Soft Life in the BVI
A boat charter in the British Virgin Islands offers a quiet lesson in contrasts.
Photography by Jefferey Salter
The operative word: exhaustion. In our case, it stemmed from overwork, riding the relentless wave of the San Francisco tech world. How to get grounded? Escape to an actual sea to rethink ambitions. Late one night, after dishing about prospects over an hours-long meal, I bounced talk of a Caribbean respite around with a couple of friends. Not long after, my pal Trevor, an avid sailor who relishes nothing so much as a hearty work trip tinkering with satellite communications systems while, say, cruising aboard a Russian icebreaker off Antarctica, admitted in a moment of lucidity that even he was ready for the proverbial island vacation. What he meant: He longed to lounge in a chaise while being waited on hand and foot, to spend a solid week with no thought to the past or the future.
Such were the events that led Trevor and I, along with four of our friends to our current state of affairs: lolling about on a private charter boat, a crewed $1.2-million yacht in the British Virgin Islands. Sailing downwind from Marina Cay toward Norman Island, we look no farther than the horizon.
Ordinarily, my idea of sailing means a bareboat charter or a friend’s boat, preferably a vessel with a lot of soul: scuba tanks lashed to the mast, a fishing pole running off the stern, a bottle of rum, and a galley loosely stocked with provisions for such culinary feats as bacon and eggs and one-pot pasta. We pack light, haul our own bags, wrack up bruises from bashing about on deck, and return home triumphant, albeit exhausted and ready to kill for a head of lettuce. It can take weeks to recover from such trips. Sometimes you don’t recover, as when the last few days of a long voyage lead to discussion behind closed cabin doors of—should push come to shove—who among your shipmates you’d choose to eat first. My theory: The recuperation period duplicates the length of the odyssey and we romanticize the hardships as if proving something to ourselves. The question is, what? That we’re more adventuresome than the average Joe? I barely know how to sail.
The British Virgin Islands, 50 or so small volcanic isles clustered in the Caribbean, seem to fit the bill perfectly for losing and regaining our bearings. They have few inhabitants, plenty of picturesque anchorages, and clear, calm waters suited to languorous sailing, snorkeling, and diving. From the boat’s 22-window saloon, the horizon looks relatively promising—like a series of video screens touting an impossibly idyllic resort destination, each framing a near-identical unit of blue sea meeting blue sky.
Our chaise-lounging setting for the week is Double Feature, a Lagoon 57 catamaran from the Yachtstore’s fleet: less than a year old, with a two-person crew, two 52-horsepower engines, a 200-gallon fuel tank, a cruising speed of 15 knots, four double cabins, a galley with more appliances than I have in my own kitchen, and enough electronic gadgetry to keep techno-minded Trevor from suffering work withdrawals: satcoms, VHF radios, phones, a fax, a laptop, a 200-title film library, and a surround-sound theater.
The rest of us are keener on the fact that it has water skis, wakeboards, kneeboards, fishing poles, kayaks, an air compressor, and snorkeling and scuba equipment to suit up a small army. Trevor and I brought our own dive gear, but eyeing the boat’s supply, we see we needn’t have bothered. Double Feature’s owner, producer Gale Ann Hurd, is herself an avid diver (her films include The Abyss), and its skipper, Gavin Bladen, holds not only a RYA Ocean Yachtmaster certificate, but also PADI certification as a scuba instructor.
Suiting up for a late afternoon dive at a site called the Indians, we learn that, along with the above. Gavin has considerable patience. He jollies four of us along, shepherding us into tanks and weight belts. One blithe stride off the stern and we’re floating amid schooling silversides that glitter in the fading light like slow-motion fireworks. The Indians’ four coral-encrusted pinnacles stretch 30 feet above and 50 feet below the surface. The dive is rich in its monochromatic beauty, so I’m surprised when Gavin apologizes for the muted light I’m so taken with. Then again, he’s no doubt explored the site countless times.
no one cares who’s wearing a thong or how you look in your Speedo. It’s the vessel that matters: Who has the well-trimmed sails, the networked data tracker, the onboard helipad, the dog and the baggywrinkle.
Gavin learned to dive in Australia, worked on boats for a year on the Barrier Reef, then returned to his native England for his sailing and scuba-instructor training. He moved to the Caribbean to work as a dive guide and skippered five other yachts in the BVI before taking Double Feature’s helm. Clearly in his element on and in the water, it’s hard to believe he hails from landlocked West Yorkshire, with not a single sailor among his relatives.
Pulling into Norman Island’s Privateer Bay, we watch the setting sun turn the sea and sky the color of molten gunmetal. That’s when chef and first mate Charlotte Kilmister takes over, first neatly picking up the mooring buoy. Soon, Provençal-print placemats and fresh flowers appear on the dining table, followed by tomato and mozzarella crostini. Next come the pan-fried scallops in sage and caper sauce, the rack of lamb with herb crust, the honey-roasted carrots and dauphinoise potatoes….
“Where did you learn to cook like this?” asks Lisa, who fares best with take-out or restaurants. “My mum,” Charlotte says with a shrug. She steps down into the galley, her command central with microwave oven, gas range, refrigerator, freezer, and the pièce de résistance: a dishwasher. “If that wasn’t there, I wouldn’t be here,” she adds, at once tending to dessert and starting in on croissants. Also British by birth, Charlotte grew up in South Africa with a love of cooking and traveling, and made a career catering her way through Europe at ski lodges, villas, and on private yachts. She and Gavin teamed up when they met last year in France, where he was overseeing Double Feature’s construction.
“I can’t eat anymore,” wails Jefferey, our group’s lone nondiver, bemoaning what suddenly dawns on him as a sedentary passenger’s fate at Charlotte’s table. “I’m going to vacation in Cinque Terre right after this trip. I’m supposed to be dieting this week.”
“You can kayak,” we say, utterly unsympathetic, popping Baci chocolates between sips of coffee and plunging our spoons into pears baked in Roquefort. Two great things about diving beyond the obvious: It burns tons of calories and makes you sleep like the dead. Our cabin has an inviting bed piled with pillows in nautical prints, air conditioning, and generous storage space that, despite overpacking, we don’t begin to fill. Our bathroom is big enough for showers à deux, with stacks of fluffy towels and what Trevor and I dub the Bionic Toilet. That the state-of-the-art, U.S. Coast Guard-approved Raritan head complete with reset button makes a loud whooshing sound every time we flush seems a minor inconvenience, considering that it breaks down waste with a nonpolluting bactericide before releasing it into the ocean.
Norman Island, once the haunt of pirates, is the BVI’s largest uninhabited island at eight square miles. We wake to the calls of black-hooded laughing gulls and peer out our cabin windows. Only three other boats in the bay: two sloops and another cat. We luxuriate in the quiet and privacy. Sprawling beachfront resorts always make me feel as if I’m back in college, in a dormitory populated by the hard-body set that thrives on people-watching. On a boat, no one cares who’s wearing a thong or how you look in your Speedo. It’s the vessel that matters: Who has the well-trimmed sails, the fiberglass monohull, the networked data tracker, the dog and the baggywrinkle or the onboard helipad.
The BVI lack the infrastructure to support much of a powerboat community, starting with the limited availability of gas. After a morning dive at Angelfish Reef, however, we’re joined by a high-tech-looking motor cruiser that suggests James Bond at its helm. I ask Gavin whose it is. “My dad’s,” he says with a wink.
That’s our skipper for you. As for the truly high-tech boat in the BVI, it’s Double Feature, the only one to participate in a data-gathering program of the SeaKeepers Society, a nonprofit founded by ocean preservation-minded yachters including owner Hurd, Craig McCaw, Paul Allen, Jim Clark, and others to aid in assessing the health of the world’s seas. About three dozen private yachts around the globe take part in the program (Double Feature is the smallest of them), each kitted with a $50,000 tracking device that records data such as water temperature and salinity, oxygen levels, air temperature, wind speed and direction, solar radiation, barometric pressure, and relative humidity. The data is transmitted via satellite to the University of Miami and on to other universities, environmental groups, and government agencies such as NASA and NOAA.
Naturally, Trevor wants a peek at the $50,000 device that inadvertently renders our indulgent vacation a noble undertaking. “Nice case,” says Trevor, eyes alight, like Blackbeard itching to plumb a treasure chest. “Trimble Inmarsat-C store-and-forward messaging system, a built-in PC, the equipment to suck in water for analysis, sensors up on the mast, a 110-volt supply, all housed in a couple of metal cabinets with waterproof seals, and it’s networked to the laptop?”
“Something like that,” says Gavin, wisely closing the hatch so Trevor can concentrate on his holiday.
At Angelfish Reef, a sizable bull shark swam across our path, then turned tail and disappeared; at lunch, over pinot grigio and seared tuna steaks, we debate its length: somewhere between six and fourteen-and-a-half feet long, the latter estimate from Gavin, who knows how to work an audience.
As an encore, he motors us over to the Caves, where we moor amid the cat Bonaventure, a monohull called the Bliss, and two day charters from the Nauti Nymph fleet. A popular snorkeling spot, the Caves shelter schools of glassy sweepers. Fuchsia and ocher sponges paint their walls. We watch the lower halves of other snorkelers clad in candy-colored swimsuits tread water thick with sergeant majors, grunts, and yellowtail snappers. Gavin and Charlotte have set the pace of this trip. It’s as if they’re mood readers. I forget that they’re basing our itinerary on the preferred pastimes we checked off on our booking forms: diving, snorkeling, swimming, secluded anchorages, and a bit of topside adventure. Now it’s on to Salt Island, population: one.
We go ashore to meet Norwell Durant, the island’s lone full-time resident, who harvests salt in the tradition of his father and grandfather. He hosts visitors at his shop, where you can buy his salt and Lord of the Flies-style conch-shell horns. In its heyday, prior to refrigeration—when salt was in high demand as a preservative—Salt Island produced 1,000 pounds of salt a year. Residents paid their taxes in salt: the going rate, one bag for every three collected. Norwell still pays his annual bag to the Queen. Most all of the meat and seafood you’ll find in the BVI today is flown in and fresh-frozen, which explains Double Feature’s packed freezer.
Over pinot grigio and tuna steaks, we debate the bull shark’s length: between six and fourteen-and-a-half feet long, the latter estimate from Gavin, who knows how to work an audience.
Back on board, Charlotte has prepared a phyllo-wrapped starter of Thai prawns. It’s followed by baked wahoo en croute with a red pepper sauce, creamed spinach, new potatoes, and a chocolate torte for dessert—fuel for the night dive ahead, the Wreck of the RMS Rhone. Having explored only a sunken Porsche off Saint Lucia and World War II wrecks in the South Pacific that evoke a kind of ghostly sadness, I’m not a big fan of wreck dives. Sensing my reticence, Gavin encourages me to go, probably knowing that his rollicking predive account of the Rhone’s demise will be impetus enough.
Commissioned in 1865 to carry mail and passengers from England to the Caribbean and South America, the 310-foot Royal Mail Ship was among the first vessels with both sail and steam power. Captain F. Woolley stood at the helm on October 29, 1867, the day the ship was caught in a hurricane off Salt Island. Trying to outrace the storm, he had the crew fire up the boilers. Legend has it he was stirring his cup of rum-laced tea with a silver spoon when he was swept overboard, never to be seen again, after which the ship hit Black Rock Point and its boilers exploded, splitting the Rhone in two. Its stern came to rest in 35 feet of water and its bow drifted down to 85 feet. While more than 120 passengers and crew perished, Salt Islanders rescued half a dozen survivors; for their heroism, Queen Victoria reportedly granted them ownership of the island and instated the bag-of-salt tax that Norwell still enjoys.
The Wreck of the RMS Rhone is now part of the BVI National Parks Trust—and a celebrity wreck at that, having served as a location for the underwater film classic, The Deep, wherein an unseen sea monster grabs at a writhing Jacqueline Bissett, and Louis Gossett Jr. loses his head over a giant moray. How could I miss it?
Four of us join Gavin in the dinghy, setting out under a partial moon, whose reflection skids eerily on the water. Dropping down into darkness, we enter the ship’s cavernous interior one by one near the forward mast, our flashlights illuminating a Biblical scene: We’re Jonah and the Rhone’s the whale. Orange and yellow cup corals coat the 150-foot-long ribbed hull, where we surprise a large a large red crab and encounter dozens of sleeping parrotfish tucked into nooks and crannies for the night. I have a tête-à-tête with a shimmering squid that, attracted to my light, pulses, ripples, and changes colors, and just before we ascend, Gavin drops fragments of coal, carried by the Rhone on its fateful voyage, into my hand.
Returning to Double Feature, giddy from our adventure and ready to rivet the rest of our shipmates with a detailed blow-by-blow, we find them sitting stalk-still in darkness, faces aglow from the flickering TV, and on the edge of their seats watching Ashley Judd escape the clutches of a serial killer by diving off a jungled cliff into a raging waterfall. Our tale would pale in comparison, so we all slink off to bed.
A crossing of the Sir Francis Drake Channel the next day takes us to Cooper Island, where we savor a dive at Dry Rocks West, a pleasant loop around a vast stand of pillar coral surrounded by schools of jacks and Atlantic spadefish, blue chromis, black durgons, and Creole wrasses. But nothing prepares us for the beauty to come: the Baths on Virgin Gorda, a place I’d always pictured as a tourist trap. The Baths’ massive volcanic boulders jumble along the southwestern shore of the island, forming grottoes and lurching into the sea. Not surprisingly, Virgin Gorda was among the Caribbean islands that caught hotelier Laurence Rockefeller’s eye back in the 1950s. The subsequent opening of his resorts on Saint John and at Virgin Gorda’s Little Dix Bay marked the rise of the BVI’s popularity among travelers—and yachters in particular—though offshore banking, still the number-one industry, probably also had something to do with it.
While we gape in awe and take pictures, Gavin mixes up his specialty, the “bushwhacker,” a four-liquor frappé that inspires us to dinghy over at sunset. We play in the grottoes like hooligans in the dark. Daybreak finds the Baths even more captivating, despite their having acquired a few T-shirt stands and a lot of visitors. We work in a snorkel, then shove off to Spanish Town to replenish our supplies of ice and ginger beer for the sailing to Anegada.
Reaching the BVI’s one atoll is a singular treat. Spanish for “the drowned one,” Anegada is surrounded by a treacherous horseshoe reef littered with more than 300 shipwrecks. Barely 28 feet above sea level, this 15-square-mile pancake appears on the horizon as no more than a few palms rising above the surf. Charter boats only gain access if they have a hired skipper aboard or follow a guide boat through the reef. Gavin handles our approach effortlessly, as if he’s steering a Boston Whaler through the Mariana Trench. The island has one hotel, the rustic Anegada Reef Resort, and about 160 inhabitants, but by nightfall, it looks like a peacetime version of an Apocalypse Now outpost.
Strings of lights festoon the bar. Flames dance in the split 50-gallon oil-drums-turned-barbecues lined up on the beach, and four dinghies’ worth of diners and the resort’s handful of guests fill the outdoor tables. The draw: spiny lobster, pulled straight from the sea and coming to you hot off the grill. During dinner, our conversation wanders from remoras and barracudas to those who holiday in the Caribbean and get swept up with the idea of taking up island life.
“To do it is harder than people expect,” Charlotte says.
“But it’s an interesting life, no?” I say, mostly to myself. Does life need challenges to be interesting? I think about our sense of being cared for on this trip, the ease that allows us all to get out of our heads and play. Our only conflict: our overuse of certain adjectives…sweet, nice, beautiful, lovely…. Even “hot” and “cool” seem way too harsh in this gentle world of soft water and soft breezes, with our comfortable boat and kind crew who allow us to regale them with our stories of amazing hawksbill turtle and porcupinefish sightings. In the BVI, “amazing” is as strong as it gets. I feel the tug of a familiar longing; I don’t want the trip to end. I’m rescued from my musings by our waitress, who’s sporting a hip cheetah-print sarong. All business, she whisks away the lobster carnage, the empty wine bottles, the remains of the seasoned rice and broad beans, and plunks down the dinner bill.
That night, Trevor and I stretch out on the forward trampoline to sleep under the stars. At first light, the sky shines a luminous pale gray and half a rainbow arcs up into fat, fluffy clouds. Sweet, nice, beautiful, lovely….
“Someone get me aspirin or Tylenol—or a gun,” moans Sergio, our party’s living-on-the-edge athlete, rising from his impromptu sleeping quarters on the boom. Trevor and I giggle. Sergio has a neck cramp and puts himself out of his misery by jumping overboard for a swim. Today’s the first day we all slip into a semblance of home life. At breakfast, someone brings out last week’s New York Times. No one opts for the hot breakfast that Charlotte always offers. We know she means sumptuous fare—eggs Benedict or waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. Instead, we settle into the yogurt, the cold cereal, then go ashore and catch an Anegada flatbed taxi to Flash of Beauty beach. Once again Gavin’s idea, the expedition gives us just the jolt of adventure we crave: Cows on cactus-lined dirt roads. Searing heat. Sweat-soaked shirts. An invigorating swim.
Flash of Beauty’s rock-strewn bay is a veritable maze to navigate. Where the reef meets offshore breakers and open ocean, Sergio encounters a dozen tarpon, carnivorous fish up to seven feet long with scales the color of medieval armor and indifferent, predatory eyes. I want to see them, so I follow him back out for what feels like miles, using all the strength I have to keep up. Just when my arms start to give, we spy a couple of the fish rising from under ledges like steely surfboards. I’m jubilant, not so much for the tarpon sightings as that I could manage the pace. And that’s when I realize it’s seeping back in—our energy, a sense of direction. A few more days of this leisure life at sea and I think we’ll all know exactly where we want to be on land. •
Travel + Life
By Trish Reynales. All rights reserved.
