Great Harbor, Peter Island

Some friends from Puerto Rico recommended anchoring a Peter Island.  There are few great anchorages there.  Their favorite was Little Harbor, which is beautiful and serene.  We kept thinking we would try it out, but you have to anchor stern to shore and tie off on a rock or tree.  We have never done that before and just never geared up to try it.  So we settled next door in the large bay-- Great Harbor.  We ended up spending almost 2 weeks at this fun spot. 

We first sunk our anchor down in Great Harbor at the end of our visit with the Blood family.  We stayed there over Easter Weekend with our boat problems.  The Tuesday after Easter we were able to schedule a mechanic to look at our generator so we headed across to Roadtown, Tortola to spend a night in the Village Cay Marina while the mechanic decided if our generator could be fixed.  The next day, we had to wait to see if a Machine shop could fix our part, so we decided to head back to Great Harbor rather than wait in the Marina. 

What did we love so much about Great Harbor?  It was super calm there.  Even with the window blowing hard, the water is always calm, which makes it really nice to be aboard.  When you’re in a calm anchorage it is hard to tell that you are even on a boat.  It is a big anchorage and can hold a lot of boats if needed.  All along the edges of the Harbor is boulders and corals below the water with fish and colorful sponges.  It was easy to jump in the water off the boat and swim There isn’t a beach in the Harbor, but you can take a short walk across the island to a beautiful beach.  We only did that once – the day of our hike.  Since it is a big Harbor we had plenty of room to put out the water toys for the kids to play on, off the back of the boat.  There was also lots of room for tubing.

Sometimes when the winds would kick up, lots of boats would come in for the calm.  But usually it was nice and quiet in the anchorage.  We loved the sunsets every night from Great Harbor.  The sun would set between the point of Great Harbor with Tortola and other little islands further in the background.  Every night was beautiful.  It was great to watch the color show as I prepped dinner or while we would sit and eat.

Occasionally we’d be able to pick out a live aboard boat from all the rental and crewed charter boats, and we’d chat and get to know another family for a bit.  Usually the rental boats only stay one night and are often not around during the day, because they are out enjoying every  minute of their vacation.  So if a boat would stick around more than one night, that was usually a tip that they weren’t renting their boat. It is always fun to talk with other boaters and trade tips on where we were going or boat issues.One time Savannah and Isabel took the dinghy around the anchorage looking for boats with kids on them to invite them over to play on the water trampoline or go tubing.  They had fun driving the dinghy around by themselves, but didn’t make any new friends.

An important reason we liked Great Harbor was the internet access.  We were able to pick up the resorts wifi, and it was a great connection.  That meant we could get work done, phone and facetime friends and family, email, and check weather.  We were able to watch General Conference over the internet in Great Harbor.  It was rough connecting a few times, but in general we had a great internet connection there. 

Another reason we liked Great Harbor was it’s location to Roadtown on Tortola.  We were straight across the channel 4 miles.  This allowed us easy access by our tender to parts or groceries or Church, all located in Roadtown.  The marina’s there were great about allowing free dinghy and tender dockage for a few hours to access supplies in town.  Village Cay always allowed us to find a slip to leave the tender for a few hours to get to Church.  We really appreciated this since church was a short 5 minute walk from this Marina.

We were able to spend a few days there with “Hoodwink”.  A boat we had met in the Bahamas.  They have a daughter on board, and the kids had a great time playing together day after day. It really was a great anchorage to just “hang out” and live life in.  In fact it was our favorite anchorage in the BVI’s.  Thanks Ken and Lauren for recommending Little and Great Harbor to us!