Sailing to Sopers Hole Tortola BVIs

Departing Marigot Bay

We left Marigot Bay, St Martin at 1540 on Sunday 29 December, on the back of a brisk, but reasonable forecast, for the 90ish mile passage to the BVIs.  We chose to depart late in the day so that we could get settled sailing before night fell but with the hope of arriving at our destination, Sopers Hole on Tortola, in daylight.  It was a great plan but did rather depend on our sailing slowly enough to achieve it.

Lars was concerned about his AIS transmissions and also his VHF radio.  The AIS transmission issue has been an ongoing problem for him and might be related to backwards compatibility complications between his older chart plotter and other instruments and his brand-new AIS unit.  However, the VHF radio problem was something new.  When they had returned to St Martin after their steering failure the previous day, he had tried to speak to Johan and Maria on Samantha to let them know what was going on and had found that his radio seemed to transmit and receive intermittently.  So, we spent some time during the first couple of hours of our passage calling Sea Wind and checking on their AIS signal.  As it turned out, there did seem to be a problem with Sea Wind’s primary VHF set, hopefully ‘just’ an aerial/antenna connection problem which might be able to be easily resolved.  The AIS signal seemed not to go out as far as we might have expected but, equally, that could have been due to the location of our antenna:  on top of the radome on the front of our mast.  Given our heading, directly away from Marigot Bay, our mast would have been between the AIS antennae on Sea Windand BV which would likely have resulted in the lower range we saw.

Departing St Martin

We set the full genoa and 2 reefs in the main as we departed from Marigot Bay and romped along at about 7.5kts with 15kts of wind from BV’s starboard quarter.  We were moving a bit too fast, the wind was rising and it was likely that we would arrive before first light, so we dropped another reef in the main and a few rolls in the genoa.  There was another yacht, Saga, quite close to us (within about a mile) whose lights we could and which we could see on AIS.  We could also see some other lights but they were not associated with an AIS paint.  Suddenly, at about 2010hrs, both sets of lights changed dramatically.  One moment we could see a green light with a steaming light above (the unknown yacht) and the white stern light of Saga and then suddenly we had red, port-hand lights on both vessels.  And then Saga came on the radio to warn us of a large sailing yacht, under power, not on AIS, which they had not seen.  It looked to us as if both yachts got really very close to each other and it just goes to underline the danger of playing the AIS computer game – not everyone out there is squawking!  Happily, we had seen the unknown yacht, and had been warned of it, and were able to sail fast ahead of her as she motored, I guess quite uncomfortably, close to the wind; perhaps she was headed for Anegada.

We ran on for a couple of hours under triple reefed main and fairly rolled up genoa but the wind continued to rise so we rolled away the genoa in toto at 2300hrs when Nicky came up on deck to take the watch.  The wind continued to rise and the seas were really very unpleasant, high and quartering and BV rolled and surfed along madly.  By 0045hrs it was blowing a continuous 28-33kts with gusts above and Nicky woke me to help her heave BV to for a few hours.  We were both very aware that we were planning to enter the Sir Francis Drake Passage via Round Rock Passage, a 0.5nm wide passage with rocks and reefs on either side.  It was a route neither of us wanted to take in the current conditions without being able to see what was going on so we agreed that setting the sails to stop the boat and let her just rise and fall gently with the waves and with little forward motion for a few hours was the right thing.

Safely through Round Rock Passage and sailing along Sir Francis Drake Passage

The south side of Tortola off to starboard

I retired back to the bunk and Nicky held the watch for a couple more hours until the time/distance calculation worked out in our favour to approach Round Rock Passage in the light.  Then we set the sails to continue and she hit the sack, only waking when we were safely in the Sir Francis Drake Passage and ready to alter course towards Soper’s Hole/West End.

The frontal trough also brought rain showers!

In fact, by about 0500hrs the wind had started to ease as the (unforecast) frontal trough that had produced all the overnight wind and rain had moved away to our south.  But we still had a fairly brisk sail west to Soper’s Hole where we picked up a mooring for a couple of hours so that we could check-in.

Turning into Soper’s Hole

We were last at Soper’s Hole in Spring 2018, about 6months after Hurricane Irma tore through the BVIs.  Then it was almost totally smashed up, with buildings and quays destroyed and catamarans piled up on top of each other.  Customs and Immigration were operational but they were housed in a couple of tents close to the near-ruined ferry terminal.  Now things are much improved once again.  The ferry terminal is operating normally and the authorities have offices with computers and piles of paperwork inside it.  And it’s a popular place to check into the islands as we discovered to our cost.  Every day it seems, tens of small day-trip boats come over to the BVIs from the USVIs filled with a dozen or so tourists (mostly American) keen to spend some time on these other islands.  Also arriving are charter vessels from the USVIs as well as cruisers such as us.  The queue was horrendous, and it wasn’t helped by the total lack of organisation in the building.  There’s no coherent flow from one desk to the next, or even much labelling of the desks, and obtaining the right paperwork to complete meant flagging down a random passing officer.  The day-trip guys do it day in day out and it still seems to take them the best part of 90min to get through the process (perhaps it was just a very busy day) but all the while their punters were sitting out on open boats in the sun…….right up until the heavens opened, when they were sitting out on open boats in the pouring rain.  Welcome to the BVIs.  Really?

Back on BV after our trip ashore to Customs and Immigration

We eventually got through the 3 queues, had our passports stamped, paid our dues and got out.  We now had just 2 more tasks to complete here before we could move on to Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke to catch up with Innamorata II, Wild Iris and Endless Summer.  First, we wanted to buy a Digicel sim card and Nicky had seen online that there is a Digicel shop just a couple of miles east in West End.  We had been thinking about walking but after the delay in the customs and immigration queue we elected to take a taxi there and back. The ride was a short one, and nearly as expensive as a similarly priced ride in Guernsey.  Perhaps we should have tried haggling!  But the lady in the Digicel shop was efficient and we came away after about 10mins with a data card and my phone all set up to use it.

Pusser’s Bar in Soper’s Hole

Our final stop was Pusser’s Bar.  When we had visited in 2018, we had bought Pusser’s Rum enamelled mugs and had given one to Charlotte.

Rum and Rain [Ed: rather than Rum and Raisin!] but a Painkiller makes it all seem sooooo much better!

Unfortunately, at some point she had lost it and, according to one of her friends, was quite upset about the loss.  So we had decided to replace it ……. and felt it a perfect opportunity to toast our arrival in the BVIs with a Painkiller or a rum punch or something similar.  At which point the heavens opened again.  Ah well, there are worse places to wait out a rainstorm!

Sopers Hole, Tortola, British Virgin Islands