Anegada Island Location: Anegada Island, BVI Day 8 by Wayne & Karen Brown

Anegada is only about 20 miles northeast of Tortola. Flying is the safest way to get to Anegada, compared to going by boat. The open sea between Tortola and Anegada is usually very rough and the currents are unpredictable. Anegada is also surrounded by miles of shallow reefs which are dangerous to boats.

Since the sea conditions are usually very rough there are no scuba diving centers on Anegada to take us diving. Because of this we have left our Aqua-Lung scuba diving equipment with Mike and Marcia. We have brought our snorkeling equipment (mask, fins, snorkel), though. We are going to try and investigate the coral reefs here just by snorkeling.

The flight is Anegada is only about 15 minutes. As we fly toward the island we notice how big it is. Anegada is 11 miles long and 3 miles wide. It is the second largest island of all the Virgin Islands, US and British. We can see not only how big the island is, but also how flat it is. Anegada is the flattest of all the Virgin Islands, too. The highest point on Anegada is only 28 feet high! When the ocean is rough we have seen waves taller than Anegada!

Anegada is different from all the other Virgin Islands because it is not hilly, like the other Virgin Islands. Anegada is flat because it is made from an old coral reef that is now out of the water.

Our plane lands at Anegada Airport. This airport is even smaller than the airport on Virgin Gorda! We are met at the airport by Jerry, the owner of J&L Jeep Rentals. He is letting us use his 4-wheel drive pick-up truck to explore the island while we are here.

While we are on Anegada our expedition base will be the only hotel on the island, Anegada Reef Hotel. There is only one paved road on the island and it doesn't even go completely around the island! (There are a few other short roads that are sand.)

On our way to the hotel we drive through town. (In the Virgin Islands you drive on the left side of the road, not the right like in the US.) You can't really call it a town. It's not even called a town. It is called "The Settlement". It has no apartments, no movie theater, no fast food restaurants, no shopping mall...they don't even have any stop lights!

As we slowly drive long the road we see where people live. (Jerry told us that only about 200 people live on Anegada.) We see a few small wooden or concrete block houses. To our surprise one of the small buildings we think is someone's house is really the community library! The library building looks smaller than a two-car garage. It is closed so we can't go inside to see how many books they have. We wonder if they have computers in their library.

We finally get to where we will be staying for the next two days --Anegada Reef Hotel. It is a small, quiet hotel right on the beach. There only 20 rooms here. The hotel owner, Lawrence Wheatley, greets us and shows us to our room. We have a nice, big, air-conditioned room facing the Caribbean Sea! Lawrence asks us to save water because the island doesn't have much fresh water. He tells us that the only water the hotel has is rain water that runs off the roofs, during rain storms, and goes into large water tanks behind the hotel.

It is now time for us to unpack, change clothes and get ready for dinner. Lawrence told us the dinner special is barbecued lobster, cooked right on the beach!

Join us tomorrow as we explore Anegada Island.

Best Fishes,
Wayne & Karen

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This is our plane at tiny Anegada Airport. The plane looks bigger than the airport building!

This is the Anegada Community Library. Our truck is stopped on Anegada's main road. (Enlarge the picture and look at some of the houses along the road.)

Our expedition base is Anegada Reef Hotel. The building on the right is the restaurant. The long building on the left are the hotel rooms. (Our room is the third door from the right.) Floating near the dock are lobster pens. The lobsters are kept in these pens until they are ready to be barbecued for tonight's dinner!