British Virgin Islands

Not an expedition but a fun time sailing and SCUBA diving in the British Virgin Islands which lie just to windward of the USVI and due East of Puerto Rico and  Haiti/Dominican Republic.

My brother-in-law Jerry called me up one day and asked if I would like to charter a bare boat and go sailing in the BVI.  What do you suppose I replied?*

Well it is a pretty long day and flight from Seattle via Dalas to San Juan Puerto Rico and then a  prop flight to Bridge Town and taxy to Beef Island where we spent our first night in Beef Island Guest House.  We arrived very late at night but the UN-light poluted sky teeming with masses of stars and bright meteors awakened my night vision and senses.  Morning of December 1st 2009 we awoke in a paradise of light breezes, warm sun and water peppered over with unfamiliar bird calls and insect flight sounds.

Boat check out and provisioning can be hot and tedious but we eventually got underway laying a course for The Bite on Norman Island.  So soothing to be under sail with a fair breeze carrying us silently forward on a broad reach.  The only sounds now that we are away from Road Town are the sucking-sloshings of salt water in its momentary turbulent disturbance as we romp through clear blue seas.

Having sailed these waters years before with my friend Bill Brunton and other  academic friends, from North Dakota State University, being back was like entering   again a half forgotten and distant field of study.  But navigation charts and “being there” primed the bilge pumps of my memory and soon I was at home on board and having my first deep swig of ice cold  ‘Stella Artois’.

We sailed an  elongated elliptical course around the islands suffering only one serious mishap.  One of our crew sliped on the companion way ladder and fell breaking his fibula which in fact required the expert services of a saw-bone back states side who must have studied as a ship-wright for he handily scarfed in a stainless steel reinforcing plate fastened with numerous screws.  I am told that this repair could have sufficed had we been dis-masted and needed to splice the main mast before re-stepping it!

Our one blow up was with our SCUBA dive boat that picked us up where we were anchored and headed off toward Salt Island and the RMS Rhone State Under Water Park where the 310 foot wreck of the Royal Mail Ship lies having been driven ashore by a hurricane in 1867.  We were up on the flying bridge enjoying the ride.  But I

must admit my mind and attention kept journeying to not so good thoughts about the engine of our dive boat, a kind of brooding, although everything seemed to be just fine until there I heard or sensed something untoward. Perhaps a noise and faced aft to see very large clouds of black soot, oil and exaust mixed with engine cooling water erupting astern.  The engine then emitted nasty engine ‘death rattle’ sounds, lost power sputtered and died all the while trying to gag up an ever larger cloud of smoke….then nothing.  We were adrift with no power, but we were drifting close by some deep mooring buoys that marked another deep dive site.  I suggested swimming a long line to the buoys as it appeared to me that we were going to drift wide of the anchor bouys.  The dive master/captain said no that he thought he could pick one of them up as we drifted on the current past.  But then it was too late as the crew could not grapple the mooring buoy and we floated away toward a rocky lea shore an arm of Deadman’s Bay on Peter Island. We had radioed for help but owner of the dive company could not be bothered until he had finished his lunch in Rode Town on Tortola and would not send a small tug to take us in tow.  Thus avoiding some expense on his part.  So it was some hours before he arrived in a speed boat ill equipped to tow us.  The current had conspired to carry us  northward a bit enabeling us to float clear of the rocks of Deadman’s Bay.  But we divers had lost a full day of diving and the owner offered us no compensation for our lost opportunity.  For me one saving grace, I had snorkel the wreck on the previously mentioned trip, having made it down to the propellers of the Rhone.

*“Are frog’s asses water tight?”