Cooper Island British Virgin Islands

...Blue blue water...

Hands down, Cooper Island Beach Club at Manchioneel Bay has the most blue blue clear waters of any harbor in the British Virgin Islands. You can see the bottom at 30-35 feet deep, you can see green turtles swimming past the boat along with many tropical fish. You can snorkel and dive right off your boat along with the dive instructors training new divers right in the harbor. Then to add to these great water activities, there is a beautiful reef on each end of the harbor which is a short dinghy ride away. There are national park moorings for dinghies so we do not damage the reef by dropping an anchor.

They even have underwater web cams where you can watch the fish LIVE and maybe you will even see a swimmer or diver. Very cool idea.  This live feed is displayed on a 60" TV mounted over the bar. Way cool.

After a fun full day of water sports then it is time to enjoy the outstanding happy hour where their rum punches, painkillers and well drinks are two for seven dollars! WOW, guess what? The bar is full every happy hour, no kidding. Copper Island Beach Resort has hit a home run. They have games to play, comfortable furniture and umbrellas for your use. They really make you feel welcome. The site is very well designed, upscale, spotless, and provides something for everyone. Coffee shop, ice cream and pastry shop, dive shop, rum bar, gift shop, cottages and a 5 star restaurant. We have now been here twice and we are sure to spend more time here next season on our way back through. For now, we are simply hitting all the key places as a review for this April/May time frame and then in late May we will store our boat in Puerto Rico and head home. We will be returning to the boat in November and go to the BVIs for Dec. It has really been great spending far more time here. It is dream come true to NOT be on a one week charter boat, but rather to be on our own Island Spirit and on our own time frame. What a different experience this has been. It is really wonderful and these photos will show that as well....enjoy.

Island Spirit off Cooper Island Beach Club

Rooms to rent

Onsite solar micro brewery

Sunset over Tortola as seen from Cooper Island

Oh yes, It is the BVIs so it is charter boat madness. They are bigger than ever before!

The dive shop has fantastic prices on masks, so we bought new ones
to replace out 1991 vintage models.

The water off our stern and the dinghy

I love to take photos with the GoPro camera when snorkeling. I especially like to photograph the water surface with bright sunlight coming down onto the reef and to capture the reflections of the reef back up onto the water surface. Here are some shots focused on this idea.

   
       Cistern Point snorkeling. We saw squid, file fish and a huge lobster, in addition to the usual fish.

Here is a photo from the Cooper Island Beach Club web site. You can see why this place would have such clear water. Look at how this harbor is on the west side of the island. The current flows around the ends of the island and this causes a lot of odd swinging of the yachts. Thank goodness they added 30 mooring balls here, like every harbor in the BVIs. The moorings are a great idea to help the charter boats, and they are wonderful for protecting the coral reefs. At $30 - $35 per night, they are a expensive for cruising yachts....$900 + per month! The waters left for anchoring here are 40-50+ feet deep, making it difficult to anchor. This harbor really needs the mooring balls due to the currents and the wrap around swells. NOTE: When the winds are lighter and there is no south aspect to the east winds, and no swell, we will anchor in the little bays to the right where J.M. and Kimberly IP 420 Pura Vida recommended.