18th January 2026 | Odometer: 913nm | British Virgin Islands & US Virgin Islands
Everything we had read and seen about the BVIs had agreed on one thing – you MUST see the Baths!
It’s a bit of a mission to get to the Baths from a boat though! We anchored at a very rolly beach front nearby, then dinghied down to the bay where the Baths are. You swim about fifty meters from the tie off for the dinghy to the shore – I was really wishing I had a pool noodle with me by the end as it was all my least favourite things – deep, dark, hard to see with lots of odd dark patches and rocks rising up suddenly to avoid. I was definitely uncomfortable and feeling a bit panicked by the time we reached the shore. We took a few minutes on the beach to reset before we went in and I avoided thinking about how I would have to swim back out again.
We found the path to the entrance and started through the gentle walk to the main attraction. We had deliberately timed our visit to be riiight at the end of the day, around 4.30pm after all the day trips and cruise ship tours were done. And it was really worth it! We had the entire place to ourselves, and only fleetingly saw one other couple in our whole visit. Absolutely magical. The walk in gave us both incredible Déjà vu for Magnetic Island in far North Queensland – just needs a few koalas!
So what are the Baths? Imagine a beach of pristine, white fine sand with a long slow gradient of shallow water. Then imagine a giant decided to play blocks with enormous boulders – some of which are individually bigger than a house! Then stack these boulders haphazardly around the beach, and on top of each other creating narrow pathways and caves. The result?
Shallow pools of water spread between sloping boulder faces, in, around and under overhanging batholiths. The water is clean and cool, kept fresh by the endless waves spreading through the arrangement from the ocean. So many boulders are stacked, you feel like you are inside a deep cave; but light breaks through and with each turn, the path reveals some strange new twilight world. The shadows and light cast beautiful patterns on the water and your feet are immersed in ankle to knee deep crystal clear water, with soft sand underfoot throughout.
We spent quite a bit of time wandering through the maze of rocks, exploring all the nooks and crannies to peek through. Occasionally, the overhanging roof would open out to create a cavernous space, or even let the sun peek through to brightly illuminate a particular pool.
Although we would love to spend hours here, we had to keep moving as we knew we had a deep water swim back out to the dinghy and also to get back to the boat. I managed to overcome my fear of swimming out into the darkening water by floating on my back and not looking. If I can’t see it’s scary, it’s not scary – right? Right!?
On arriving back to the boat we realized there was no way on earth we could spend the night in that anchorage. The boat was heaving and we were uncomfortably close to the shore line. We upped anchor in the gathering dark and quickly bumped over to the Spanish Town anchorage which we had stopped in when we first arrived. We kept our cool through two anchoring attempts after nearly snagging on a submerged mooring line and then having to shift over.
The stressful start and finish of our adventure to the Baths definitely added a sour note; but overall, I have to agree with all the reviews we had read – absolutely worth it!
ESTA Visa Vivification
We were ready to farewell the BVIs – the busy anchorages, the partying charter boats and the expensive groceries (actually, the expensive everything haha). But, just one small snag! We had to do a bit of a process to get into the US Virgin Islands onboard a privately owned vessel on an ESTA visa. We relocated to Soper’s Hole, to leave our boat on a secure mooring ball for a couple of nights.
To sum up a long, boring, paperwork story that only applies to foreigners on a non-USA flagged vessel… We left the boat in Tortola, took a commercial ferry to the USVIs, got our ESTA visa stamps in our passports, spent four hours in Saint Thomas in the USVIs, took a commercial ferry back to the BVIs, checked out of the BVIs then took our vessel to the USVIs. Phew.
I think that’s the shortest we have ever been in a country haha. Arriving back on the ferry into the BVIs, we saw the immigration guy, checked in, then went to customs and checked out with the boat, then back to immigration to check us out with the boat. Approximately 15minutes checked into the BVIs on the second time round haha.
With all the paperwork i’s dotted and t’s crossed we were free to take Perspective into the US Virgin Islands! Woohoo! We arrived into St Johns on Perspective, and obviously immediately went back to the Immigration department to re-check in with our boat this time! All went smoothly and we were ready to cruise!
US Virgin Islands
The US Virgin Islands are made up of three main islands, St John, St Thomas and St Croix, and a cluster of smaller ones scattered around the larger three. On our day trip to Saint Thomas, and on arriving in Cruz Bay in Saint Johns, we were both overwhelmed by how intensely it felt like the USA! Maybe that sounds crazy, but it was really quite a surprise to us both. I think we thought the islands would feel Caribbean with a bit of USA influence, but it’s definitely the other way around!
With the intensity of how American it felt, we both felt a bit of homesickness for our Austin lives, missing our friends there and all the folks we know! We also had to laugh at re-learning some of the things about USA life that had surprised us when we first arrived there in 2022… why does the card machine ask like 5 questions on every transaction?! Haha, I’ll never know!
Francis Bay
St John’s is a pretty amazing island as the majority of it is a national park. It is beautiful and pristine with small one lane roads scattered around. The main vehicles seen are the rental Jeeps which come in super bright colours.
We pulled up on a mooring ball in Francis Bay, home of the famous Maho beach and ended up staying for five nights even though we switched around halfway through for better wind protection at the western end of the bay. The mooring balls overlook two gorgeous beaches, and Maho beach is packed full of tourists during the day, and way more chill in the evenings.
The bay is full of snorkellers and day boats come in and out constantly. There are always people out enjoying the water and calling out all the turtle spottings and various fish they have seen. We really chilled out and just relaxed. We snorkelled, did a couple of hikes, and made friends with some of our boat neighbours.
Although we had wanted to go to Watermelon Cay (near Windy Point), the high winds and direction of the swells were really not in our favour to get there. So we satisfied ourselves with hiking over one day on foot to check it out. There are so many chickens on this island – we ran out of why did the chicken cross the road jokes pretty fast haha. The iguanas are also everywhere! The hike was entertaining with multiple sets of ruins to visit along the way – a schoolhouse, an old plantation and an old plantation house.
Another day we hiked up to what we thought would be a lookout, but turned out to be an old abandoned house. The first half was a beautiful scenic trail hike along a narrow mountainside path; and then we detoured up a road and followed an enormously overgrown driveway all the way to the top. On realising what we had arrived to we headed back. It was a steep, long and hot walk to get to essentially… a bunch of shrubs at the top of the hill we couldn’t see past haha. Oh well, it was good exercise at least.
The exercise was needed though as we met up with our neighbours for some beachside drinks. The cocktails here were a bit of a shock after the Caribbean prices we were used to… $18USD per drink! 😲 And to top it off, they made our drinks with Pussers Rum, possibly the most revolting rum in the entire Caribbean – this stuff seriously tastes like metho (denatured alcohol).
Francis Bay was a nice step back into chill boat life after the hectic BVIs!
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