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

Marigot Bay St Martin (5)

First batch of  ginger beer using Gayle’s recipe

Unsurprisingly, after over-indulging for 2 days, we had a rather slow and lazy day on Thursday 26 December.  The oven needed a good clean and, with the fridge now fairly empty, we started off some of Gayle’s ginger beer.  Disappointingly, we also discovered a crack in the transom of our dinghy, which meant that Friday’s big task was obtaining plywood to fashion a repair.  Happily, I found some on my first try, at the Tool Store on the French side.  Better still, all my Christmasses came at once and I also found a drop-down transformer which would convert 220/240V to 110V and which meant that I could now buy that US voltage drill from Ace Hardware in Sint Maarten!  I put the first patch on the inside of the dinghy transom and then joined Lars in his dinghy for a boys’ trip to the Dutch side.

Nicky, Maria and Johan (Samantha) and Susan

Great friends Susan and Lars (Sea Wind)

We returned [Ed: laden with beer!!] just in time for drinks on board Wahoo with the crews of Sea Wind, Samantha, and Crew Rest (Doug and his temporary crew, David).  It was another fun evening and the last one, we thought, with Lars and Susan, Johan and Maria for quite some time as they were all planning to head off to Culebra the next day and we were planning to sail up to the BVIs.

So, on the morning of Saturday 28 December we said our farewells to all our Swedish friends, cleared out ourselves with customs and immigration [Ed: and easy online process] and went off to do some final food shopping.

Everyone on the move.  Top: Samantha and Wahoo.  Bottom row, left to right:  Wahoo, Samantha, Sea Wind

When we returned Sea Wind and Samantha had gone so we readied BV for sea and prepared for a late afternoon departure.

Sea Wind back at anchor in Marigot but this time on our port side

Keen to keep a Swedish presence in the anchorage!  Left:  Sea Wind the returnee.  Right:  New arrival, Glittra

We were within half an hour of leaving when Sea Wind returned with steering failure and 15mins after that Christina and Jan-Olav Olsson on Glittra arrived in the anchorage.

Dinner aboard Glittra, with a starter of tuna ceviche caught by Lars as they returned to Marigot Bay.  Left to right: Nicky, Jan-Olav and Christina (Glittra), Susan and Lars (Sea Wind)

Under the circumstances, the obvious thing to do was to delay our departure a day, so we did and the 6 of us had lovely pot-luck supper on board Glittra.  We caught up with Christina and Jan-Olav’s season so far and discovered that one of the chain linkages in Sea Wind’s steering system had sheared, hence the wheel steering had failed.  Fortunately the autopilot, which works via a direct linkage to the rudder stock, was still operational and they had used that to steer back to port.  Being the weekend there was little that Lars and Susan could do until Monday 30 December, which meant that they would be celebrating the New Year in St Martin as well as Christmas.  Luck was with them and they subsequently managed to source all the replacement parts they needed almost as soon as the shops reopened on the Monday, which excellent news.

Our final night in Marigot Bay

Having delayed our departure a day, Nicky used the time to visit the laundry again whilst cooked up a passage meal and tackled a few small maintenance tasks.  And then, once again, we prepared BV for sea and, this time raised anchor and headed northwest for Tortola.

Marigot Bay, St Martin

Marigot Bay St Martin (4)

Oh Christmas Tree….

On the morning of Monday 23 December we discovered that we hadn’t been quite as careful in the course of our engine servicing as we had thought.  In the course of starting and stopping the engine the previous day we had left the battery selector on ‘1’ (the engine start bank) rather than on ‘2’ (the domestic bank).  So by early Monday morning our engine start battery was showing just 7.5V, a voltage far lower than anything we have ever seen before on a 12V system!!  Convinced we had totally destroyed our engine start battery, we started the engine (using the domestic bank) and ran it and then the generator for a time to start to try build up the charge again, more in hope than in realistic expectation of achieving anything.  Happily, luck was on our side and we successfully recharged the battery and, over the course of the next few days, found that it maintained its charge too.  Lars also gave us an old, simple, solar panel regulator so we are now able to put our 2 small, moveable solar panels on deck and use them to trickle charge the engine start battery when we are at anchor for an extended period [Ed: the main 4 solar panels are wired in to charge just the domestic batteries].

Even without the battery faff, the day was going to be a busy one.  We had agreed with Lars and Susan a few days previously to celebrate a Swedish Christmas with them on Sea Wind on 24 December and then to reciprocate with a British Christmas on BV on the 25^th.  With the arrival of Johan and Maria on Samantha, we each extended the invitation to include them, so on the 23^rd we had a lot of shopping to do on both side of the border, as some of the items we planned to serve (custard, for example) were only available on the Dutch side.

Christmas Eve welcome aboard Sea Wind

We spent Christmas Eve morning madly cooking blinis and a mincemeat streusel for the next day before heading to Sea Wind in the middle of the afternoon for Christmas #1.

Toasting a Swedish Christmas aboard Sea Wind (left to right): Susan (Sea Wind), Johan and Maria (Samantha), Nicky, Lars (Sea Wind)

We had a fabulous day with a traditional Swedish buffet lunch – pickled herring (sil), cold meats and smoked salmon, potatoes cooked with onions, cream and anchovies, beetroot salad, cheeses.

A fabulous buffet spread – strange to tell we went back for seconds and thirds!

We ate far too much, and then they brought out the schnapps (to help the digestion!?)……  And when we had talked and sung ourselves hungry again [Ed: was that really possible?], Susan persuaded Lars to light the barbecue for kebabs.  It’s safe to say that we were replete when we left and I’m not sure that anyone felt we needed another Christmas meal just the next day but….

Dressed overall to celebrate

….the 25^th dawned and Nicky and I swung into cooking mode, though we had planned a late meal to make things a bit easier for us all.  We started the day by dressing BV overall – an easy task and one we could then relax and admire with a cup of tea and a light breakfast.  After all the usual preparations (table laying, spud bashing, veg chopping, etc) we were in good order by the time our guests arrived at 1500hrs.

We started in the cockpit with fizz and smoked salmon blinis followed by garlic prawns.

And now toasting a British Christmas on board BV (left to right):  Johan and Maria (Samantha) Lars and Susan (Sea Wind) and Nicky

Dinner we served below, making best use of all our new fans and our 4-way windscoop on the forehatch (thankfully it didn’t rain all day) to keep the air moving and the temperature down.  We’d started the roast chickens off in the oven but moved them to the barbecue to make room to roast the potatoes and rolls of bacon.  We steamed broccoli, beans and carrots, cooked up some bread sauce and, as is Nicky’s way, produced lashings of gravy (which we served in a plastic measuring jug for want of a gravy boat).  Dessert was the warmed mincemeat streusel with custard.  And then there was cheese.  And coffee and chocolates.  Though we say so ourselves it was a good spread and a tasty feast.  We thoroughly enjoyed it, having not ‘done’ a traditional British Christmas for some years and everyone seemed to leave stuffed and very happy.

Marigot Bay, St Martin

Marigot Bay St Martin (3)

Johan & Helga on Arcadia moving on towards Antigua

By Wednesday 18 December we needed to return Lars and Susan’s hospitality, so we spent some of the day fitting the new fans we had bought on Monday and most of the rest of it trying to tidy away the remaining spare parts we had bought before hosting them and Gayle and Tim (G&T!) from Wild Bird for a barbecue dinner.

One of my ‘tourist board’ photos of Marigot Bay

Gayle and Tim had been awaiting a let-up in the trade winds to head east towards Antigua and set off the next day but not before Gayle had passed on her excellent recipe for ginger beer.  We also went international, but only as far as Sint Maarten, where we tried to buy a replacement cordless drill but could only obtain ones that charge on 110V.  However, we were successful in our search for a replacement battery for our ‘steamer scarer’ flashlight.

A less ‘tourist board’ picture – burnt out cars and felled street lamps – but at least the rioting appeared to have ended by this time

On our return to France, Nicky got stuck into writing Christmas cards (electronically) and I visited a couple of French hardware stores in the hope of buying a suitable European voltage drill but to no avail.

‘Coals to Newcastle?’  Homebake croissant
we’d brought from the USA

Over the next few days we concentrated on catching up with jobs on board.  Nicky did the laundry at the excellent laundrette by the Super U and I found a couple of pieces of scrap teak and used one to make a new tread for our stern ladder to replace one we had lost a couple of nights previously.

The engine was also due a certain amount of love so we filled the heat exchanger with vinegar to descale it, changed the fine and coarse fuel filters, the air filter and cleaned out the diesel bug filter.

Removing and stripping the water pump.  Right:  Tell-tale signs of a saltwater leak on the water pump

With the heat exchanger descaled, we flushed the freshwater cooling system and refilled it with new antifreeze and then I pulled apart the leaking water pump and replaced the seals and the impeller.  I’m not confident that the new seals will do the trick as the shaft has developed pitting since we last had the pump apart and the water is probably weeping past the seals at these pits.  Time will tell and the correct answer will doubtless be to replace the water pump shaft when we get back to the USA.

And after all that nose-to-grindstone, it was time to lift our heads up again, so we invited Lars and Susan (Sea Wind), Greg and Arlene (Wahoo) and Johan and Maria (Samantha) across for the evening.  Greg and Arlene had sailed to the Caribbean with the Salty Dawgs but were planning on heading south and leaving Wahoo in Grenada for the hurricane season as they didn’t fancy repeating the rough trip south from the USA 2 years on the trot.  Johan and Maria are on a relatively short sabbatical from work in Sweden and we talked about their plans to visit Cuba and the Bahamas on their way back towards Europe.

Marigot Bay, St Martin

Marigot Bay St Martin (2)

Heavy rain… no quite what you sail to the Caribbean to experience

Monday signalled the start of our working [Ed: and spending!!] week and the weather came out in sympathy with torrential rain first thing.  When it had cleared somewhat, we went ashore and joined the queue at the Digicel shop, coming away the happy owners of a new sim card loaded with a ridiculously large amount of data for a relatively small outlay.  Many thanks to Digicel’s Christmas offers and to St Martin being a part of France!

Happily, by late morning the worst of the rain had gone through so from France we went international and whizzed across the lagoon in the dinghy to Dutch Sint Maarten.  Here we spent a small fortune in Budget Marine and Island Water World (even with the 10-15% discounts we were offered) and returned, significantly more slowly, laden down with new ‘bits’ for the boat, notably 4 new AGM batteries for our domestic battery bank.

Susan had invited us for a homemade pizza dinner so we spent the evening with them again, with much of the discussion centred on Lars’ modification to their dinghy – an extension to the aluminium floor, almost like trim tabs, with the aim of making it easier to get the dinghy up on the plane.

The old batteries

I spent Tuesday morning fitting the new domestic batteries and then disposing of the old ones at ‘Shrimpy’s’ where a chap would pick them up and recycle them.  The old ones were still working reasonably well but the morning voltage was quite significantly down on what we were used to and we were concerned that this was signalling the beginning of the end.  Given their age and the ease and relative cost of replacing them here rather than, say, in the Honduran Bay Islands, we had decided to bite the bullet.

And the next car goes up in smoke

Batteries fitted I could sit in the cockpit and watch the nearby protests, marching and car-burning which Nicky missed as she had accompanied Lars and Susan to the new Carrefour supermarket, just on the Dutch side of the border.  She came back with plenty of Christmas goodies, having missed all the excitement of a large, loud protest march accompanied by more car-burning.  We looked at some secondhand dive kit in the afternoon but assessed that the seller was just trying to make a quick buck by buying up and selling on old kit rather than a genuine cruiser selling on kit he was replacing or no longer needed.

We spent the evening back on Sea Wind, this time with a Swiss friend of Lars and Susan, a chap called Alex, and his lodger for a couple of days.  Alex had met Lars and Susan in Maine and had sailed south to the Caribbean as a part of the Salty Dawgs rally.  Unfortunately, during that passage he had ended up with seawater entering the engine exhaust system, which resulted in hydraulic lock, bent piston rods etc.  So his Amel 54 was alongside at one of the marinas on the Dutch side whilst he argued the case with his insurance company for re-engining the boat with a Beta Marine engine; his insurers wanted to replace the written off engine with a new version of the same – cheaper for them to buy but, given the cost of spares, far more expensive for Alex to maintain.  The reason for the get-together was to eat traditional Swedish meatballs – perhaps the only dish that Susan lets Lars prepare.  Alex had eaten them in Maine and had been so enthusiastic about them that they felt they should cheer him up with another serving in his hour of need [Ed: engine failure induced depression?].  So we had delicious meatballs [Ed: far better than IKEA’s!] along with Swedish pickled cabbage and other traditional side dishes.  A lovely evening.

Marigot Bay, St Martin

Marigot Bay St Martin (1)

The castle above Marigot Bay, St Martin

Having checked into La Belle France at lunchtime on Saturday 14 December, we headed to the dinghy dock and walked up to the Super U, hoping to buy some baguette, pâté and cheese.  Most of the town was closed up and very quiet, including the Digicel shop where we had been hoping to buy a sim card, but the Super U was open, though to amended opening times due to the ‘situation sécuritaire’.  We stopped by Sea Wind on our return to BV to see if our friends Lars and Susan, whom we had not seen since we had left Georgetown (Bahamas) in April, had returned to their boat.  They had, and jolly good it was to see them both too.  Though we’ve kept in contact we had a lot to catch up on and they invited us across to Sea Wind for dinner.

Drinks on Innamorata II.  Left to right: Carol and Steve (Innamorata II), Helga and Johan (Arcadia)

But before that we had accepted an invitation from Steve and Carol to drinks on board Innamorata II.  Lars and Susan had been invited too, as well as Johan and Helga (Arcadia), whom we had met a couple of times in Deltaville over the summer but whom we had not really got to know.  It was great Deltaville catch up again hearing about Steve and Carol’s trip south and their plans for the rest of the winter as well as properly meeting Johan and Helga and learning about what they have done.

Drinks on Innamorata II.  Left to right: Susan and Lars (Sea Wind), Nicky and me

Sea Wind

We repaired aboard Sea Wind for dinner and talked late into the evening, hearing first-hand of Lars and Susan’s many adventures in America and also of some misadventures that had kept them up in Newport RI until well after most other cruisers had moved further south [Ed: a broken boom].  It was great to see them again and we were delighted that they hadn’t moved on from St Martin before we had arrived.

The next day (Sunday 15 December) Mark and Lisa invited us over to Wild Iris for coffee and a catch-up before they, Endless Summer and Innamorata II headed off on an overnight passage to the BVIs.  It’s always interesting hearing how other crews tackle long passages when there are several different routing options available.  Like Lars and Susan, Mark and Lisa had sailed to St Martin via Bermuda, though Lars and Susan had left the USA from Newport RI whereas Mark and Lisa left from Hampton or Norfolk VA.  But both couples, just like Lionel and Elsie on Ruby Tuesday, spoke of strong winds and, in particular, rough and confused seas on departure from Bermuda.  Whilst we would be interested in visiting the island, Nicky’s certainly keener on doing so heading north when (hopefully) the weather is better.

Snails for our starter.  Dinner on BV.  Left to right: Nicky, Helga (Arcadia), Lars and Susan (Sea Wind), Johan (Arcadia)

On our way back to BV we stopped off at Arcadia to hand on some information about the OCC and were invited over for drinks that evening.  We had a lovely couple of hours on board, so much so that we invited Helga and Johan back to BV to share dinner with us and Lars and Susan.  St Martin is a département of France and we had found proper garlic snails in the Super U.  But there were too many for us to eat without being properly piggy, so we had them as a starter for the 6 of us and then moved on to a variation of pasta puttanesca, a great store cupboard dish.  Johan and Helga have sailed in the South Atlantic and across to Antarctica, both places on Lars and Susan’s wish-list of cruising locations, so the conversation flowed for another full evening.

Marigot Bay, St Martin