Anegada

Anegada is the only coral atoll in the BVI and the one island in the chain that earns the sail north. About twelve miles above Virgin Gorda's North Sound, it sits low and flat, barely 28 feet above sea level at its highest point. The reef surrounding it has claimed more than 300 ships. The lobster is caught that morning, grilled that evening, and reserved early or it goes to the table that called ahead. Lock it in the moment you step off the boat, morning or early afternoon, well ahead of the 5pm cutoff. There is no good reason to skip it and no good excuse for not reserving.

The approach to Anegada through the marked channel at Setting Point requires attention. The reef is real, the markers matter, and your charter company will have a current briefing on the route. Follow it. Once inside, Setting Point has mooring balls and anchoring room in the lee of the island with good holding and calm conditions most nights.

The lobster reservation

This is the thing everyone tells you before you go and the thing you will want to tell the next crew: reserve your lobster the moment you step off the boat, morning or early afternoon. The catch comes in fresh each day and the restaurants are all working with what arrived that morning. Potter's by the Sea, the Wonky Dog, Lobster Trap, and the Anegada Reef Hotel are the four to know. Reservations generally close around 5pm, and after that the evening's supply is spoken for. Dinghying ashore at 6pm and hoping for a table is how you end up eating aboard. Call ahead, confirm, and show up when they expect you.

All four restaurants are worth a night. Potter's by the Sea is right at Setting Point and has been a first-stop favorite for years. The Anegada Reef Hotel has the most complete operation and serves a full menu beyond lobster. The Wonky Dog and Lobster Trap are both casual and good. Pick one based on where the dinghy dock puts you. You will not be wrong.

Anegada Beach Club

The Anegada Beach Club on the south shore is a different kind of stop and an easy half-day from Setting Point. The beach is long, white, and quiet, and the property is set up for the kind of afternoon you actually want: hit the beach in the morning, have lunch on the deck, and spend the rest of the day in the pool. ABC also has rooms and tented suites if you are traveling without a boat or want to bookend a charter with a couple of nights ashore.

Cow Wreck Beach and Tipsy by Ann

Cow Wreck Beach on the north shore is the other reason to make the sail, and the right move is to come for the bar. Tipsy by Ann sits right on the sand a short distance down the beach from the original Cow Wreck Beach Bar, and it is the more lively of the two: cold drinks, a friendly crowd, and the kind of unhurried afternoon that reminds you why you came north. Order a rum punch, find a chair, watch the trade winds push across the reef. The right Anegada day is ABC for the beach, lunch, and the pool, then a taxi over to Cow Wreck for the rest of the afternoon at Tipsy.

Sherwin's Sea Adventures

Sherwin's Sea Adventures runs snorkeling tours and conch shell trips out of Setting Point that are worth booking for a morning. The reef around Anegada has some of the best snorkeling in the BVI, and Sherwin knows where to take you. The conch tours are unique to Anegada and let you see and handle live conch in their habitat. Book through the marina or ask at the dock.

Flamingos

The salt ponds in the interior of the island host a flock of flamingos reintroduced from Bermuda in 1992. The species had numbered in the tens of thousands on Anegada in the early 1800s, was hunted to local extinction by the mid-1900s, and is now back to a flock of several hundred birds. From Setting Point you can grab a taxi, rent a moped, or rent a Moke and make the twenty-minute trip yourself. The Moke is the right answer if the day allows for it. It is an odd, quiet detour on an island that is full of odd, quiet things, and the kind of stop that does not fit neatly into a charter itinerary but tends to be what people mention first when they get home.