Gordon and Ann adjust admirably to life on a small boat. They don’t complain about the limited water and the monotonous menu, the relentless motion and gruesome dinghy exits, or the never-ending requests to play cards with the kids. Ann patiently spends hours reading Captain Underpants to the children, and Gordon teaches Matias how to use water colours as they sit drawing together.
After a couple of days they appear truly relaxed, a bare chested Gordon sporting stubble, competently steering the boat and grinding the winches, Ann elegantly leaping out of the dinghy in her bathers. Gordon does baulk at going up the mast to fix the haliot, instead helpfully tailing the rope as I lower David slowly down from the top, providing another backstop against the certain death of his son should my grip slip.
We celebrate our time together by making a 500 piece StarWars jigsaw, and start another, harder one, the children enthusiastically jamming pieces into places they more or less fit. Gordon and Ann brought lots of games, and Lukas soon becomes an expert of the card game Uno, looking very pleased with himself as he wins again and again.
After a week amongst the main islands of BVI, we travel to the island of Anegada, a coral island about 13 NM off Virgin Gorda. The tip of an enormous coral reef, this flat island (highest point 10 m above water level) is famous for its treacherous reefs, making it the home of more than 300 shipwrecks. The island also houses flamingos, extensive inland salt marshes, and a few very threatened six foot long lizards which we’d like to see.
To go there we pick a windless day as the normally upwind trip can be a bit rough if there is any chop. We go on the first of a couple of glassy days, the water slick like oil, no ripples on the surface and no breeze to lighten the heat. Fortunately there is the water to cool off in, and three generations of Johnson males are soon swimming in the turquoise waters off Anegada.
Anegada provides an interesting contrast to the rest of the British Virgin Islands. Home to the largest charter fleet in the world, the BVIs are easy, comfortable and pleasing to the eyes, aimed at a wealthy, mainly American clientele. The Rockefeller family owns much of Virgin Gorda, and Richard Branson owns several of the small islands around Virgin Gorda, beautiful spots for parties with superyacht friends. Marinas abound and any bay is dotted with mooring buoys belonging to the local restaurants who serve American size portions of delicious meals at premium prices. Gone are the French delicacies, the shops here are full of US brands (Monterey Cheese, pancake mix, 20 types of tacos spice mixes), and tourist boutiques offer classy surf- and sailing clothes as well as individually plastic wrapped dried out starfish for visitors to take home as a reminder of a great holiday. In restaurants well-manicured women with made up faces dressed in flowy gowns order cocktails in posh American accents, and tanned, square-jawed, white bearded gentlemen sporting pot bellies lean back and discuss the week’s fishing. Anegada, on the other hand, although visited by lots of yachts, is fresher, less polished, with few hotels and a relaxed, if slightly indifferent, atmosphere.
Hermit crab tracks crisscross the extensive white beaches, the backdrop to all the snorkellers. The reefs are meant to be wonderful, but on our brief foray underwater we don’t see much other than dead coral. When we ask around about where to find the elusive giant lizards in the wild nobody seems to know. Fair enough, there are not many left, and after wandering around in the windless inland for a while, we give up and decide that they probably don’t want to be spotted. The flamingos, on the other hand, are out in their glory, as are numerous other birds in the salt ponds.
After a couple of days at Anegada, we return to Virgin Gorda, for Gordon and Ann to see the Baths and Spanish Town, before we drop them off at the Gorda Sounds, from where they’ll make their way back to Tortola, Antigua, and ultimately England. On their last night we dine out at Saba Rock, a restaurant on an island at the head of the Sound, all enjoying expertly cooked fish while the children study the huge tarpon gathering for scraps in the water beneath the restaurant decking, and play with the other kids around. Gordon complains of the restaurant moving, a sure sign that he has got his sea legs – you know you live on a boat when you feel like the land is moving ashore!
It has been great to have visitors, and we are all sad to say goodbye as drop Gordon and Ann off at the Bitter End Yacht Club. The children want to sail to Britain immediately so we can see them again soon, and we promise to go back as soon as we can. It has been lovely to share our new life with family, and once again we are sad that we don’t live closer, so that we could be with family more often.
SV Bob The Cat 