Ep 134 Are The British Virgin Islands Up and Running? Part 1
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- čas přidán 26. 08. 2024
- Are the British Virgin Islands fully open? Let's go see.
After the twin hurricanes of Irma and Maria in 2017, which decimated the BVIs, rebuilding was slow, with many of the Iconic restaurants and bars closed and not even being worked on. Then came COVID, and the island officials made coming nearly impossible, fully locking everything down for at least a full season, if not a season and a half.
In this episode (Part 1) we visit the Soggy Dollar Bar, Foxy's Taboo, Sopers Hole, Cane Garden Bay, Callwood Rum Distillery, Norman Island Bight, Willy T Bar and Restaurant, Norman Island Caves, The Indians, Cooper Island Beach Club, and the Big Banboo on Anegada.
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The rum tour looked great.😀👍⛵️
It was!
Thanks Kevin & Wendy. Nice to see the BVI's back open after what must have been a dreadful time suffering those two Hurricanes!! It looked as if you both enjoyed the sailing and the apres sailing!!!
Thanks Brian. Between the two, I suspect COVID was the bigger kick in the groin. The locals were promised a "return to normal" if they just put their nose to the grindstone to get everything rebuilt, then COVID came along. The political types still got their paychecks (until the government coffers ran dry), but the regular folk ... not so much.
Great episode Kevin!! I really have a crush on Wendy 😆, her personality seems real laid back and cool.
Wendy smiles and says Thank You. She's actually pretty camera shy. But she appreciates the kind words.
Goodness anchoring in quite a brisk breeze with everyone bunched up (not you) is a bit hairy.
Never a dull moment around here. Thanks for being with us.
Hi Kevin: More on going up the mast at sea. I just completed another Safety-at-Sea Hands-on training (must be done every 5 years) and the director, Rich du Moulin, the former Commodore of the Storm Trysail Club and a world class yachtsman, had a good suggestion for going up the mast when at sea. He said to take a halyard and attach it to the base of the mast and make it fast and tense. Then attach a very, very short strap from yourself around the halyard, so it will slide up with as you ascend. As such, you will always be within a foot from the mast and won't experience the big swinging adventure that you had when you went up the mast in a seaway.
You gotta love Oysters, 25+ knots of wind and they start flying.
Great vid guys.
Indeed. Thanks DG. Always great to hear from you.
I enjoy your channel but not the wind noise.
It's an ongoing problem. Part of it is that we sail in really windy conditions a lot. And I swear we have external mics with fuzzy covers, all the stuff that's supposed to cut the noise down, and none of it seems to work.
Thanks for the intel, like your video style, works for boat projects AND cruising documentary.
Thanks AS. We try. We also know that the big views come from drama, disaster, and T&A, but none of that is our real style.
Nice Vid. Good to see them rebuilding. Lobster(bugs) looked good. I was fortunate, growing up in the Canal Zone, my dad was a free diver , boating, spear fishing was his greatest passion. Freezer was always loaded with lobster, crab, shrimp, fish, you name it.
Good eating! And as we see nowadays, these islands can and are self sufficient when it comes to food, and you can be perfectly happy as long as your tastes don't get too complicated.
Keep the shots in good tast
We do. At least I hope we do.
Thanks for the video. Nicely done and informative. What time of year was this?
I think it was Jan or Feb, a couple of years ago. I went to look on the video, but only production date was avail, and we edit many months after we film.
Captain Wendy is definitely the star of the show 😉
She rocks it.
good bvi vid got all my fav spots
We'll hit some more in the next episode.
kevin.... you need to something about the wind noise!!
We're working on it. We only use action cameras and rarely if ever set up a shot. We also don't see the footage often for months, and by that time it's too late to try to reshoot. We got some foam covers for the camera that are so low-tech that I never imagined that they'd work, but surprisingly they do. We'll see for this upcoming season. Thanks for being with us though!
Should have gone to Sopers Hole first - main check in - everything is so close I could have done laps around BVIs
That's where we actually did clear in. It's just that the government website says you can clear in at Jost, but it's just too hard to update a website I guess. From what they told us they haven't done clearances there in years (since before COVID). Apparently, this happens daily. So every day, pissed off cruisers try to clear in, can't, and then go elsewhere once they've gone over to Sopers.
Thank you for the tour of the BVI’s! The first thing that struck me is that the islands appear green again after the hurricanes ripped everything from the ground and made the islands brown. That lobster lunch looked delicious!!
Maybe the new premier of the BVI’s (Natalio Wheatley) will do a better job of promoting tourism after revoking the mandate of ex-premier Andrew Fahie in the wake of his arrest on drug charges in Miami?
Hi Allan. Wasn't that wild? The hillsides were stripped bare. But rapidly regrew with rain.
And there's nothing like Anegada (or Saba) lobsters. These lobsters have no claws (like Maine lobsters), and thus the weight is so much less. And lobsters are sold by the pound. The claws, which are heavily armored, contribute heavily to the weight.
I laughed out loud when I read about the arrest. No wonder there was no caring about the locals. Clearly, they played no part in this man's life.
Kevin, thank you, great content. How do you secure SY Talisman when you go ashore? Thank you.
We put our washboards in and lock the hatch, if we feel the need. We're rarely away from the boat longer than it takes to go to dinner. We also try not to spend much time in areas where security is a major concern. This approach is twofold. First we try not to make ourselves easy marks by anchoring away from the other boats or too close to shore, but second is not going places where theft and boarding has been known to happen. We don't support the islands that don't take criminality seriously.
@@SailingTalisman Thank you, makes perfect sense. Would you be willing to share the spreadsheet you used to evaluate your purchase options? Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
@@dancundiff3316 Yes. My email can be seen in the "about" tab on our CZcams channel landing page. Send me an email and we'll get it done.
Guessing Saba Rock and Bitter End still a work in progress
We'll cover those in the next episode.
as along time cruiser/sailor I have always set my sounder to actual water depth, I need more than 2.1m to float. setting the sounder to depth under the keel seems just as wrong and can be confusing, especially when navigating by contour or passing on information to other vessels. Why use under keel depth and not actual.?
Hi Simon. It's a matter of personal preference I suppose. To us, it's a simple math correction (add 2.4m to the number) which we do in our heads when needed without much thinking. Plus, none of these numbers can really be trusted to the 10th of a meter. In the end, we're a very deep boat for our size. People who aren't living the cruising life often assume that an extra half meter of draft can't be that important, but it really is. The difference between 2m and 2.4m is the difference between being able to get into some marinas vs. not being able to. So I very much like to see our actual keel-to-bottom measurement. But to each their own.
Barracuda’s are worse than sharks….
We've never had a problem with either, but our cruising has mostly been in the Med and the Caribbean. Our experiences with barracudas have been good. We swim with them being around pretty much on a daily or weekly basis, and we find the local versions (Antigua, W.I.) to be curious and hopeful that we might stir up something interesting. From what we hear, they are attracted to shiny objects, like rings, but at the same time there needs to be some confusion about what is causing the flashes of light. If they can see you fully in the water, there's less of a chance of that happening. Reaching into the water with your hand might be a different story. I often tell guests that when snorkeling, it's fun to take a moment to look behind you. Many times you'll be getting trailed by a barracuda or tarpon. I've never known them to be aggressive, but again limited to the areas we've swum. Like a lot of apex predators, they eat when they feel like it, usually in the morning and late afternoon.
@@SailingTalisman I have had them "trail" me from behind, and yes that is am eye opening experience....but they can be "territorial" especially of the shaded areas underneath the boat....