BVI 2024-Day 2

After me outing Jimmy about his foot obsession yesterday he insisted on me highlighting my own foot focus, including my matchy-matchy tone nail polish with my bathing suit and beer coozy. Maybe I’m really a princess?  Own it!

After an unhurried morning and a night of being gently rocked by the waves we head to our lunch time stop called the “Baths” for the beautiful rock out-croppings and snorkeling.  

Cap’n Steve wasn’t going to just take a dip in the water like us, oh no! He snorkeled to the beach and back.  He sets a high bar, he does. 

Just like in our cars, GPS gives us lots of info about our where abouts and how to navigate.  The black dot is our boat, zoomed out far above the Caribbean. The numbers on the right indicate our boat speed was 4.7 knots at this moment, our heading 23 deg. from north, the wind was hitting us at at 63 deg. off of our bow, blowing in on a heading of  84 deg. from north with a wind speed of 11.5 knots, and our distance above the ocean floor of  71.5 ft. 

Sailing can be very hard and busy, and sometimes, well let’s just say you have time to rest. 💤

John skippered most of day today after leaving our mooring with guidance from Steve.  He’s had lots of sailing in his past including racing and Caribbean sails.  

One of my consistent responsibilities is helping to catch and secure our mooring balls.  It can be a bit like being very bow-legged and trying to catch a greased hog in a wide alley.  Today I got to scoot out on the very tip of the bow to free our mooring lines from the secured anchor. A great view of Leverick Bay and peaceful too. 

Steve and Jimmy dinghy back to the boat after borrowing a set of Allen wrenches to tighten up our berth door handles which keep falling off.  The pink roofed building is where we’ll have dinner tonight at Leverick Bay on the north side of Virgin Gorda, BVI. 

We had a brief rain during the Happy Hour and caught a rainbow in the distance.  A good omen?

Around 7PM ashore we had an all you can eat beach BBQ with all the fixings and live entertainment including some very tall people.  After dingy’ing back to the Revantador we relaxed in the cockpit and contemplated our tomorrow.  A good full day of sailing and entertainment in the BVI. 👏👏

BVI 2024 Prologue/Day 1

On my flight to St. Thomas from Charlotte I had the adventure and pleasure to sit with Gary from Tennessee. A Vietnam vet and 20 year retired NY state trooper, he now lives about 20 miles from where they make Jack Daniel’s, something he found very exciting. Our flight attendant, who also works with the Troopers near Charlotte, loaded Gary up with enough Jack to last him at least through the first morning of his 4 month stay in St. Thomas. Gary was a happy man when he got off the plane. 

I was happy with my two Bloody Mary’s and a couple of Tito’s to go. 

Bill Wiltsch was also on the plane into St Thomas. We flew in a day ahead of time so we could “Scout” the area before the rest of the Pirates arrive. 

The sun sets over the US Virgin Islands as Bill (or a really big turtle head) soaks in the pool at the Green Iguana Hotel.

It’s pretty hard being a Scout. We had to find and test out a nice restaurant called the Green House and sample their rum drinks, like these Pain Killers, before the rest of the Pirates arrive. 

Wednesday afternoon, Dec. 4th, the Piratea have assembled. In from KC and St. Louis is John Garrett, Steve Richards and Jimmy Dean. We settled them in from their very early morning departures with a couple of ice sold Heinekens as they began to gear down into Island Time by the pool.  

Another nice sunset.  This could become a habit. 

Back at the Green House for dinner we enjoyed more rum drinks, fish, calamari and steaks. 

Thursday morning we embraced the ocean on a ferry from Charlotte Amolie in the US to Road Town on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands.  It was about an hour of pretty high speed boating where we seemed to become airborne for about a second before a hard landing on the ocean.  John, Jim and I learned to hang on, just in case.  

Before we got our boat we had to provision for 5 guys for a week.  90 minutes and $1,125 later we had most of what we needed. 

We arrived back at BVI Charters to find Steve and Bill getting familiar with the boat and all of the different systems; water, waste water, generators, AC, navigation system, diesel motor, etc.  Once at sea we’re pretty much on our own for first response and repair.  

Our boat for the week is the Reventador II which appears to imply “Trouble Maker”.  I hope that means us guys rather than the boat!  We shall see. The Reventador is a 47’ long boat with a 16’ beam (width) made in France and is about one year old.  It is in very good shape and very comfortable, with most of the luxuries of home.  

We set sail to Coopers Island sometime around 1PM,  We’re all shaking off our sailing cobwebs as we begin to tack (sail upwind) on a southeasterly direction and refresh our skills of handling the sails, sheets (ropes attached to sails) and winches (not the female kind!). 

The best time of the day IMO is after we moor or anchor and start to chill with a beverage and tell old stories about each other and white lies about our adventures.  Jimmy likes to show off his feet to John who apparently seems to have a foot fetish?

Bill, Steve and Jim took a refreshing dip off of the stern as the sun was setting. 

The Coopers Inn, the only restaurant in our harbor, was sold out for the night.  I counted over 30 other sailboats in our harbor.  So we dipped into our provisions and all chipped in to make some cheese burgers on the outdoor grill on the back of the boat.  Very tasty. 

We told more stories after dinner and settled in for the night around 10PM, rocked gently by the waves of the bay. 

Day 7: Amsterdam to Albany, NY

Our last day, 41 miles to Albany with a scenic visit to the Cohoes Falls before grinding through the afternoon warmth into Albany.  
 Sunday morning view of the great hall in the Amsterdam Castle as we checked out and all of our bikes lined up and ready to be mounted and ridden to Albany. 


Our breakfast stop at the Hungry Chicken about 11 miles down the trail.  It was an eclectic shack with great, fresh made food conveniently right off the trail. 

Riding through the mean streets of Schenectady!

2nd only to Niagara Falls as the biggest east of the Rockies is Cohoes Falls on the Hudson River. 

The afternoon was warm and sunny and we needed a bathroom and cool treats get us through the last 10 miles to Albany. 

Annette leading the way to meet up with Len along the trail. 

Shortly after 2:30 we arrived in Albany, the end of our bike tour, 7 days and 371 miles later.  It’s been a great trip, great friends, great weather and great memories to come.