fun. So instead we went west-northwest to Monkey Point, the southern tip of Guana Island. It was a very late start for us (1140) but we only had a short distance to cover and in 40 minutes we were moored securely to a National Park buoy. We had plenty of protection from any wind-generated sea but the wind howled through the gap between the main part of Guana Island and the tip of the point and also ricocheted off the high ground of the various islands all around. It was a breezy old place and BV swung around quite significantly on the mooring.

After lunch, Charlotte decided that continuing to top up her tan was a higher priority than a final snorkelling session, so Nicky and I swam over to the headland without her. There was a reasonable amount of hard and soft coral and a few shoals of reef fish but the visibility wasn’t great, probably due to the wind, and we agreed that it probably shouldn’t have been described as an ‘excellent’ snorkelling site.

However, when we moved towards the beach and then past that, north towards White Beach, the snorkelling improved markedly, primarily because there was a ledge, about 1-1.5m under the surface, under which all manner of small fish were hiding…..

French Angelfish

…..including a number of beautiful French Angelfish…..

French Grunt

……and some most attractive yellow and blue French Grunts.

Wild Iriswas also on a mooring at Monkey Point so on our way back to BV Nicky and I stopped past and said hello to Mark and Lisa. We stayed for a quick coffee but time was marching on, the wind wasn’t getting any lighter and we wanted to be back in Trellis Bay at a reasonable time. We dropped the mooring off Monkey Point at 1615 and were back, anchored in our old spot, 45 minutes later.

The Luci lights in action

We had originally planned to have a birthday meal ashore at one of the restaurants but that was rather scuppered by the fact that all the restaurants had pretty much been blown away. Instead we had Champagne sundowners and a fab meal on board. All, of course, illuminated by my solar powered rechargeable LED Luci lights.

And that was Charlotte’s last evening on board. The following morning at 0630 sharp we were at the check-in desk in the airport and 2 hours later she was winging her way to Sint Maarten and then onwards to Blighty (via Curacao and Amsterdam!). It had been a great 3 weeks with her which had gone all too quickly and BV suddenly felt rather empty with just the 2 of us on board again.

Monkey Point, Guana Island, BVIs