Come SAIL WITH US in the BVI | Sailing Florence Ep.155

We have sailed Florence to the British Virgin Islands, reputed to be the best place in the Caribbean for a charter holiday, but because of that it is also one of the busiest places in the Caribbean. So does this spoil the appeal? Does it mean that there is no space to anchor or that all the moorings are always taken? Well, this week we're going to find out the answers to those questions and we have some friends along to help us. We are Amy and Matt. We spent the last six and a half years sailing our 37-foot sailboat Florence around the world. In that time we have crossed four oceans and over 46,000 miles have passed under our keel. Now we have made it back to the Caribbean, we will explore these famous islands before we recross the North Atlantic Ocean to return to where we began this voyage in England. Normally on our voyage cruising around the world on Florence we are a lot of the time on our own, but this week is going to be different. Right now we're anchored outside of Nanny Quay Marina on the main island in the BVI's and in the marina are a whole group of our patrons who have chartered boats to come and join us cruising in company for a week. So we are really looking forward to meeting everybody and we're really looking forward to cruising in company for a week in these beautiful islands. For those of you who don't know our patrons are our main video sponsors. They've joined our Florence crew on a crowdfunding website called Patreon and there they donate a regular amount for each video that we produce and they can also enjoy real-time updates and extra content that we put out. Patreon was also where we were able to invite everybody to come out to the BVI and join us so that we could thank them for their support and also they could help us celebrate the fact that Florence has now sailed all the way around the world. To celebrate having our patrons out to visit us we've dressed Florence with most of the flags of the countries that we visited and now some of them didn't quite make it because they got so worn out by the wind when we were there that they disintegrated but we've got most of them up here now. Because our patrons are only here for a week we are going to be traveling at charter holiday speed rather than our usual slow pace. So over the last week we have got ourselves ahead on all of the planning, maintenance and video editing so this week is going to be a much faster pace of life. The British Virgin Islands are a mecca for charter holidays but that means that there are a lot of boats here. We've been warned that finding a mooring available or space to anchor can be difficult and we're not just going to be looking for space for Florence but for three other boats and for 13 guests. The first stop will be the Indians just four miles south of Nanny Quay and one of the best sites for snorkeling in the BVI. Sites like the Indians are national parks and there are moorings available to protect the coral for anchors. However with so many boats in order that everybody gets a chance to visit there is a On the plus side the water here is crystal clear and the underwater life is in no way spoiled by the number of visitors. After the Indians it was a short three mile motor to White Bay on Peter Island where all four boats could anchor together and we could host everybody on board Florence for the real purpose of this week. Okay so why are we doing this? We're doing this to celebrate with friends this evening sailing around the world on Florence. Six and a half years of great entertainment. You guys were our television. It's difficult for us to explain what our patrons mean to us. We film, edit and share these videos on YouTube for free once every two weeks and thousands of people watch them. Our patrons are a very select number of those people who have decided to click on the link and support us to carry on making the videos. Without the support of our patrons we would have run out of funds years ago. This seven-year circumnavigation would have been limited to our original three or four year plan and these videos simply would not exist. The support of our patrons means that we don't have to chase the YouTube algorithm. Instead we can remain true to ourselves and the real adventure on board Florence while sharing the beauty of the world around us as we explore. It was great to have everybody on board Florence last night. 16 people including us is the most people we've ever had on board Florence at one time and with us all sat at the stern the bow was slightly out of the water but it was all good. Today we are sailing on to Cooper Island but we're going to stop at the wreck of the Rhone on the way. The RMS Rhone was a royal mail ship wrecked off the coast of Salt Island in 1867 during a hurricane and it's now a popular dive site. The ship had been running at full speed prior to the sinking so her boilers were extremely hot. When the cold seawater hit them they exploded. The bow ended up in 24 meters of water but the stern is in nine meters. There's not much to be seen from the surface but free diving down you can see more details of the hull and propeller. The clear water makes for great snorkeling and diving in the BVI but unfortunately this wreck is slightly too deep for easy snorkeling so at the first hint of a puff of wind we set the sails for a race onto Cooper Island. Unfortunately it is really light wind this week in the BVI so we're having a bit of a race with these guys on jitterbug this afternoon but it's more of a drifting race. When we're going into the wind we've got just about enough we've turned downwind to go to our next anchorage and there now is just nothing and it's just going to give up and use the engine first I think. Hopefully we'll get a little bit more wind later on in the week and we actually get the trade wind to come back in for a few days. Really nice to have the sails up though even if we are drifting and it was really fun we were really close together just sailing and they're on a 37 foot monohull as well so it's interesting to see the difference between an old style 37 footer and a new style. They've got a lot more space inside a lot wider at the back but as a cruising boat we've got a really big overlapping genoa 135 percent genoa which is much bigger than the headsail so technically we're cheating because we've got bigger sails. It's a tense race I think they're catching us a little bit we've just caught a gust and we've now accelerated to 1.9 knots. The next day based on some insider information we decided to skip the famous baths and instead head for a lesser known but equally beautiful spot without the crowds. So we've just come over to Fallen Jerusalem today we were going to go to the baths which are literally just a few hundred meters that way and there are hundreds of boats there it looks absolutely packed but we had some advice from a local skipper that this is a really good place to come and it's very secluded as we've managed to get three boats in here. Florence is anchored and the other guys are on the mooring. There's a tiny bit of breeze just to take the edge off the temperature but it's still pretty darn hot but hoping it's gonna be a little bit more breeze later today so we can actually sail on to the next place. How cool is this view? Gorgeous, I'm so glad we came here. And that's where we would have been where all of those boats are at the baths and here is just us. Today we're in Gorda Sound and the trade winds are making a reappearance and this is the perfect opportunity to have everybody come and board Florence and come for a sail and we're really looking forward to this for two reasons. First to give something back to these guys who've given us so much and secondly because we very rarely go for a sail just for fun on Florence. We are normally going from A to B. How's Florence with the spinnaker up Matt? Absolutely fantastic, always a thrill to sail with a spinnaker and on this boat especially so. We've got Jane on the helm. How are you finding helming Florence Jane? It's great fun, beautiful boat. How's it feel? Great, for a power boater. We haven't converted you yet then. Oh I'm happy to do any kind of boating. Although it's fantastic to be able to give everybody a chance to sail on Florence, seating 15 for dinner on board would have been a challenge. Thankfully there are plenty of options to socialise and eat ashore with a bit more space. In fact we were treated to dinner either ashore or on the other boats every night. It's always a little strange and a little nerve-wracking for us meeting people that recognise and know a fair bit about us from our videos when we know so little about them. Of course we've had emails back and forth with our patrons and we've seen their profile pictures but we'd never met any of these guys in person before and they'd also not met each other. So we have to thank Danielle for surprising us by organising team shirts behind the scenes to help bring everybody together. We absolutely loved meeting everyone face to face and having time to chat over the week. Our patrons are such an inspiring group of people with plenty of stories to share themselves. We left Gorda Sound cruising in company with Brown Eyed Girl and Jitterbug. Our aim was to sail 20 miles to Cane Garden Bay with a lunch stop at Monkey Point on the way. The BVI was back to serving up the more consistent trade winds that we were expecting, making for some great sailing. Along with the trade winds we had a northerly swell, meaning we'd have to work a bit harder to find anchorages with shelter from both the wind and swell. Unfortunately our planned lunch and snorkel stop at Monkey Point had to be abandoned as the swell was getting in there and churning up the water making it cloudy and uncomfortable. So we skipped on to Cane Garden Bay. Once safely moored we all sat down for dinner on board the spacious Brown Eyed Girl and discussed the merits of catamarans versus monohulls. Since we were in Cane Garden Bay we couldn't pass up the opportunity to wander along the beach to visit the rum distillery and sample some of the local rum for a breakfast tot. Everybody's joining the line now. I'm going to get the whole independence. It's actually one of the oldest rum distillery in the Caribbean that still operates and makes all the rum from the sugar cane. So sugar cane is the stuff that looks like the grass. Right now we already harvest for the season so right now they're just starting to come again. So once we cut the sugar cane we take it up behind the distillery to get the juice out of it. The season is March to August so right now we're in the process of making the rum. So let's take a little walk up the hill show you the press. So this is basically the first step we go through making the rum getting the juice out of the sugar cane. So we feed all the sugar cane inside of here. Of course it's the sugar cane where we get all the juice. All the juice then drains fills up this tub. Now this press here came in the 1800s. The first press they had is with the donkeys and horses to go around in a circle but they got an upgrade so this is a 200 years machine that still works you know. Amazing this press is over 200 years old and still working. It's just simple very heavy duty iron press. Four years in the barrels this is the older one this is 10 years so it gets darker it's more smooth it's like sipping or you put some in your coffee in the morning you know start your day right with this one here. And then we have this one here for you guys anytime you have trouble with your lady this is the one you give her you don't got to do much talking with this one here now. This one has the extra sugar cane inside this one is more sweet it's a nice after dinner drink the only thing happens when a lady finish drink it takes the pammies off this is the pammie drop of rum you know. The rum is guaranteed no headaches no hangovers when you drink all it does is knock you out that's all it does. Okay one two three hit down the hatch delicious. So that's the 10 year old one smooth. After that true pirate's breakfast it was time to set sail the short distance across to Diamond Key on Josp van Dyck. Here we could take a short walk to the bubbling pools a natural jacuzzi fueled by the ocean swell. Well it's all changed today we've pretty much had all conditions this week in the PPI but no wind drifting and motoring we've had some beautiful sailing but today the wind is absolutely howling through the rigging and that's like 25 36 knots right now. It's been a kind of a front go through so we've come to this anchorage in Diamond Key because it gives us protection from more than 180 degrees and that protects us from the weather we had yesterday and the wind going all the way around 180 degrees overnight. Now we've got some rain squalls going through which brings some big breeze so we're gonna hang out hang tight in this anchorage and then hopefully it'll calm down a little bit but the swells are also building up from the north so we're gonna go and escape around the south of the main island where hopefully that well that should break up the swell and it should be nice and calm around there but just shows it's not always steady trade winds in the BVI. The sea state changed from rough to very smooth as soon as we entered Thatch and then we had smooth sailing down to Norman Island for the final evening leaving a short sail back to the marina the following day. We've had an amazing time meeting everybody this week and it's been great fun to sail in company for a change especially with such a group of inspirational people. This is the first time we've organized an official meet up with patrons and they've certainly made us keen to do it again but hopefully next time somewhere that's a little bit easier for everybody to get to. So how was it cruising the BVI? Was it busy? Was it expensive? And was it as difficult to anchor as we've been warned? And after experiencing it would we recommend coming here on your own boat? The British Virgin Islands are certainly busy. We haven't seen this many charter boats anywhere else that we've been in the world so far but although we're here at the height of the season we haven't actually had a problem finding somewhere to anchor anywhere this week or the time that we've been here. We've just needed to be prepared to anchor in up to 15 meters of water which is not a problem for Florence because we've got plenty of chain in the locker. Yeah which has been a really good thing for us because the moorings are expensive. They're around 40 to 55 US dollars per night with no facilities and they're often very close together so once you get a 50-foot charter boat on one if the boats swing around there's a good chance that they can hit. If you want to guarantee a mooring then you have to set an alarm to book it at seven o'clock in the morning when they become available and that can be a real challenge because the popular places book up really really fast. Having said that most of the places we've been this week there have been a couple of first-come first-served moorings available that you can't book when we arrived. Despite it being busy if you're prepared to go to an anchorage where there are no restaurants ashore then it's still possible to find a quiet bay away from it all with just a few neighbours. We can see why it's so popular here for charter holidays. There are a huge number of anchorages all short distances from each other making for easy sailing and there's plenty of things to do ashore and when the trade winds are blowing properly it makes for some great sailing conditions. Yeah it is expensive here though not just to eat out but also for groceries. In the main supermarket it's two US dollars for just one small orange or seven dollars for a head of lettuce. In the smaller really convenient stores prices are much higher. You're going to be looking at around eight US dollars for one cucumber or 15 for a tiny punnet of strawberries. But despite that we're really happy that we decided to come and sail here. It seems to be a great place to come either with your own boat or on a charter holiday and in fact we would love to stay longer but we're now coming up to the end of our one month visa and the weather is dictating that it's time for us to sail on so in the next video we will be sailing on to the Bahamas. If you enjoy our videos please subscribe to the channel and make sure you don't miss an episode and that's absolutely free. We are usually a couple of months ahead of the videos in real time and that means that whilst you've been this video we should be out at sea starting our voyage back across the ocean. If you'd like to see where we are in real time then please head over to Patreon and join the crew as there we have a tracker map where you can track us across the ocean and we also post daily text updates from onboard. As always we want to say a massive thank you to everyone who supports the making of these videos and especially our star patrons. It's been brilliant that for once some of them have actually starred in this video.