best island to stay on the BVI's

[Barry Goode]

I've never stayed on the BVI's and as a diver I'm wondering if there is an advantage of staying on one island over another. I've heard good things about Virgin Gorda and Yost Van Dyke.

Any advice on good dive ops would be welcome also.

I have already dove the Rhone.

Thanks.

 

[Rhone Man]

Well, the best way to see the BVI is from a charterboat. If you can't sail you can charter a power boat or get one with a skipper. But it might not be cost effective if you are on your own. Best way to do it if you are going with family or friends though.

If that is not an option then, your basic options for islands to stay on:

• Virgin Gorda is probably your best bet for a holiday that is likely to include a fair bit of diving. Well set up for tourists. Diving is very accessible.
• Tortola (the main island) is the next best bet. The trouble is that all the hotels are on the North side (where the beaches are) but all the diving is on the South side, so you are likely going to spend a lot of time in taxis. And taxis are expensive in BVI. Whatever you do, don't stay in a hotel in Road Town. Good way to ruin an otherwise decent vacation.
• Jost van Dyke. There are a few smaller vacation home options on JVD. It is very small and rustic though. Only one dive shop on JVD. Never used them so I can't advise.
• Cooper Island. Again, there is some vacation villas on Cooper. I suspect you might go crazy on such a small rock after a while, but good for a few days. Plus Sail Caribbean Divers (in my opinion, the best operator) keeps a small shop on Cooper and picks up from Cooper daily for diving.
• Anegada. Bit of bitch to get to - very rustic (not as bad as Cooper!) but as far as I know only one, fairly patchy, dive operator up there.

Now in terms of dive operators:

• My personal favourite is Sail Caribbean Divers. They are based in East End, but they also have smaller dive shops in Road Town, Cooper Island and Norman Island. They don't really service VG.
• If you are on Virgin Gorda, I'd suggest Dive BVI. They have shops in Spanish Town, Leverick Bay and (last I heard) on Scrub Island. There are other options, but for my money they are the best (my brother runs a hotel on VG, so I have a bit of experience working with dive ops up there).
• One other option to mention is Blue Water Divers. They are also on Tortola, but they have an operation at Soper's Hole. That makes them one of the closer outfits if you are staying on a hotel on the North side of Tortola like Long Beach.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I am living in Hong Kong at the moment on a 2 year secondment for work, but I have lived most of my life in the BVI, and am usually good for 100 dives a year or so in BVI.

These links may help - things I have put together in the past to assist divers wanted to visit BVI:

• Scuba diving in the British Virgin Islands travel guide - Wikitravel
  

• http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/255722-rhone-mans-british-virgin-islands-diving-guide.html

 

[Barry Goode]

Thanks for all this info. It sounds like Virgin Gorda is the way to go.

Any suggestions on places to stay?

Well, the best way to see the BVI is from a charterboat. If you can't sail you can charter a power boat or get one with a skipper. But it might not be cost effective if you are on your own. Best way to do it if you are going with family or friends though.

If that is not an option then, your basic options for islands to stay on:

• Virgin Gorda is probably your best bet for a holiday that is likely to include a fair bit of diving. Well set up for tourists. Diving is very accessible.
• Tortola (the main island) is the next best bet. The trouble is that all the hotels are on the North side (where the beaches are) but all the diving is on the South side, so you are likely going to spend a lot of time in taxis. And taxis are expensive in BVI. Whatever you do, don't stay in a hotel in Road Town. Good way to ruin an otherwise decent vacation.
• Jost van Dyke. There are a few smaller vacation home options on JVD. It is very small and rustic though. Only one dive shop on JVD. Never used them so I can't advise.
• Cooper Island. Again, there is some vacation villas on Cooper. I suspect you might go crazy on such a small rock after a while, but good for a few days. Plus Sail Caribbean Divers (in my opinion, the best operator) keeps a small shop on Cooper and picks up from Cooper daily for diving.
• Anegada. Bit of bitch to get to - very rustic (not as bad as Cooper!) but as far as I know only one, fairly patchy, dive operator up there.

Now in terms of dive operators:

• My personal favourite is Sail Caribbean Divers. They are based in East End, but they also have smaller dive shops in Road Town, Cooper Island and Norman Island. They don't really service VG.
• If you are on Virgin Gorda, I'd suggest Dive BVI. They have shops in Spanish Town, Leverick Bay and (last I heard) on Scrub Island. There are other options, but for my money they are the best (my brother runs a hotel on VG, so I have a bit of experience working with dive ops up there).
• One other option to mention is Blue Water Divers. They are also on Tortola, but they have an operation at Soper's Hole. That makes them one of the closer outfits if you are staying on a hotel on the North side of Tortola like Long Beach.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I am living in Hong Kong at the moment on a 2 year secondment for work, but I have lived most of my life in the BVI, and am usually good for 100 dives a year or so in BVI.

These links may help - things I have put together in the past to assist divers wanted to visit BVI:

• Scuba diving in the British Virgin Islands travel guide - Wikitravel
  

• http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/lesser-antilles/255722-rhone-mans-british-virgin-islands-diving-guide.html

 

[diversteve]

Thanks for all this info. It sounds like Virgin Gorda is the way to go.

Any suggestions on places to stay?

A breakdown of a few I know of - it actually may be most of your options - there's not a lot of "motel/hotel" properties there. There's a lot of money there so a lot of multi-story villas high up the sides of the hills for the breeze/views. VG is very vertical - lots of dramatic drops to the sea.

For all of these you'll need a car - the rental agency is in Spanish Town. Our cars were waiting at the ferry dock but our villa mgr. set that up.

As mentioned by RM, DiveBVI is in two locations. Spanish Town - where the marina/ferry port are also. There's a small airport on VG with limited flights on Cessna commuter planes so most people take the fast ferries - often from St. Thomas since it's under 2hrs. each way or less. And the Leverick Bay resort/yacht marina - they're on-site there. A lot of Virgin Gorda is uninhabited - there's only 2-3 smaller towns outside of Spanish Town (only 3000 natives total) - the resorts are often on private beaches.

Resorts listed by how close they are to Spanish Town:

Little Dix Bay - exceedingly nice, exceedingly expensive. DiveBVI picks up there. It's a Rosewood 4 diamond property. Great beach and snorkeling there also.
Mango Bay - much more reasonable a little farther north. My friend stopped in there one day, said it looked pretty nice.
Nail Bay - IDK anything about it - about mid-island. It might be closer to DiveBVI's Leverick Bay shop from there - IDK if there's a road across.

Farther north:

Leverick Bay Resort - the other DiveBVI shop on site. It's also a marina so there's a few shops there. Friday night Beach BBQ is excellent, everybody goes to it, guests, locals, tourists etc. It's about a 20? min. drive from there to Spanish Town and there's a local town nearby. IDK what's there since we drove thru at night. Leverick Bay is on the north end of Virgin Gorda - all the others above are on the west coast.

There's several other resorts farther North East, Bitter End, Biras Creek and one more I can't think of - but they're pricey, afaik on private islands and a long way from anything except by boat.

You might look for a small villa - there's a couple 1/2 br's near town, a couple off the Baths or on the North Sound. Although it sounds pricey, many people rent larger villas there so the small ones can be under $200/nt - which is probably less than any of the resorts^. Sometimes it's a guest house on a larger property. We rented an 7BR villa and there was a couple staying in an efficiency apt. on the ground level during the week. They had full use of the pool, grounds etc. and hung out with us a couple of nights. Try vrbo.com.

 

[Rhone Man]

Thanks for all this info. It sounds like Virgin Gorda is the way to go.

Any suggestions on places to stay?

Lots of good advice from Diversteve.

I am biased in favour of Nail Bay because owned by my brother and run by one of my childhood friends. The nice thing about it is that they have a variety of different sizes of vacation homes and condos for rent to fit your needs/budget, plus you get all the amenities of a hotel. The downside is that you need to rent a car to drive to either Spanish Town or Leverick Bay to go diving (about 5 minutes drive - you can't get lost - there is only really one road on Virgin Gorda). If you do go to Nail Bay, tell Trefor (the manager) that Colin said to take special care of you and your family.

Little Dix is absolutely lovely, but it is fairly pricey.

Biras Creek and Bitter End are also nice, and they are up in North Sound. But I think they have a separate dive operation (I want to say Sunchaser Scuba?) so that is all fairly accessible.

I don't know much about Mango Bay Resort, I'm afraid. But it seems to get good reviews on Tripadvisor.

Closer to Spanish Town there are various small privately owned holiday villas for rent. They are usually cheaper, but again, you will probably need to rent a car to get to either diving or a beach.