Year #2 of Island Hopping in the British Virgin Islands with Brent and Kylee! I really do have to pinch myself some days thinking about how lucky I am to get to go on adventures like this!!
Hurricane Irma
- I need to start this blog by saying it saddens me so much while writing this blog – looking at the beauty we saw and explored the first week in August – to now seeing the photos of the destruction to the islands caused by Hurricane Irma at the first of September. It’s truly heartbreaking to see the places we were at destroyed such as Soggy Dollar Bar, Foxy’s and Saba Rock or completely blown away like Sandy Spit Island. My one thankful thought is knowing that when we were there most islands were already shutting down – or about to shut down – for hurricane season. So while the buildings were destroyed, I have to hope most of the people had taken shelter somewhere else and were safe. I’ve put together a few comparison photos from some of the places we went. I truly hope they rebuild soon, because the BVIs is a place that everyone should explore at least once in their lifetime.
Before and After of Leverick Bay
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Before and After of Marina Cay
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Before and After of Soggy Dollar Bar
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Before and After of Saba Rock
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Trip Itinerary and Highlights
With that said, let me now share some of the amazing highlights of our trip this year! I’ll go island by island so you can share in our 7 night journey.
EJ infront of our Catamaran at Sprat Bay on Peter Island
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Map of our BVI Island Hopping
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Day 1: Tortola to Jost Van Dyke
- After a red eye flight to Tortola we arrived in Tortola at 8am and took the shuttle to the Moorings Marina. We had to wait a few hours for our boat to be ready, but by 1pm we were off on our adventure!
Landing in Tortola
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Captain Brent!
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Our catamaran kitchen
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- Our Catamaran’s name was “We Are Nuts” – and during some crazy rain storms on the trip we kind of had to agree! ;)
"We are Nuts" - yes we are!
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Trish and I survived the week on "We are Nuts"!
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- Our first stop that afternoon was White Bay on Jost Van Dyke to visit the famous Soggy Dollar Bar for an original Painkiller drink. We sat on the beach for a while sipping our drinks, taking in the first sights and smells of the islands – and then had dinner at Hendo's Hideout since we were all too exhausted to cook on the boat that first night.
Pulling up to White Bay - for the soggy dollar bar on Jost Van Dyke
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Great way to start night 1 of vacation with a Painkiller!
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Jost van Dyke - Soggy Dollar Bar
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Day 2: Jost Van Dyke to Cane Garden Bay
- We explored more of Jost Van Dyke heading over to Great Harbour to visit another famous bar – Foxy’s Tamarind.
Jost Van Dyke - Great Harbour
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Kylee and EJ at Foxy's
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Foxy's Tamarind Bar
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- From Great Harbour we went over to Sandy Cay – a small uninhabited island. My gosh was it beautiful! White sand, turquoise water – yep…I could stay there for a while! We paddle boarded to land, walked around the island, relaxed and soaked in the magnificent views!
Pulling up to Sandy Cay Island
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EJ and Trish paddle boarding
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EJ on Sandy Cay
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EJ on Sandy Spit - (the only palm tree on the island)
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- Instead of staying at Jost a second night, Brent made a game day decision to head over to Cane Garden Bay on Tortola, about an hour away. We got there by dinner time – ready to explore the next morning.
Cane Garden Bay
Day 3: Cane Garden Bay to Marina Cay
- After breakfast we headed via paddle board to Cane Garden Beach, which was a nice well-inhabited spot. It was a fun place to explore, walking up and down the little shops along the beach while sipping on a 'morning adult beverage' to start our vacation day right!
Feet - Cane Garden Bay
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Kylee and EJ at Cane Garden Bay
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Cane Garden Beach
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Snorkeling at Monkey Point on Guana Island
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Coral and Fish
Brent jumping off the boat!
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Marina Cay
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Help - Kylee is stuck!
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Day 4: Marina Cay to The Baths back to Marina Cay
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Brent and Kylee at The Baths
EJ walking through the Baths
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Devil's Bay
EJ and Trish in Devil's Bay
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Kylee and Brent at the Top of the Baths restaurant
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- What's a tropical vacation without a storm, right?! Thankfully we got moored back up at Marina Cay (the only place nearby we could find a spot) before the skies really opened up! We had some crazy storms that lasted through the night, but overall not too bad - just some good old fashion wind, rain and lightening.
Storms rolling in...
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Heavy rain! (safe and sound on the boat though)
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- So what to do during the storms? Have an R&R on the boat kind of day...pour some drinks, play games, color, and just enjoy the rain!
Playing games during the rain
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Breaking out the coloring book to pass the time
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The captain making sure we all stayed safe
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Day 5: Marina Cay to Leverick Bay
- After the storms (over 6 inches of rain and up to 40mph winds) we all had a fairly slow start to our morning after a restless night of sleep. By mid-morning we headed over to The Dogs (Great Dog island) for snorkeling. This cave was really cool!
At The Dogs (Great Dog island)
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We snorkeled up to the cave at Great Dog
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EJ on Great Dog
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- Sails up! Next we made our way over to Leverick Bay on Virgin Gorda to fill up the boat with water, buy some grocieries, relax while floating in the water and finish off the day with a nice dinner on shore at the rooftop restaurant.
Enjoying sails up!
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We are here!
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More of this please!
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EJ and Kylee eating dinner on Leverick Bay
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Day 6: Virgin Gorda Leverick Bay to Saba Rock to Cooper Island
- After mooring up at Saba Rock we took the dingy over to Prickly Pear Island, where we got to gawk at Richard Branson's Necker Island and the Google Owner's Island! We saw some people kite surfing on Necker Island – my theory was it was Obama on vacation again – so I’m just sticking with that!
Kylee and Brent at Saba Rock
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EJ and Kylee on Prickly Pear Island (the storms washed ashore all the seaweed)
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- We had a nice lunch at Saba Rock and afterwards found the quaintest spot on the island to sit and enjoy the beautiful views for a few minutes!
Kylee, EJ and Trish at Saba Rock
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Saba Rock - Virgin Gorda
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EJ on Saba Rock
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- Sails up to head over to Cooper Island. Our intention was to eat dinner at their island restaurant, but guess what – the whole island was closed for the season! Oops. We spent the rest of the afternoon playing on the paddle boards and relaxing, and then all dug into what food we had on the boat – I think hot dogs was the winner.
EJ ready to hook the mooring ball as we come into the bay at Cooper Island
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Kylee and EJ relaxing after going for a quick paddle board workout
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Sunset in the BVIs
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Day 7: Cooper Island to Peter Island
EJ and Kylee on Peter Island
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- Our last stop was Great Harbour where we moored for the afternoon and evening. It was a very relaxing day – floating in the water, paddle boarding, coloring, etc. Just soaking in that last bit of island life before going back to reality the next day.
Feet - sailing around Peter Island
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Trish enjoying the views of Peter Island
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EJ paddle boarding to shore
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Our last sunset in the BVIs
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Day 8: Peter Island to Tortola
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Heading back into the Moorings on Tortola
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- FYI - definitely sit on the left side of the plane if taking this route from Tortola to Puerto Rico – the view of the islands was spectacular!
Flying out over the BVIs
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Beautiful overhead view of the BVIs
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- Thanks again to Kylee and Brent for another incredible year in the British Virgin Islands! BVIs 2017 in the books!!
Slideshow of more BVI photos - use right/left control arrows or scroll and click to view
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