Norman Island Bight (1) BVIs

Looking back west down the Sir Francis Drake Passage.
Tortola is on the right of the picture, St John’s (USVI) on the left

Unsurprisingly, we didn’t make the fastest of starts on New Year’s Day.  Nevertheless, having taken our rubbish ashore and visited the customs officer to purchase a National Parks mooring permit we got away from Great Harbour on Jost Van Dyke a little before midday.  We’d agreed with Innamorata II, Wild Iris and Endless Summer to meet at Norman Bight and then to do some diving around Norman Island over the next few days.  The others had all left a bit before us, with Steve and Carol on Innamorata II planning to try to stop off for a dive en route.  We wondered about motoring into wind to try join them but BV was sailing so nicely that we decided to keep on tacking up the Sir Francis Drake Passage and instead tried to catch up with the other 2, who were also sailing.

Norman Island ahead and Pelican Island to the left

Our final tack into Norman Island Bight took us close past Pelican Island, with The Indians, a group of 4 rocks just to its west.

Pelican Island to the left and, just right of it, our dive site for the morning, The Indians [rocks], surrounded by moored yachts.  Innamorata II is the ketch, the second yacht from the left

The Indians is a deservedly well-known and popular dive and snorkelling site.  Anchoring is prohibited in the area but there are a number of National Park mooring buoys, some designated for commercial vessels and some for leisure boats.  There is also a ‘dinghy string’ a floating line between 2 small buoys to which dinghies can moor.  As we passed we saw Innamorata II on one of the mooring buoys and her dinghy attached to the dinghy string.  Steve and Carol hadn’t wasted any time and were already diving.

Norman Island Bight with Endless Summer anchored to our left…

Norman Island Bight was already quite busy when we arrived, so we looked at anchoring on a rocky ledge on the north side, close to Wild Iris and Endless Summer, who had arrived a little ahead of us.  The holding is not great on the ledge and we had already seen both Wild Iris and Endless Summer re-lay their anchors.  We seemed to have hit a reasonable spot first time…

… and Wild Iris back and left from us

… but when Nicky swam over the anchor to check on it she discovered that it wasn’t really dug in at all, it was just lodged up against a rock.  Though it had held OK when we had powered back on the anchor, if we swung at all the anchor could easily become dislodged and we would drag.  We convinced ourselves that the Marine Park fees we’d paid earlier in the day allowed us to pick up moorings without additional payment so we upped our anchor and took the last available buoy just in front of Endless Summer.  It subsequently turned out that our Park Fees just covered using the buoys at the dive sites and a warden came around and lightened our wallet by $30 for an overnight stay on the buoy we were on.  Ouch!  Not a mistake to make again!

When they returned from diving Steve and Carol anchored on the other side of the bight and reported to an even later arriving Balou that they had good holding in sand.  We made a note and determined to join them on that side the next day.  We all joined on Innamorata that evening to discuss the plan for the next day’s diving and then headed off for an early night in preparation.

Anchored next to Innamorata II

Heading through the cleft towards the deeper water
on the west side of The Indians

But diving on Thursday 2 January was delayed as rain shower after rain shower went through, the delay being less about the rain and more about the lack of bright sunlight to help illuminate the sea.  We took advantage of the delay in moving BV to join Innamorata and Balou.  It’s a slightly uncomfortable side of the bight to be on, since you are on the lee side and quite close to the shore, but the forecast was for relatively light winds and we saw the anchor to be well dug in on good sand, which is about as secure as it’s going to get.

And then the sun came out, so we saddled up the dinghies, left the mother ships and headed on over to The Indians for our first dive in about 8 months.  It was a great little site for refreshing our dive skills.  The dinghy string is in the perfect location for snorkellers and divers alike.  Snorkellers head to the very shallow east side of the rocks, with divers better off heading, through a narrow cleft in the rocks to the deeper west side.

As soon as we entered the water there was plenty to see and once we were on the western side the profusion of corals and fish life increased tremendously.

And the location of the dive makes for easy navigation – through the cleft, turn left, keep the deep stuff to your right and the hard stuff to you left.  Follow the hard stuff around until you think you’ve gone far enough/don’t want to mix it with snorkellers, turn around and retrace your bubbles, turn right through the cleft and look for the dinghy.  And no current either.  A perfect refresher dive…..

…..with lots to see.

Left: Trumpetfish.  Right: Banded butterflyfish

Sea urchin hiding amongst the corals and rocks

Keeping the hard stuff on our right as we retraced our bubbles

I had my new dive camera with me, so as well as refreshing my diving skills I was also using the dive to learn how the camera works.

Sea rod

I ended up with plenty of blurred photos and pictures of the inside of the lens cover, but I also managed to take enough good ones to make me happy that it was a good buy.

Left: fire sponge.  Right: Fairy basslet

The best bit about the camera setup though is the light.  My previous camera didn’t have a flash or light so I could never capture some of the fabulous colours that you see when you have additional light, even in water as shallow as 5m.  The addition of a light means that all the oranges and reds, which get bleached out under natural light, due to the absorption of red light by seawater, can be seen in the picture.  It makes for some far more colourful and also more detailed pictures.

Redband parrotfish

Norman Island Bight, British Virgin Islands