WHITE BAY GUANA ISLAND

0730 hours, January 2, 2015 North Sound Virgin Gorda: We awoke to the Christmas Winds we had feared would interrupt our passage south leaving us stuck in the Dominican Republic, or in another location along our route, for perhaps as long as a month. We were grateful they had arrived late. 0900 hours we raised anchor and headed west toward Tortola. The winds were blowing 25 nm from the ENE, and the seas were 6 ft plus as we approached the east end of Tortola. We passed between Scrub Island and Tortola and subsequently south of Great Camanoe and Little Camanoe. As we approached the south end of Guana Island we saw ten or so AIS triangles on the west side of Guana. We quickly looked at our cruising guides but could find very little information other than the Island was a nature reserve and wildlife sanctuary with a private resort perched high atop one of its hills. As we rounded the southern tip of Guana the water along its western shore was not much more than a ripple and the wind was significantly moderated. The AIS triangles were three super yachts and several large sailboats on mooring balls and anchored along a gorgeous white power sand beach with aqua colored water in front of palms and mangroves. Our day's goal was to find a great place to spend the day and evening. We had found it, White Bay, Guana Island. We spent the afternoon on the beach. On our walk we ran into a couple we had talked with New Years Eve at the Costa Smeralda Yacht Club. They were from the DC area and kept their 50 plus foot sail boat in Virgin Gorda. Snorkeling around the coral heads at the southern end of the beach, Greg ran into the same strange sea creature that had startled the snorkeler at the Baths a week earlier, Jackie Tar. Although the Christmas Winds continued to blow 20 to 25 nm an hour from the ENE through the night, in the lea of Guana Island they were light and continuously changing directions with only an occasional gust from the east between the hills on Guana. This left the moored boats and those at anchor pointing at each other at various times during the night and early morning, leaving us at anchor with a much larger swing, concerned about bumping into one of the other boats. The cruising guides refer to this condition as "back winding". With the steep hills on most the Virgin Islands I suspect the nocturnal wind, the combination of landbreeze and katabatic wind, that Bruce Van Sant discusses in his Passages South, are the cause. One of the pictures below shows how this condition had positioned boats in this anchorage relative to each other.