BVI – Day 2 – Road Town to Cooper Island

Day 2, Monday, May 2nd.

We ask around but no one seems to know the details about “Queen’s Day”. Some speculate that it has something to do with the royal wedding of William and Katherine which took place the previous Friday. We move on because the morning is busy with boat and chart briefings. We also need to greet and adequately shmooze our mandatory Sunsail Skipper so it will not be the three of us on Neil’s for the week. Other parties have arrived and are organizing their boats. We notice we are the only boat with just 2 people aboard. Most mono-hulls have 4 or 6 and the large sailing and power cats have 6 or 8 or even 10 people. We know we will like our privacy and our elbow room.

Bass is in the marina offices when Sam, our Skipper, comes on board at 8 am. Sam is a friendly, young looking local, born and raised in Road Town. I come up through the companion way to shake his hand and offer him a cup of coffee. He wears big stylie sunglasses, designer jeans, a crisp, new Sunsail shirt and a giant smile on his face. He introduces himself as Sam but his real name is Joelle. I immediately love the way he says Joelle in a lyrical blend of Carib, French and I don’t know why I think this but a hint of Scottish brogue. Sam asks if we got his message from last night about not being able to meet us because he spent extra hours with his clients from the previous day; seems like Harold and Kumar neglected to relay Sam’s message. Bass now boards and meets Sam. We shoot each other our game face looks and prepare to shmooze Sam to convince him we know what we’re doing. As it turns out Sam does not need a lot of shmoozing. We know immediately he will be a good, informative and competent skipper who clearly likes what he does. His enthusiasm for sailing is infectious. Sam recognizes too that we are normal people who know the difference between a halyard and a shroud and a furling jib and a regular jib. Sam apologizes for not meeting us last night and gives us a picture of what he dealt with the day before: a big group of mumbling French people who, for the most part, ignored Sam and conversed among themselves like Sam was going to be their private skipper and crew for the week. Sam straightened them out but still did not leave them to catch his ferry back to Road Town until 6 pm. Bass and I looked at each other, thinking the same thing, nothing like a group of stereotypical French to make us look easy going and engaged. Go Bass & Brig!

Sam asked if we wanted breakfast. I was too nervous to eat and really just wanted to get anything stupid I might do over and done with so we could get to sailing. Sam suggested that we not wait until after the chart briefing to go over the boat. He explained the layout of the boat, navigation station and lights, proper operation of the head and location of water tanks and PFDs. During the boat briefing our remaining provisions from the Ample Hamper arrive. The nice man asks if we got his message about delaying the delivery of drinks until this morning. Again, we are none too impressed with Harold and Kumar.

We are now on a roll and the excitement is building. We attend the 9:30 chart/captain’s briefing in an air-conditioned room above the Sunsail offices. This is a powerpoint presented by a knowledgeable, friendly staff member named Aaron. He tells us about mooring balls, anchoring, reef navigation and good restaurants and bars. Bass is taking plenty of notes and when Aaron turns his attention to Anegada we pay extra attention because this involves sailing off-shore and out of sight of other islands, navigating through a very narrow channel into harbor while the entire island is surrounded by very shallow reefs. Among Aaron’s Anegada advice is to leave Virgin Gorda early in the morning around 7 am and if possible follow other sailboats without passing or going too fast.

With the briefings over and two fresh bags of ice we head out of the Sunsail marina. Bass is paying close attention to the diesel engine and Sam is chatting away as if we have been friends forever (Bass: I was so focused on the technical aspects of motoring out that, on our return a week later, not a single thing in the marina looked familiar to me, I’d never registered it). The wind is good, 15-20 knots. We raise the mainsail and then unfurl the full genoa. Sam describes the various lines and winches; all lines come back to locking cleats and winches on the cabin so single-handing this vessel would be viable. I’m glad I have Captain Bass with me as always….I think about the lady in her seventies single-handing a sailboat she bought with her husband who passed away. She is sailing alone and has been knocked down in the southern ocean near Cape Horn but continues on (Bass: her name is Jeanne Socrates, just finished her RTW in Cape Town… her journal is at this link). Again, I’m really thankful to be on this adventure with Bass.

Sam asks who wants to be at the helm and I jump up to get my stupid things done while Sam is around and can correct my mistakes. The wind is really good and has us moving at about 6.5 – 7.0 knots. We have the starboard rail in the water and I am standing gorilla style, legs spread and feet bracing off of either side of the cockpit; I feel like I’m hanging onto the wheel for dear life. My feet cramp and I wish I had on my sailing sneakers. Bass is looking nonchalant on the low side as Sam is on the high side (Bass: in fact, I’m doing the ab workout of all time down there!). I splash Skipper Sam and he thinks that means our learning is finished. Sam says, “When the sails are up, it’s time to get comfortable.” The second time around he is less subtle and says, “When the sails are up it’s time to crack the beers”, which sounds like “bears” in my ears. I’m thinking what do bears have to do with sailing and then I understand that the memo from Sunsail Corporate in Miami, telling us skippers never drink while with clients, never made it Tortola. We open cold cans of Carib and enjoy the wind.

We sail to Peter Island where we practice anchoring and docking. I know Bass has been stressing about docking for a long time, explaining to me prop walk and proper crew technique. But he docks like a pro and I step off the boat with docking lines in hand like I grew up in Newport. Sam is really impressed so he starts skipping thing we probably need to know. We ask about the dinghy. Bass asks about reefing and Sam shows him the lines (Bass: or half the lines, the rest we figured out on our own the next day). Our mainsail when lowered folds neatly into a “sail basket” and the furling jib gets rolled up so the sailboat looks tidy when not sailing.

The ferry horn blows to let passengers know they will take off soon and Sam keeps talking, going over our maps of places he thinks we should see. He recommends staying on Peter Island for the night or going to the Bight on Norman Island. Sam suggests if we want to go to Jost Van Dyke, home of the Soggy Dollar, we go the next day. Apparently the Soggy Dollar is a popular bar with the weekend crowds coming from the US Virgin Islands so better to go to Jost during the week. The ferry back to Tortola blows again and Sam is off. We thank him and give him a gratuity for making us feel so immediately comfortable. We hug and shake hands and he shows us where to get more bags of ice on Peter.

As Sam waves from the ferry I have this feeling like when I was young and my parents were going away for the weekend, trusting me and my brothers to behave in our house without a sitter. Sure we planned to sample the liquor cabinet, stay up all night and sleep on the roof. And we sure as heck were going to feed chocolate and peanut butter to the dog (Fountains of Wayne, Fire Island). But as my parents drove from the driveway I had nervous thoughts like, “Are they really leaving us alone in the house for the weekend?” The same feeling came over me as the ferry and Sam disappeared from site. Bass and I looked at each other and wanted to collapse of exhaustion right there on the dock. It’s 2 pm.

(Bass: Apparently the exhaustion spread even to writing up the day’s trip report, so I’ll finish this one out!)

Wiped from travel and a stressful day trying to look like we know what we’re doing, we decide to take the easiest route to the closest anchorage for the evening. We decide on Cooper Island, which is a bit of a gamble as we don’t know how quickly the moorings fill up and while there are supposed to be quite a few mooring balls, if we don’t get one we’ve been told the bottom is quite grassy and a poor spot to anchor. Undaunted (or only semi-daunted) we head to Cooper, motoring as it’s getting a little later in the day and we’re heading straight upwind.

Arriving at Manchioneel Bay on Cooper Island, we survey the mooring field, pick one we like, and, amazingly, thread through the moored boats and pick up our mooring with no fuss, no muss, and definitely no yelling back and forth.

Secure on our mooring we get our first chance to relax since arriving in the islands… beers and celebratory sips of whiskey are enjoyed on the foredeck as we take in the very mellow, pleasant scene before us. We’ve actually made it!!! The flights worked out, the bags arrived, the provisioning work, we snowed Captain Sam… we’re on our own!!

As you can tell from the long report it was a big day… only a few pictures and one video to show, but starting with Day 3 we’ll have more pics & videos plus some cool GPS tracks to view in Google Earth.