Home to Paradise

Guests seeking island culture may wander Road Town’s colourful muddle of wooden houses and seafood shacks. Or the chef can prepare curried goat, fried conch or johnny cakes on the comfort of your yacht’s deck. Tortola’s interior is topped by Mount Sage, a 543m Volcanic Peak. It’s a serene wilderness of bulletwood and white cedar tree, aside from its vocal tree frogs.

Jost Van Dyke is the ultimate in barefoot bliss. Great Harbour Bay is a horseshoe vision of tropical idyll backed by beach bars. A favourite is Foxy’s, where the patron entertains guests with Caribbean tales and spontaneous calypsos. It’s a sun-kissed scene of hammocks, rum punch and flying-fish sandwiches.

Offshore, Little Jost Van Dyke is home to shoals of squid, sinkholes and snorkelling bliss. Guests with an onboard divemaster should grab Seabobs and scuba tanks, then descend into the emerald abyss. Sandy Cay is an uninhabited islet a short sail east. Guests will find only their own footprints on its powder-soft sand.

Tortola’s most beautiful beaches are grouped around Long Bay. Smuggler’s Cove is a horseshoe of fine white sand ringed by verdant hills. Drop anchor at Cane Garden Bay and have your crew rig a hammock in the palms. Apple Bay is best for surfing and sailing in the winter season. Carrot Bay is popular with the pelicans lounging under the banana and papaya groves.

Norman Island was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island. The tale of buccaneers and buried treasure rings true when visiting by superyacht. Guests can admire parrotfish and snapper by simply bobbing atop the waves, or hike up Norman’s mini-mountain and see the entire British and US Virgin chains from the top.

It’s not just peace and privacy that make Norman Island alluring. Three sea-level cave complexes offer guests a labyrinthine waterworld to explore. The family-friendly option is to kayak or paddleboard into sandy entrance or take the tender. Daredevils can snorkel into the caves’ darker reaches pulled by Seabob.

One of the quietest anchorages in the BVIs, yours could be the only yacht in this secret spot. Enjoy the views across to Norman Island over sunset cocktails on the aft deck. The snorkelling is excellent, with fish (among them puffer, stingrays and barracuda) swimming right up to the yacht, and the beach is a good spot for families to collect shells and relax in safety and peace.

The highlight of Salt Island is The Wreck of the Rhone, the first and only Marine National Park in the BVI’s and one of the area’s most celebrated dive sites. The Royal Mail Steamer, 310 feet long, sunk during the hurricane of 1867. Large parts of her are still intact, including decking, parts of the rigging, steam engine and propeller. The ship's anchor broke away outside Great Harbour in Peter Island, which now forms the other part of the marine park.

Continuing the island chain to the south of Tortola and the Sir Francis Drake Channel, heart-shaped Ginger Island is completely uninhabited and remains a totally unspoiled landscape. The surrounding waters are ideal for scuba diving. The captain can arrange for a local dive guide to take you on a private underwater tour of the two best dive sites, Alice in Wonderland and Ginger Steppes.

Ask a child to paint a tropical paradise and they’d draw Virgin Gorda. This eight-mile island is a delicious squiggle of bays, beaches and turquoise sea. Columbus christened Gorda the ‘Fat Virgin’ as it bulges upwards to 1,300ft to form a towering National Park. Guests can clamber up for a cloud-topping view and ponder which beach they’d like to visit next.

Indeed, Virgin Gorda is surrounded by sand. Savannah Beach offers a blissful half-mile shoreline, which tapers off into child-friendly shallows. The Baths is a boulder-strewn bay of sand dotted with tidal pools, seawater paths and watery tunnels.

This volcanic wilderness remained almost uninhabited until 2010. Its ice-white beaches are within sailing distance thanks to the new Scrub Island Marina. Moor up to explore 230 acres of tropical forest, populated only by flamingos, doves and the odd lucky iguana, or anchor offshore and take in paradise from the comfort of a jacuzzi bath.
Scrub island’s countless coves are best explored by paddleboard, kayak, jet ski or tender. Keen anglers should motor out to the deeper waters of North Drop. Break out the yacht’s tackle and hook billfish, tuna, wahoo and mahi mahi. Lucky fisherman can, quite literally, dine out on their story for a week.

Start your exploration at Conch Shell Point where you can swim in the tranquil waters of this low-key paradise. Beef Island is joined at the hip to Tortola – in other words 55km of banyan trees and bliss with the deserted sands of Scrub Island being a mere 15-minute sail away. Long Bay Beach is a must see as you sunbathe and enjoy the clear waters and long stretch of white sand.
Hike through the tropical rainforests, exploring plantation ruins as well as gawking over the scenic views.