The British Virgin Islands have now been seen and explored to their utmost potential by Bay Dreamer 2.0 over the past month. With multiple islands in the country all offering something slightly different, it has been a great destination to end 2018 and bring in 2019. Anegada, Salty, Cooper, Jost Van Dyke, Virgin Gorda, Tortola– you name it, we conquered it.
Short distances – old crew members
With the islands being very closely situated, sailing time has been minimal which has been a welcome break after the long, rough journey to get here. We said farewell to Thomas who sailed with us from USA, shortly after our last post, but welcomed back myself (Gabbie), Jack and Trix onboard, much to the delight of Olivia.
Under the surface…
Lots of time (as always) has been spent in the sea with scuba and free dive training which was followed by scuba diving ship wrecks and magical encounters with dolphins, turtles and sharks. And those animals aren’t the only things that come from the sea. For those of you who don’t know, when you live a life at sea Santa Claus actually comes from the ocean also.
We educated Olivia on this fact on Christmas Eve, although she wasn’t too impressed with this new ocean dwelling Santa in his scuba gear emerging from the bubbles of the deep. Even I was scared. Luckily we documented the whole thing if you haven’t checked it out already! Check out the video
New Year – new habits!
New year’s resolutions for living a healthier lifestyle have progressed successfully into the new year so far with Danny and the crew going on daily workouts and runs. With the sandy beaches with palms trees to tie the TRX to, yoga at sunrise and rolling hills to jog along to reach the top of an island lookout, keeping up the motivation to train hasn’t been too difficult. If only we could keep the same motivation for eating healthier foods, homemade cheesecake or burgers has never been too far out of sight!
A not so fancy New years dinner
Our love for burgers made a perfect last meal for 2018. With our original dinner plans on New Years Eve in Jost van Dyke (the single most popular destination in BVI for New Years) becoming more dismal with arrival to long lines, a jam-packed restaurant and rude wait staff, we took the option of the exact opposite of a fancy dinner and went with the dirty street burger from a stall next door.
After all, we are not glamorous American millionaires with a charter boat who eat at nice restaurants anyway. Quick, tasty and cheap suited us just fine, and we were more than satisfied as it left us with more time to dance the night away at Foxy’s Beach Bar. Even Danny joined the crew for a boogie to some local Caribbean beats into the early hours of the morning.
What we lacked in a nice New Year’s Eve meal, was made up for a week later with a few successive days of lobster catching which made for a tasty dinners (even if we did experiment a bit with the recipes, I hope you like your lobster a bit char-grilled).
Dancing – a hot topic
Dancing has been a hot topic for this trip, mostly from peer pressure from Olivia who never wants anyone to miss out heating up the dance floor at a restaurant or to ‘Baby Shark’ in the saloon. And you can’t hide from her either, she will find you, grab your hand and drag you to the dance floor with everyone to make sure you have a good time. With new ‘Baby Shark’ inspired dance moves, the crew has used these for show in St Maarten on nights out at Karaoke.
Settling down in Sint Maarten
The first trip with the new boat in the Caribbean is now drawing to a close and we are settled in St Maarten in anticipation of Bay Dreamer baby number two. Olivia is back attending pre-school during the week whilst Danny and crew are spending time in the Marina and day trips to picture perfect Anguilla until the crew’s departure mid this week.
Surrounded by Super Yachts, we have had literally no choice but to try and blend in with our neighbours and have been absolutely forced to spend our days playing a spot of tennis, relaxing by the luxurious pool and working out in the oversized gym at the local Country Club. It’s a tough life, but you gotta do what you gotta do in this sailing lifestyle.
Until next time, when Bay Dreamer are a family of four!
// Gabbie, Daniel and crew
