Alright, enough relaxing – time to get moving! I was very surprised how quickly we were ready to get off that comfy mooring ball and sail away. I guess we are finally getting a little saltier these days. Anegada is the northernmost island in the BVI’s and it couldn’t be more different geographically OR culturally.

Sailing up to Anegada felt strangely familiar. The rest of the islands in the BVI are volcanic (green & mountainous), Anegada is flat as a pancake! You can see the trees before you can see the land! We pulled into the crowded mooring field and made our way to the front of the pack to drop anchor – Stella’s super shallow draft of 4’2″ allows us to squeeze into tight spots usually close to the beach. Before we even turned off the engine, Barry stopped by to welcome us to the island and try to recruit us for dinner. This place had a super beachy vibe to it – laid back and easy. It felt very Bahamian to us, so we knew what to do – jump overboard!

We spent two nights in Anegada exploring the beaches on the north coast and the long line of beach bars on the south coast. Our favorite spot was Neptune’s Treasure which is actually run by a Bermudian! Mark and Pam run a great restaurant and bar with $2 beers (finally!!!) at happy hour and fantastic food – the smoked fish pâté was our favorite. Mark catches the fish and Pam bakes all kinds of goodies. We liked this place so much we spent both nights there watching the sun set. This chill island is full of cows, long white sand beaches and tasty rum punch – it was a nice change of pace from the busy North Sound in Virgin Gorda.

Off we go again!

Cow Wreck Beach

Happy feet

Cow Wreck Beach Bar

Cow Wreck landscaping

What’s up cows?

Salt ponds (with NO flamingos)

So THAT’S a shellfish…

Good morning Anegada!

Smitty and Gillian

Roadside party stop

Setting sun from Neptune’s Treasure

Anegada sunset

Wednesday morning we picked up the anchor and sailed 27 miles to Tortola for an overnight stop in Sopers Hole to get Smitty to a ferry and check out of the BVI’s so that we could enter US waters again. It was a busy day, but we managed to hit up lots of Tortola highlights including Stout’s, Rudy’s, and Quito’s where Quito himself jammed while we gobbled up some happy hour snacks. Saying goodbye to Smitty was bittersweet – we had such a great passage and the past week the three of us made lots of happy (and hilarious) memories. I guess we’ll just have to make it back to Bermuda someday…but most likely by plane. 🙂

Stout’s Overlook Bar

Cane Garden Bay view from Stout’s

The boys at Rudy’s

Rainbow on our way to St. John

So after a quick stop in St. John to check back into the US, here we are on a dock in St. Thomas refining our seemingly endless to-do list. The past few months we have seriously neglected this list…our excuse is that the passage was looming over us using up all of our available brain space. So we will hang out here for a week and get some work done. We also need to get Stella all shined up for my mom’s visit next week! Here’s to a week of productivity!