Day trip to the BVI

Bring your passport. The British Virgin Islands are a separate country, so a boat day from St. Thomas needs papers good for entering the BVI and for getting back into the United States.

Jost Van Dyke and The Baths make very different days. Jost Van Dyke is the smallest of the four main BVI islands and has only a few roads, some of them unpaved. Boats come into Great Harbour, where customs sits by the pier and a sandy main street runs along the beach past bars and restaurants. A rocky path over the hill, 15 to 20 minutes on foot, leads to White Bay, a long white beach split by the Black Point rocks, with bars right on the sand. The painkiller, a rum drink, was invented here. Swimming is easy behind the reef, though currents can build underwater.

The Baths, at the southern tip of Virgin Gorda, are granite boulders up to 12 metres long piled on the beach, with tidal pools, tunnels and grottoes between them that you wade and squeeze through. A trail runs through the boulders to little Devil's Bay, and the snorkelling is good off both beaches. It is a BVI national park and gets very crowded when small cruise ships are in, so the early morning and late afternoon are the quiet times.