British Virgin Islands

We had a fairly uneventful sail away from Sint Maarten with the intention of heading for Tortola and the Bomba Shack. The only problem was that because of our delayed departure, we were now going to arrive in the vicinity of all the sketchy reef in the middle of the night. We were heading downwind all day so we weren't really heeled over too much. I managed to cook a yummy concoction of Mexican flavors to put inside some wraps with heaps of extra guacamole and as the sun went down we sat with all the charts plotting out our possibilities. In the end we decided on a route which not only avoided most of the scary reefy areas in the night, but also changed our point of sail to a beam reach. Sailing downwind takes a lot of concentration and Sam would never be able to get any sleep if he was constantly worrying over whether one of us was going to crash jibe and break his boom. On a beam reach we could all sit back and relax and just watch out for boats heading our way at ramming speed. As soon as this was decided, Sam plotted a course for me and said “Good night! Wake me up when the depth meter starts reading something,” and fucked off to bed. Ruth had been struggling with the day as this was the first real long bit of sailing she had ever done and it had been quite a while since we had sailed at all. She asked if I minded if she laid down for a bit and I told her to lie down for a lot if it helped. Then Dan said he was pretty sleepy, too and to wake him up when I woke Sam. They were dropping like flies and it was only 8pm. Domi stuck around and chatted with me. His abilities were limited due the fact that he had a cast on his right foot from an incident 2 weeks earlier involving jumping from a boat to a dinghy. I don't know the details but I can imagine, considering I've seen how Sam likes to get in the dinghy: a running leap with arms and limbs spread wide while the dinghy is still tied 3-4 ft away screeching “SPIDER MONKEY” in a high pitched shrieking squeal and landing with a crash in the middle of the dinghy... I really don't understand how it is that they think that I am the crazy one. No, I think we are all in good company. So, Domi was asking me to tell stories about my life which made the time go by. There really was nothing too difficult about that section of sailing which was why I had suggested to Sam that if he wanted some sleep that he should go then. A beam reach in 6000+ ft of water where there is nothing anywhere nearby to run into is a pretty relaxing, even boring run. We watched a few boats go by at a distance, trying to guess what they were by their configurations of lights. Time ticked away slowly and finally I went to wake Sam and tell him we were in hundreds of feet of water instead of thousands. He took over for a bit and I laid my head down. Our route was now taking us to Virgin Gorda instead of Tortola and we were coming up around the east side and then the north side of the island and then sneaking into a channel on the west side which was too shallow for us to enter the main harbor at Bitter End but which had anchorages on either side without all the sketchy reef that was at every other entrance. Our plan was to anchor there upon our arrival at 2am and then find our way inside in the morning with daylight to help us navigate all the reefs. As we moved into the anchorage area I was on the bow ready to drop anchor, we were all a bit relieved at how relatively smoothly things had gone. Sam was moving closer to shore in order to get out of the center channel as much as possible. It was pitch black and cloudy with occasional patches where stars were peering through. I could hear the land with breakers crashing nearby. I could see a dark shadowy mass. It all looked like some amorphous murky brooding hulk that still seemed to be some indefinable distance away. Not close enough yet to be dangerous, but certainly close enough to stop going any closer. I ran back towards the stern to ask Sam if he was ready to drop the anchor yet, and he said yeah, go ahead. He was watching the charts so I figured he knew exactly where we were and had nothing to worry about. In the few seconds I was away from the bow, that indefinable distance became nothing at all, or rather a large wall looming out of the shadows right in front of us. I dropped the anchor immediately and, well, didn't have to drop it far because, well, I could SEE the bottom. Could probably stand in it, too. Sam had come forward at the same time as I had come back so we had both seen this transformation at the same moment. Did I mention that we haven't had reverse in two months? That might better explain our sudden panic. He was already in neutral, but it takes a while for a 30,000 pound boat to stop moving forward. While I was dropping the anchor and paying it out in little fits and starts as it scrabbled and skipped over rocks, trying to pay out enough for it to catch but not too much because we were running out of space between us and the shore, Sam had grabbed the dinghy engine, tossed it over his shoulder and leaped into the dinghy. All his spider monkey leaps had prepared him for this moment. By the time I managed to get the anchor to catch and forward motion to stop he had the dinghy in the water and was pulling the boat backwards helping to keep us from drifting any closer. It was a crazy feeling to be standing on the bow, knowing how deep our keel is and looking up at that wall of land that seemed to emerge from the water only a few feet away. The nav lights shone into the shallows beneath us and spotlighted the many rocks scattered about. It was a quiet and eerie moment. Then the dinghy started to pull us away and I reeled the anchor line in as we went back. Spooky! We pulled back about 30ft and dropped anchor in the middle of the channel.. Screw it – it was only for skiffs and dinghies anyway. They could go around us. Apparently the anchorages on either side were a bit smaller than we expected from how the charts looked. These are the dangers of trying to anchor or moor at night. Distances are really hard to gauge, especially with no moon out. Every time we've tried it has been a scary proposition, but we were just so anxious to get out of St Martin that we didn't want to wait any longer to get our timing right. Once I had snubbed the anchor line we all gathered in the cockpit and took a moment to exhale. Now that we were here the stars were coming out and there were an amazing amount. And different ones, too. I had been watching the stars all winter in the Caribbean and suddenly I didn't recognize any constellations. My only guess was that we had been journeying south to north the whole time in a fairly narrow swathe following the islands and now we were heading more west than north. Eventually I did find the big dipper which made me feel better, so it didn't seem as though we were resting under a completely alien sky. I wasn't really happy with the anchorage still. I could see an unidentifiable white smear off to port, either beach or reef, again at an indefinable distance, with constant breakers not far behind it and a large looming shadow with more breakers which seemed even closer off to starboard. I wanted to sleep outside anyway because the stars were so pretty, so Sam set up the hammock for me and I lounged in the hammock and spent most of the rest of the night looking to right and left to see my landmarks and gauge whether or not we were dragging. As it started to get light and we still seemed to be in the same place I managed to drift off to sleep for a bit. Sam said he was surprised at how much he trusted me because he slept quite well. It was quite interesting to wake up in the morning and get an eyeful of the tiny little place we had pulled into ringed by rocks and breakers on all sides. We all just looked at each other and shook our heads. Sam is an excellent captain, but he definitely pulls some ballsy stunts at times. Some might call them incautious, rather than ballsy. I would say that there is a very fine line between ballsy and incautious. And we like to walk the line. That's why I like sailing close hauled, hovering about that fine line, trying to find that razor sharp edge of perfection that brings speed and heel without falling into the trap of nose to wind which ever lies but inches away.

Anyway.... it was morning. I made us some breakfast as we sailed around to the normal entrance to the harbor at Bitter End Yacht Club. We dropped people onshore and then Dan and i hopped in the dinghy for my 2nd open water dive. I was a bit anxious again. It was still terrifying to me every time I had to anticipate going on another dive. I was doing it because I wanted to finish the certification, but it was like dragging myself forward through the fear, and I really wasn't sure that I was having fun yet. Besides, it had been almost 2 weeks since my last dive and I was afraid I would have reverted to all my old problems again. The dinghy ride was pretty far again in big swell and I had plenty of time to sit and bounce about the dinghy and stress over the coming dive and work myself into a bit of a panic. I did this every time but generally was able to stifle it by the time we started the actual dive so it wasn't obvious to Dan that I was being a pansy. Or at least I just gritted my teeth and kept moving forward despite myself. We arrived at a mooring ball right next to a bunch of craggy tooth like rocks and tied off the dinghy. There were purple jellyfish all over the place. I asked Dan if they would sting us and he said “Honestly, I have no idea.” He really wasn't helping. I was wearing a hood this time because it wasn't a very warm day. It had been crazy hard to get on over my hair and beads and earrings, but Dan said it would keep me warm because most of the body's heat is lost through the head. It also helped seal my mask better so there was less water leaking in. I still find the period of time on the surface to be very ungainly with all the gear. I haven't yet figured out how to be graceful when bobbing about in the waves with my back inflated by the BCD and my visibility obscured by my mask and being at the surface of the water is also very limiting because you can't see under the water without sticking your head in which is easiest if lying on your stomach, but you can't talk with the second stage in your mouth or with your head under water and to stay afloat you have to be on your back. It's like being in a huge bit of quicksand with only your head above water, knowing there is a whole world beneath you but you can only access it if you decide whether you are a fish or a man. I am sure all of this awkwardness will pass as I become more used to moving about with fins and gear on. But it is definitely like a gateway between worlds and I prefer to pass through the gate quickly because the threshold is not comfortable. We descended along the mooring line and it went much better this time. It seemed like having the hood on helped to mute the extremes of pressure change or soften them somehow so that I was able to equalize much more easily. Both Sam and Dan said this was unlikely to be the case, but that's how it felt to me at the time. I suppose my body was also just getting used to the laws of this new world and starting to work with me instead of against me. We worked our way down to the bottom which was about 30ft trying to avoid the jellyfish since we didn't know if they would sting. They were quite gorgeous transparent little things about the size of my hand with bright purple highlights as if they were made of amorphous glass. We swam around for a while through a bottom thick with coral and eventually came across a clearing that looked like it was designed just for us. It was a perfect little oval area with a sandy bottom so we could work on our skills without disturbing any of the reef life. We practiced buoyancy control and hovering, and then I took off my BCD and then put it back on....difficult because it sinks and you start to float up so your gear is lying on the bottom with you upside down hanging on to it and your feet above your head trying to pull you to the surface – a very bizarre sense of weightlessness. And to get it back on you have to lay down in it and then roll over so you are laying on your stomach to get it all clipped back in to place. Then I did the same with the weight belt. We did a few more skills then just went swimming about to see what we would find. We saw a Great Barracuda swimming by – they are about 2-3 ft long. There were lots of parrotfish about in many varieties. The Stoplight parrotfish are my favorites I think, because of the bold painted colors in turquoise, grass green, yellow and lavender. And the females are equally brilliant but in browns and reds and golds and whites. I also discovered the Squirrelfish on that dive who I like because of the way his boldly striped dorsal fin snaps open like a geisha snapping her fan in some exotic dance. I also saw many Trunkfish which are intriguing in their roundish bulbous shape with little tiny fore fins that flutter like twin prop engines but all out of proportion like an elephant being propelled by little hummingbird wings installed at his ankles. It was a fun dive and I felt pretty comfortable the whole time. We bounced our way back in the dinghy and found the rest of the crew ashore on the internet.


The next morning our plan was to sail to Anegada to go diving, but we arrived there and discovered that you are only allowed to dive with the dive shop groups because the whole island was protected. So we pulled anchor and sailed south to a place called Cockroach Island. Next to it was a rocky chunk sticking out of the surf with waves breaking all over it. The swell was quite huge, some of the waves were 10ft and the dinghy was bouncing all over the place and we pulled up right next to the rocks. We were only about 20ft away from those breaking waves and spiky death and I have to admit I was petrified. I kept staring over at the rocks with my eyes glazing over a bit as he was explaining the skills we would be doing. He kept waving at me and asking if I was paying attention. But all I could think was he wanted me to get in the water and I would be swept in with the current and smashed on the rocks. He promised me it would be completely different underwater and that I should stop looking at the rocks. We jumped in without gear and my task was to get into my BCD at the surface which took a bit of a struggle with the waves tossing me about. I eventually managed it and then had to do the weight belt as well. Finally it was time to go under and Sam was manning the dinghy and trying to follow us through the surf as we traveled around those rocks. Once we were under the surface everything changed. The surge was like a mild breeze that would occasionally push you off balance but was easily countered. We descended to around 40 ft and started to explore the reef. There were swarms of butterfly fish which look like little miniature angelfish with softer less spiky fins – some with stripes and some with a bright spot near the tail like another eye. I had my first sighting of a scrawled cowfish which is a bit like the pudgy trunkfish but with much prettier colors and little protuberances over the eyes like fleshy horns. We saw tiny mollusks perched on sea fans which looked like a type of cowrie or flame tongue but with very striking spots. The marine life at the bottom was like an alien garden where the water is the breeze and the plants are like trees being buffeted by the swell and current instead of by the wind. Many of the plants are extremely sensitive and if you wave your hand about in the water a few feet away, there will be crazy reactions all over the surface of the plant. Some of the tiny ones look like gauzy, lacy, diaphanous tiaras floating delicately with the “breeze” - then you come within a foot of them and the entire structure sucks down into a tiny hole the diameter of a pencil and disappears as if it were never there. We followed the reef around the rocks and got down to a depth of nearly 60 ft at some points. We saw a Hawksbill sea turtle swimming about and tried to go around either side of him but he decided to swim out into the blue. Then we turned around to see a group of fairly large fish swimming by behind us. They appeared to be 2-3 ft long Jacks or maybe some large tuna. I didn't look so closely because my gaze kept drifting downward to the one at the bottom which was quite a bit larger. It was a 5 ft long Nurse shark with several Remora clinging to it's back. Dan was pointing and making the hand motion to signify "shark" to make sure I saw it, then cheering excitedly. It swam by lazily maybe 20ft away without even looking at us, completely unconcerned. I watched until it started to get hazy in the distance then turned back to continue on our path which put our back to the shark. I have to admit I had a moment where I was thinking to myself. Is this crazy? Shouldn't we at least be looking behind us to see if it is sneaking up on us? Oh, the damage the film industry has done to us! But Dan was swimming along unconcerned as well. So I just dropped my fears behind me and kept swimming. When we surfaced from the dive we had to find Sam who was having a much rougher time than us getting buffeted about and almost flipping the dinghy a few times. It was pretty exciting and I realized I had again had very little trouble equalizing and that what I had a problem with now was being able to roll over completely so I could look up at the surface because I usually had a little bit of water in my mask which normally doesn't matter but if I roll over it goes up my nose and I start to choke on salt water in the back of my throat. My next stage to overcome. We got back to the boat and set sail for Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor where we anchored for the night. We made some yummy stir fry and planned our dive for the next day.

We were supposed to get an early start but we had to wait for the dive shop to open so we could fill the tanks. So the guys headed to the dive shop and Ruth and I went snorkeling around the boat. There were several sting rays hunting along the bottom right below the boat. It was about 30ft deep but perfectly clear. They would skim flat along the bottom and flutter their wings to rustle up some prey. We also came across some pretty big sea turtles – about 3ft from head to tail. I kept hoping one would surface near us but they only ever came about halfway up then decided to head out to the blue. We did get within 20ft of them, which was pretty cool. Finally the guys returned from the dive shop and said I needed to go look at gear. Uh oh. Bring out the credit card. We checked out some dive boots so my feet would fit more properly in the fins and I thought about getting a hood but then I found a chicken vest – at least that's what it's called in the Arab world – seeing that my instructors are from Israel and Egypt.... A chicken vest is a sleeveless wet suit shirt with hood attached. We also bought a new pirate flag since our good one had frayed away to nothing quite a while ago. This one was great – it had the jolly roger with the phrase “the beatings will continue until morale improves....” We finally got underway and sailed for a little patch of rocks called the Indians. We grabbed a mooring and jumped in. We did a practice CESA which is an emergency ascent if you run out of air and there is no buddy around to share air with. Then I towed my tired instructor about for a bit. We were mostly done with all our skills by then and it was the last dive for my certification. Dan turned around and said “now it's just for fun.” There were rocks in a circle with a shallow pool in the center and an avenue through the middle. There were snorkelers everywhere. We dove down and followed the reef around again. There was a small Nurse shark, about 3ft only and more sea turtles. There were tons of different kinds of extremely boldly colored and shaped coral formations. Bright purple tubes and giant green vases were everywhere. There was also a lot of boat debris. We started collecting garbage from the bottom. We picked up 2 boat hooks, a pair of shorts, and an old scuba mask.... We swam through the cut between the rocks and were underneath the legs of all the snorkelers. At one point, I looked up and saw Sam snorkeling above me. He smiled and waved and motioned me to give him the boat hook I was carrying. So, I reached it up to him without going up too high. We waved up at Ruth and Sam who followed above us for a while, then went away from the rocks and down again for a while until we made our way to the dinghy and ascended next to it. I have become quite good at getting into the dinghy now unassisted with only my fins. And there we were. My final dive. I was an official PADI open water diver. Woo hoo!


We stowed the gear and started sailing for St Thomas. After a bit we crossed an imaginary line in the water, left the BVI's and entered into US territory. Welcome home?!?