British Virgin Islands

We had forgotten how beautiful the British Virgin Islands are. This is the yacht charter capital of the world with reputedly one thousand boats available and it is the perfect sailing ground. A group of around twenty islands line either side of the Sir Francis Drake channel, with Tortola, the largest island and home of the capital Road Town, at the centre. It is no more than 20 miles from Virgin Gorda in the East to Norman Island in the West.

Anguilla

Motoring into Road Bay, masts wave rhythmically like the arm of a metronome, powered by the swell working its way around the headland, pushing long rolling waves into the anchorage. We anchor as close as we dare to the sheltered northern end but the bay is shallow and we roll drunkenly as the wind dies away leaving us at the mercy of the swell.

St Martin

St Martin is a curious place, part-French, part-Dutch. The apocryphal story is that rather than fight over the island, a Frenchman walked in one direction, a Dutchman in the other, and where they met they drew the border. The island has embraced tourism wholeheartedly and is full of hotels, casinos and duty-free shops. The Dutch capital, Philipsburg is a major cruise ship terminal and as we sail past into Simpson Bay there are no less than four huge liners in the dock with thousands of eager cruisers pacing down the dock in white socks and training shoes, armed with cameras and US dollars, the national currency.

St Barths

We motor into the anchorage outside the capital of Gustavia and weave our way through fifty yachts bobbing in the swell. We continue into the port, picture perfect, red-roofed white buildings gathered around the sea wall, nestled at the foot of green wooded hills. A marinero in gleaming whites waves to us and points to his VHF. We establish contact and drop our anchor in the middle of the harbour, reversing up to the wall where he catches our lines and ties us off to the bollards on the quay.

Antigua and Barbuda

Barbuda is a flat line on the horizon, its highest point only 125 feet above sea level. The island is 30 miles north of Antigua, strewn with 200 shipwrecks which have foundered on its reef-infested waters. We pick a waypoint off the west coast and then turn east towards Cocoa Point, the sun behind us so that we can make out the reefs which lurk just below the surface, betrayed by patches of green and brown. Paul and Consuelo are on the bow, Fatty is at the chart plotter and we communicate by handheld VHF radio, using eyeball navigation and the echo sounder to feel our way into the anchorage.