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Money Bay
Taken from my blog to get people to go to Money Bay before it is developed!
Well, my story on Money Bay. Since we have come to the BVI’s to do charters almost a decade ago, it has been our favorite anchorage bar none here. You have to work at it a bit to get here, but the diving on the outside here is fantastic. There are all kinds of sand dollars on the bottom here. Good shells wash up on the beach. It is really a one boat anchorage. When we put ourselves in here, we tie our bum onto the beach around a tree, and then noone else can come in here. We often have a bonfire on the beach here at night. We do not have to put up an anchor light as noone ever comes in here at night. We get no cel coverage, we get no internet connections, we see NO lights at night, other than the stars and if it is quite clear the light haze from St Croix. The reefs outside here are virgin and unspoiled. If weather conditions permit we spend time here as often as we can. Unfortunately, it is going to be another place in the BVI that is being developed. A couple years ago when Jarecki (owner of Guana Island) bought Norman Island, this entire area back here was surveyed by the salt pond with the intent of putting in high end low density housing. We only saw survey stakes for a couple years, so imagine our sadness when we came around the corner and saw the backhoe building the road down here!
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Backhoe at Money Bay
Sunset at Money Bay
Anchored in at Money Bay
Sunset at Money Bay
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...and I have a few funnies stories to tell about when we have been anchored there over the years.
I know that there have been shipwrecks here (hence the name, Money Bay although there is some dispute whether money bay is actually in where it is calm, or over where the reef rolls over) and we know of some people years ago who had a sand blower and brought up bits of things in the anchorage, but no money that I know off! A few years ago, we were sitting there in the afternoon. We were off charter, it was summer, so we were just hanging out. We noticed the police boat across the way. We picked up the binoculars and could see quite a few people. We knew that the police would come back here and shoot goats for target practice and meat! Since it was a Sunday afternoon, we originially thought that was what they were doing. One of the police boats came closer and we could see women, children and coolers do we thought they were taking their families out for a picnic! How nice! We stayed there for another couple days (remember, no communication back there...) and when we read the newspaper after we came back to town we read that almost 40 illegal immigrants had been caught there, washed over the reef and many had drowned. What we saw was the round up operation! What we found very funny, was in that whole time, not one police officer came over to ask us where we had seen anything, or, indeed, to check that we did not have any illegal immigrants on board.
By the salt pond there now you can still see spanish bibles, articles of clothing etc. Unscruplous people who have been hired to take illegal immigrants to the USVI drop them off here on the islands and tell them that it is the USVI! Less chance of the people who have been hired to take the people to the USVI being caught back here! You can also see shot gun shells from when the police have target practice!
This second story was an adventure all in itself.
Sporadically, over the years, the territory gets enough money to have a plane fly twice a day around the outskirts to keep an eye on the deserted anchorages for trouble. This happened at one of those times, we saw the plane come over about cocktail hour. We were tied up nicely in Money Bay with our guests having cocktails, and this turned into dinner. We do not put up any anchor lights back there as that is one of the beauties of it. We were eating dinner, when all of a sudden, there were spotlights on us! Scared the hell out of all of us I must say! The police boat had managed to come right into the Bay, and tie up beside us before turning on their lights and us noticing that they were there. They checked out our papers and went on their way. We did not think too much more of it until a couple weeks later.
We were sitting up at South Sound on the back side of Virgin Gorda. South Sound is our hurricane anchorage, and just before the hurricane season we like to go up there and scope it out so to speak. We were off charter and there was just the two of us on the boat. We spent the day there, and were staying overnight. The seas were very lumpy on the outside by this time. South Sound is pretty tricky to get into, there being only one spot in the reef that you can get into it, and especially at night, you would not want to try it. So, here we are lying in bed in the forepeak watching TV. Believe me, there are no other boats in there. Then we heard footsteps!! My husband, jumps out of bed naked and runs to see what was happening. I stayed where I was as I figured I could quickly jump out the hatch and into the water if I had to. (Self preservation and all!)
Bazza goes up on deck, naked, to be met by several men, with machine guns (!! good thing it was NOT me!) standing on the deck! Luckily he quickly recognized the guy in charge as one who was on the boat the other week at Money Bay AND he heard him say "damn, its promenade"
Turns out that they had been on the lookout for the last couple months for a large trimaran that was running drugs in the Caribbean and we certainly fit that bill. Someone had called them (an police officer) from Gun Creek who had spotted the trimaran in there that day, and said "no boat ever anchors in there unless there is a hurricane coming" and there was no hurricane. They were too far away to make out the name on the back of the boat by binoculars so they set up a "sting" operation, and had someone on land watch us all afternoon to make sure that we did not make our getaway before they got there.
By the time they got up there at night, they had about 3 boats I believed stationed at strategic points, in the anchorage, outside the reef etc etc. They only had one office on board who had even BEEN through the cut in the reef before, and not at night, and the seas were GIGANTIC out there by this time.
So, they got themselves all in place, jumped on the boat, expecting to make this gigantic drug dust and ta da! what do they have?? Little old Promenade who has only been sailing the waters of the BVI for 27 years! Bazza thought it was very funny, but I do not think that the police officers thought it was quite as funny! It ended by Bazza giving them his card and saying "the next time you get the news of a trimaran being anchored in an out of the way place why don't you give us a call first and make sure it is not us?"!!!! So, this should tell you that over the years we have liked the out of the way anchorages, costing the police force much money in support and overtime fees then they receive by our business licenses yearly!
