Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine July 2016 | Page 64

© the BVI Tourist Board

If you’ve read the novel, Treasure
Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
you know the line, “Fifteen men on
the dead man’s chest…yo ho ho and
a bottle of rum.” The story tells of
the stranding of crew onto a barren
rock off of Peter Island in the days of
piracy and mutiny in the Caribbean.
As Captain of the 45’ sailing vessel
Leto I spent a glorious day anchored
off the tiny island snorkeling through
sea grass with sea turtles and enjoying sundowners of local rum with
pineapple. The forbidding rock
named Dead Man’s Chest stands
in sharp contrast to the long white
sand crescent beach of Peter Island
and was one stop on a ten day cruise
through the beautiful BVI
Known as, “Nature’s Little Secret,” the
British Virgins encompass 150 miles
and over fifty islands in the Caribbean east of Puerto Rico. The main
island of Tortola is a mere 12 miles
long but is home to one of the largest
sailboat charter fleets in the Caribbean. The constant trade winds of
the Sir Francis Drake channel make

for perfect sailing conditions and the
amenities for sailors here are plentiful.
Sailing from Tortola into a steady
fifteen-knot breeze our first mooring
was off of the famous caves at Norman Island, the inspiration for Treasure Island and where stashed pirate
treasure was discovered by residents
of Tortola. Today The Bight at Norman is a favorite anchorage for both
cave snorkeling and drinks aboard
the “Willy T,” a schooner permanently anchored in The Bight.
Dodging the frequent squalls we
sailed up channel to Cooper Island
for happy hour at the lovely Cooper
Island Beach Club in Manchioneel
Bay, where yachtsmen are welcome
to shower and pick up ice for the
price of their mooring ball. Manchioneel Bay is one of the Department of Conservation & Fisheries
Sea Grass monitoring sites and
webcams provide a constant view of
the turtles and rays that live in this
lovely spot.
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A perfect day’s sail east and we arrived to the island of Virgin Gorda,
named by Columbus, “The Fat
Virgin” because from the sea the
island has the profile of a woman in
repose. We picked up a day mooring
to explore the fantastic Baths, a series
of small pools and tunnels created by
a cascade of huge boulders tumbled
all around the edge of Virgin Gorda.
A restaurant at the top of the Baths,
aptly named, “Top of the Baths,” has
a tiny pool and good lunches and a
tiki bar on the beach serves up the
signature drink of the BVI, the painkiller, a concoction of rum, coconut
cream, orange juice and nutmeg.
After a night in the Virgin Gorda
Yacht Club marina and reprovisioning in their well-equipped grocery
we headed out to Marina Cay, a tiny
speck of an island where the famous
Pusser’s restaurant overlooks a fantastic snorkeling reef and sailors can
enjoy showers, fuel and ice, and a
tiny beach. The eight acre island was
the subject of the book, “Two on the
Cay” written by Robb White, who
lived here in the 1930’s.