White Bay, Jost van Dyke

When we visit Jost Van Dyke we generally go for a day and a night.  We avoid spending the night in Great Harbor for the most part, unless there is a specific thing at Foxy’s that we want to visit. 

The reality is that the mooring field in Great Harbor is just so busy.  Our preference is the mooring field around the corner to the east in Diamond Cay.

We will spend the day in White Bay though.  It’s definitely not an overnight anchorage and most charter companies redline it anyway.  The swell is too great and there are much better, more sheltered places to overnight.  But for the daytime, arriving around 10am and leaving around 2 or 3pm, it’s well worth the stop.

Soggy Dollar has to be a world famous bar.  I don’t think many people swim ashore there any more, which is the reason for the name, but it’s still the stuff of legends. There is no dinghy dock so most just pull up their dinghy on the beach. The Painkiller was dreamt up in the bar there and they are still excellent!  The bar next door, Hendo’s Hideout, is a great venue for lunch as well.  A little down the beach, maybe at the more ‘laid back’ end of the beach if that’s possible, is Ivan’s Stress Free Bar which holds a special place in our family’s heart.

There are lots of reasons to visit White Bay.  If you really don’t like the crowds there are probably lots of reasons to avoid it too, but have you really even been to the BVI if you haven’t experienced the ‘no shirt, no shoes, no problem’ vibe of the place?  I think not…