True, we've been to the BVI 5 times already (in 1997, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003), but it is one of those rare destinations that we absolutely love and go back any chance we get. You can view our almost daily journal entries here.

During the weeks and months leading up to our trip, we obsessively checked TravelTalk, a very active forum where people discuss topics related to travel in the BVI. This is a great site and fabulous resource for trip planning.

FLIGHTS

We flew American Airlines from Chicago. The plan was to leave Friday afternoon (19 November), overnight in San Juan at the airport hotel, and get the 8am flight from San Juan to Tortola on Saturday. Our flight out of Chicago was delayed 5 hours due to mechanical difficulties, so we didn't arrive into San Juan until close to 2am. American gave us a meal voucher, which we used for some extra cranberry juice and bottled water for the boat. It's a good thing that we were staying at the airport hotel - you simply can't beat this place for convenience - It is literally 100 feet from the American Airlines checkin desk! . It's not the Four Seasons - but it's perfect for the San Juan fly-through, and a bargain at $112 on Expedia. Saturday am we checked in at American, and then went back to the hotel for the continental breakfast. Taxi from the Tortola airport to the charter base was $18, Taxi back to the airport on Sunday was $21.

BOAT

This time we chartered with BVI Yacht Charters, not because we weren't happy with Conch (whom we'd used in the past), but because we wanted to try a newer boat and BVIYC had some great rates. They were absolutely top notch - someone always responded to my emails within hours, and when we arrived a day early, they not only accommodated the schedule change, but went out of their way to get our provisions, dive gear, and wireless modem delivered early so we could leave THAT DAY instead of having us sleep aboard and do the checkout in the am. If you charter with them, be sure to tell them that Andy & Jennifer Martin referred you so we can get free days of sailing :)

We chartered "Island Time" - a 32 foot nearly new Beneteau. This is the smallest boat we've ever chartered (on a budget with the upcoming Christmas vacation and all), and though it was ok, we're going bigger next time.

• 6'6" Andy's legs stuck out of the master stateroom door (but it did feel less coffin-like then other staterooms I've seen)
• the main salon (usually our favorite sleeping location) could be converted into two single berths rather than one large bed.
• it was wicked tilty when under sail in good winds
• it got tossed around a lot while moored at night

CREW

No crew - no captain - no chef. Just Andy and I. He owned the sailing part - delegating steering, winding, pulling, and hoisting tasks to me as necessary. I owned the mooring grabbing, the cooking of breakfast, and the making of snacks. He owned dingy and bbq operation. I owned all things technical and monitoring of sun exposure. I carried the money and the passports. This system works for us :)

ITINERARY

Like previous trips, we chose to travel in a counterclockwise direction, visiting the Bight in Norman Island, Sprat Bay (Peter Island Resort) and Great Harbor in Peter Island, Manchioneel Bay in Cooper Island, Leverick Bay and the Bitter End Yacht Club in the North Sound of Virgin Gorda, Marina Caye, and Little Harbor in Jost Van Dyke. The winds were blowing and unpredictable when combined with strong currents and daily small craft warnings. This itinerary was fine, but for future trips we will likely eliminate North Sound (been there, done that) and add stops in St. John (USVI). Or we might have no idea and go in the direction that the winds are blowing :)

PROVISIONING

We used Bobby's for provisioning and will use them again. We downloaded their Excel order form and emailed it to them a few weeks before we left. They were quick to respond to clarify a few of the items, and even use AIM which makes it super easy to communicate last minute changes/additions. You can view our provisioning list here. This was our first time cooking on the boat and we'd do it again for sure, just modify the list a bit:

• "quick light charcoal" thought the product label says "lights easily without lighter fluid", in fact, does not light quickly. Need lighter fluid for sure if you want to light a bbq in the wind.
• fly strips - those pesky buggers are immune to citronella
• forget fresh milk for coffee - we're using coffee singles anyway so a little non-dairy creamer won't hurt
• citronella candel
• don't order any juice that requires refrigeration, it takes up too much space
• bringing the glad-ware containers was key - next time we'll be sure to put the matches in one.

In the future we'll probably plan to provision along the way- towards the end of the trip we started to run out of stuff and were down to pb&j and a few hot dogs on the last day. Luckily the Deliverance boat came by on our last afternoon at Peter Island, so we were able to have fresh cinnamon roles for our last morning. Granted, I've never paid $3 for a cinnamon roll, but they were well worth it. Apparently you can call them on Ch 16 if you are at Norman, Peter, or Cooper Islands and need something special - they will even pick up garbage for a small fee.

DINING OUT

• Breakfasts
  • Leverick Bay - Super yummy egg sandwiches (and internet) right next to the showers
• Lunch
  • Pusser's Road Town - Filled with cruise ship passengers, which is always good for people watching. You can't visit and not have a painkiller :)
  • Cooper Island Beach Club - Good burger and conch fritters. No bushwackers though because they don't have a blender! Decent painkillers.
  • Peter Island Resort - We didn't eat lunch, but had $8 bushwackers at the beach bar - YUM
  • Pusser's Marina Caye - WAY better than the last time we visited. Tasty quesadilla and excellent bushwackers.
  • De Loose Mongoose - Why waste time in the airport - check in early and then head over to Trellis Bay for lunch. Bushwackers as good as Peter Island for $2 less.
• Dinners
  • Cooper Island - It improved since last time. There is more seating in the bar area (a peeve before was that there was nowhere to sit). Hint: for better/faster service, reserve a table right when they open at 6:30
  • Donovan's Reef - We absolutely love this place. If you go, be sure to tell them that Andy and Jennifer in Chicago say hello. Hint: best time to reach them via the radio is around 4pm.
  • Abe's in Little Harbor - entirely too much lobster (if there is such a thing), but our favorite in JVD and they make a mean bushwacker.

WIRELESS INTERNET!

We rented a wireless modem from Renport, so that I could post to the blog. Yes, I am a complete geek - but we always spend time finding internet cafes when we travel - this just made things more convenient. The 19.5k connection was pretty slow (reminded me of 1995) - then again, I'm used to a T1 at home. The only dead spot we found was Peter Island (both Sprat Bay and Great Harbor) - it worked great in Road Town, Norman Island, Cooper Island, Leverick Bay, the Bitter End, and Jost Van Dyke. Would we rent it again? You betcha.

DIVING

We rented tanks and a tank rack from Blue Water Divers, but I think in the future we'll do rendezvous diving instead. Originally we thought that rendezvous diving was too time consuming - i.e., if we were returned to the boat by 1ish, we would have to either go to somewhere fairly close or stay somewhere two nights in a row. Where the heck were we in such a rush to?? Also, lugging those tanks around, and diving off the back of a sailboat on day moorings is not optimum conditions - we'll leave it at that.

But what is more pathetic than that was that we couldn't find the Wreck of the Rhone! What's up with that??? It's only a 310 foot steam ship - how could we miss it? The irony is that we did the same thing in 1997. I assume we descended on the wrong mooring line. Next time we'll suck it up and pay the extra money to go with a dive shop that knows where the darned ship is located.

We also dove Coral Gardens off Great Dog Island. Again - could find the darned plane. How goofy are we??? However, there was plenty to look at on this dive, even if we didn't find the plane wreck - huge purple sea fans, neat brain coral, hundreds of brightly colored "aquarium fish", and even a small turtle that didn't take off when we spotted him.

WEATHER

The weather was great and we'd surely charter over Thanksgiving again. You can't beat low season rates combined with fantastic weather and uncrowded locations. The first few days there were passing rain squalls, but they generally lasted no longer than 15 minutes.

PACKING

The amount of clothing we brought was perfect. You literally need 2 swim suits, 2 pairs of shorts, 3 t shirts, a wind breaker, and a pair of flip flops. We isolated 1 pair of shorts and 1 t shirt each in one of those space bags so it was "fresh" for the trip home. We did bring quite a lot of gadgetry: Power inverter, laptop, 2 ipods (because you have to have redundancy - what if one breaks!), mini speakers, fm transmitter (didn't work well), cell phones, 2 digital cameras, 1 underwater camera, and associated chargers for all devices.

SUMMARY

When people ask me what I did on vacation, I have a hard time responding. Technically we didn't "do" anything. Swim, eat, sun, sail, swim, snack, sun, swim, sun, eat, sleep. repeat 7 times. That pretty much sums it up and we'd go back tomorrow if we could.