The sail over we no big whoop - lots of charter boats to miss on the way but we had a bit of wind so it didn't take long. The bay itself is quiet although quite close to the perimeter road on Tortola. There are three small marinas there and Clive suggested we touch base with Walter at Penns Landing as he is very accommodating. We did that and he is a really nice guy - there are showers and nice washrooms. We went walking a couple of times, once towards Roadtown, the capital of Tortola and once towards the airport and Trellis Bay. Trellis Bay is where they have the full moon parties which apparently are quite exciting - burning fireballs on the beach, special music, Mocko Jumbie stilt dancers and lots of arts and crafts to see. We had talked about anchoring there but heard on the Coconut Telegraph that it is really really crowded with charter boats. It also sits right at the end of the runway for the airport on Beef Island. We considered going to the full moon party on December 2 from Fat Hog Bay but it is quite a distance to walk at night and no sidewalks.
Marina Cay was the scene of a book called "Our Virgin Island" written by Robb White in 1953 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robb_White) and you can still see the house where he and his wife lived up to WWII. It is now a bar.
We also saw another instance of the "danger" of charterers. We had watched a boat come in towards the middle of the afternoon the day before. There was a guy standing on the front giving directions to the helmsman while someone else stood by with the boat hook. The guy standing at the front was one of these guys - you know the type - posed like Washington crossing the Delaware - giving instructions like "hold your course", "cut the engine" etc etc. When they hooked up they tied the mooring line directly to their boat instead of using their own mooring lines (the proper way) although the helmsman did run up with a line which they used somehow on the cleat.
Anyway, that was just an indication because when they left they started out across a reef clearly marked with a red buoy. They got in far enough that they must have hit bottom but luckily for them they were able to back out - but "charterers!!!!!
Stay tuned.
2 comments:
Good Post! I like your pics on that Pusser site.
And Fat Hog Bay makes me LOL
I checked out the Pusser Site too. That is neat. Sorry to hear the end is in site for your trip but it will be good to have you back in Canada!
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