Sunday - The final day!

Today we woke up to another nice day.  Unfortunately this was our last day, but we couldn't complain having been here for 18 days.  So we got much of our gear together and headed in to Road Town.  With just two of us, it was easier to just motor, so we got there pretty quick.  James met us and as usual asked if we needed help - I told him we were good, and he said I'll get to practice twice as they wanted to fuel up first.  So we first docked by the fuel dock and then back on Dock A- which is where we had started from.  Both dockings went smooth as usual and we started to complete our cleanup.

Captain Dale met us and we chatted for a bit and I returned the router he had given us to use.  We finished our cleanup, took care of the debrief and then we went and had lunch as we still had some time before we needed to head to the airport.

Airport was smooth as usual and we then headed off on our Cape Air flight.  Here's some shots from the flight!

And we have lift off!

Marina Cay

Trellis Bay

Monkey Point

Brewer's Bay

Cane Garden Bay

Sandy Cay

Sandy Spit

Diamond Cay

Little blurry, but that is the bubbling pool nearly dead center

Great Harbor

White Bay

Magens Bay St. Thomas

As usual, our flight was excellent.  We then had a few hours in San Juan and ended up having a bite to eat while we waiting.  Flight home from San Juan was great and my Dad picked us up at the airport and we were home and in bed before midnight.  Another great trip in the books!

Saturday our 17th and final full day!

Today was our final full day.  We woke up and met Evan and Greg.  We decided we'd take our boat out to the dive site and bring them back.  Trip is pretty quick on a Cat going through the cut at Mosquito.  We zipped out to Virgin Gorda Point pretty quick and got ready for our dive.

The site is Cow's mouth and Stephanie and I have done this before, but Evan and Greg hadn't.  Although when we did it, we did not do it the same way the guide book we have says.  So this time we tried following the book which takes us out around the point and back through a 7' wide channel between the rocks.  It was a very cool dive and we all enjoyed it.  We then wrapped up and we took them back to the dock to drop them off.  Then we headed out as we were planning on Cooper for our last night.

We had a nice sail with the wind mostly behind us.  Wind was decent so we moved along pretty good - 7-8 knots if I recall correctly.  We arrived at Cooper with plenty of balls available, grabbed one we liked and settled in.

I got out my camera as we've often seen turtles and even eagly rays swimming in the area.  We did see some turtles as well as some other entertainment as well.

Never seen floats like this off a boat before.  I think this must have been a Crewed Charter, I can't see someone bringing these with them! 

I guess this guy was holding on to the ball?

I know it is difficult to tell depth with Pictures, but this seems way too close!

Here's another look!

And our friend, who we nicknamed Humpy the turtle

And its due to this hump, not how he may act around other turtles

We've seen all sorts of odd things before, but never anything like this.  I assume maybe he was there to help retrieve the ball, but I would think motoring in the dinghy would make more sense.

I think he must be thinking "I can't believe I'm in here doing this!"

Can you tell I'm trying to make up for the lack of pictures on past days?  Here's some shots I took that I thought we're pretty good.  Lots of Pelican's around - guess it was feeding time for them.

And like every day in the BVI, they all come to an end eventually.  For us, this was our last night.  We went in for drinks and had dinner on the boat.  Trying to get rid of the remainder of our food.  We also started to get our stuff packed up so we'd have less to do in the morning.  Eventually we called it a night!

Thursday - Day 15 and Friday Day 16

Today was departure day for my parents and our friend Stu.  We got up in the morning, had some breakfast and moved over to Trellis Bay.

We brought them all in and hung out with them for a bit at the airport.  Finally it was time to depart so we said our goodbye's and that we'd see them soon.  After all, we only had a few more days ourselves and my Dad was going to pick us up from the airport :)

It was early afternoon by the time we were back at the boat, so we decided to take it easy and headed back to Marina Cay where we'd planned to spend the evening.  Dive BVI was meeting us in the morning for the final 3 dives of our advanced dive course.

I combined these two days, because I only took one picture.  This is how we pretty much spent the next few hours once we got settled at Marina Cay

We ended up finishing up all the book work we had to do for our course and just relaxed on the boat the rest of the evening.  Watched a movie before bed as well.

Friday, we woke up ready for the completion of our course.  We got all our gear ready and Dive BVI came to pick us up.  We did our two dives in the morning at The Rhone and then a dive at Ginger.  Normally Dive BVI would have brought us back to our boat and then picked us up as the two morning dives are separate from the afternoon dives, but when we heard they'd be going to Spanish Town, we opted to join along.  So we had lunch at Spanish Town and then we're back on the boat ready for our 3rd dive.  For this, we headed back to Scrub to pick up the other guests and dove Diamond Reef.  We've snorkeled this before and loved it, the dive was just as good.

After the dive, we got dropped off back at our boat.  At this point, we were planning on being at Leverick for the BBQ, so we didn't have a lot of time.  We stowed everything and then headed off as quick as we could.  

As we were halfway between Marina Cay and the Dogs, I started to wonder if I remembered my underwater camera.  In our rush to get off the boat, I had forgot it.  Stephanie called Dive BVI and they were going to arrange to get it to the Dive shop at Leverick in the morning!

After a pretty quick motor (didn't have nearly enough time to Sail), we finally made it to Leverick close to 6pm I think.  The dock looked full, but we had a reservation so I figured there should be a spot, but we weren't too concerned and were ready to take a ball as needed.  As we got closer, I saw a spot so we docked, someone walking by grabbed a line and gave us a hand, although Cats are pretty easy to dock - love those twin engines!  One on the dock, we got settled, cleaned up and headed to say Hi to many of the TTOL members that were there.  We knew Evan and Nina (sail2wind) would be there and we had a dive planned with Evan the next morning.  We headed to the bar figuring we'd see them, but later learned they were at their boat.  We did find Nick and had a drink with him.  He told us he had to kick someone out of our slip as someone tried to take it prior to us getting there - Thanks Nick!  After some drinks we met Evan and Nina and eventually headed back for dinner.  

Not having a reservation, we were put at a table under the overhang of the upstairs restaurant by the pool.  It was a large table, so we had Evan, Nina and their son Greg join us.  Dinner was great and so was watching the entertainment after.  We finally decided it was time to call it a night and arranged a time to meet Evan and Greg in the morning for our dive.

Wednesday - 14th and last full day for our guests

Today we woke up at Soper's hole.  It was our last full day with my parents and our friend Stu.  We woke up and headed in for Breakfast and to fill the tanks.  This was where we encountered our first (and last) issue with the tanks.  Two of the stickers we're questionable - I think it was reasonable to see they were up to date, but due to part being ripped off, it wasn't 100% accurate.

So, we called Last Stop Sports and they arranged to get us two new tanks.  Fortunately we did all this prior to eating, so we ate Breakfast while waiting on the tanks.  They arrived and we're filled and we're pretty much ready when we were done eating.  We then grabbed some groceries and headed off for JVD - Today we were going to hit the bubbling pool.

To save time, we motored over to the Bubbling Pool.  Out of all our days, this was the one day where we had a bit of a schedule as the plan was to be at Marina Cay that night.  So we simply motored to JVD and got our typical greeting!

The birds certainly seem to enjoy the dilapidated dock

Nice view between Jost and Little Jost

The turtle's we're really active.  We saw many while snorkeling, most with Remora's following along with them.  It really is an awesome spot to snorkel, mainly for the turtles, but we did see 3 juvenile angefish as well!

We finally had to depart Jost Van Dyke and head to Marina Cay for the night.  This way we'd have a short trip to Trellis in the morning.  Took a shot of the clouds behind Scrub.

The clouds looked worse then they ended up being.  I don't think we even had a drop of Rain that night.

We even ended up with a nice sunset.  We enjoyed their last night and had dinner on the boat.

Tuesday - Day 13

Today we woke up at Norman Island.  This was our 13th day and now the longest we've spent in the Islands.  It's great having this much time!

We noticed our home for the first part of the trip was not too far away.  Wish we were still on it, although I certainly can't complain about the 48, it's also a great boat and really perfect for the 5 of us!

Sad to see this now knowing it is not there right now, but hopefully it will be back as it was or better. 

One of the moorings in the Bight

As the picture shows, our tanks are all empty (caps removed).  We spent today diving and snorkeling the Indian's.  Unfortunately the more time we spend in the water, the fewer pictures I take - its almost all video.  The dives we're great as usual.  We started with some snorkeling first and then we ended up doing a dive of both the Indian's and Rainbow Canyons.  Had lunch on the boat between dives.

After diving, we sailed over to Soper's Hole for the night.  By the time we got there it was too late to fill up, so we decided we'd wait until the morning.  We had dinner on the boat and nice evening relaxing.

Monday - Our 12th day!

We had another great night and a great view in the morning.  We got started fairly early (early for vacation anyway) and headed to the Indian's.

Not sure what it is used for, but this barge almost always seems to be here at Peter.

We had a nice leisurely sail over to the Indians.  We did some snorkeling and diving and not only dove the Indian's, but Rainbow Canyons on Pelican Island as well.  

And here we go on one of our dives!

After our dives and snorkeling, we headed to the Bight for the Evening.  We went in and had a great dinner along with some great Bushwhackers!  We headed back to the boat for the evening and relaxed before calling it quits.