There are endless things to do in Tortola, BVI — and after thirty years of doing circles around the British Virgin Islands, I still get a particular feeling sailing in It’s where most charters begin — the fleet bases, provisioning docks, customs, the fuel and water you need before heading out — but it’s so much more than a logistics stop. Tortola is an island worth exploring on its own terms, and if you know where to look, it rewards you with history, beauty, and a handful of experiences you simply won’t find anywhere else in the Caribbean.
Here’s what I actually recommend to guests chartering out of the BVI, based on 30 years of firsthand time on these waters.
Great Thatch and Little Thatch Island
Sail up the Sir Francis Drake Channel from St Thomas and one of the first things you’ll encounter as you enter BVI waters is Great Thatch and Little Thatch Island. Great Thatch is one of my favourite anchorages in the entire territory, and it earns that spot for more than one reason.
The fishing here is exceptional. There’s a reason you’ll always find local fishermen working these waters — the birds fish here in flocks, and where the birds are, the fish are.
The snorkelling on both Great and Little Thatch is excellent. On Great Thatch you’ll find a turtle kraal in the water — a stone pen built centuries ago to keep marine life, primarily turtles, alive until they were needed for food. It’s one of those quiet historical details that makes the BVI feel layered in ways a lot of Caribbean destinations don’t.
Little Thatch has strong current running past its beach, which means the water stays crystal clear and the fish life is abundant. Black coral, juvenile fish of every description, and if conditions are right, a drift dive starting at the east end of the inside channel all the way to the beach is as good as drift diving gets anywhere in the islands.
If you’re going ashore on Little Thatch — and you should — wear long sleeves and bring a machete. The vegetation is dense and thorny. Head up past the salt pond and you’ll find a garbage midden, old rock walls, water storage cisterns, and fragments of pottery and bottles. It’s archaeology at its most accessible.
June 2026: I hear that Great Thatch is now going to be designated a National Park.
Smugglers Cove
At the far western tip of Tortola’s North Shore sits Smugglers Cove — a beautifully sheltered beach with calm, clear water ideal for snorkelling and simply being still. Access by yacht is easy; access by land involves a notoriously bumpy dirt road that adds to the sense of arrival.
Amenities are limited, which is exactly the point. A beach bar occasionally operates here, serving rum drinks in the shade.
The fun fact worth knowing: Anthony Quinn filmed much of The Old Man and the Sea at Smugglers Cove. The setting had the remoteness and the light the film needed, and if you sit on that beach long enough, you understand why it was chosen.
One caveat — Smugglers Cove is exposed to northerly swell. When there’s any north in the weather, give it a pass and come back on a calm day when it’s at its best.
Tortola has no shortage of other beaches worth a stop. Long Bay Beach on the west end offers a long stretch of sand backed by a beach resort, good for an easy swim. Apple Bay, just along from Long Bay, is a local surf spot when the swell is right, with a laid-back beach bar scene. On the east end, Josiah’s Bay Beach is a quieter, more local stretch — less polished, more authentic, and worth the detour if you want to see a side of Tortola most charter guests miss.
The North Shore: Cane Garden Bay and Callwood Rum Distillery
Heading east along the North Shore with Jost Van Dyke visible to your left, you’ll pass through a string of beaches and small communities that define the character of Tortola. Carrot Bay, once famous for Bomba’s Shack — the legendary floating bar built from flotsam and jetsam — lost that landmark to the 2017 hurricanes and it hasn’t returned. The spirit of the North Shore, though, is unchanged.
Cane Garden Bay is the main event. It’s one of the best anchorages on the island — sheltered from the prevailing easterlies, with a long curve of beach, mooring balls, restaurants, beach bars, and enough activity to keep any group happy for a full day. Do watch the cruise ship schedule though. Come on the day that there are none or little visiting the territory.
But the thing I always send guests to find is Callwood Rum Distillery, set just back from the beach. Richard Callwood purchased the Arundel Estate here in the late 1800s and established a distillery that is still operating today — run by the fourth generation of the Callwood family, using oak casks and copper pot stills, producing rum the same way it’s been made on this island for well over a century.
To put that in context: at the height of Caribbean sugar and rum production in the 18th and early 19th centuries, there were 106 distilleries in the BVI alone — 26 of them right here on Tortola. Today, Callwood’s is the last one standing. Don’t expect the smoothest rum you’ve ever tasted. Do expect an experience with genuine historical weight.
Brewers Bay
Just past Cane Garden Bay, Brewers Bay is worth a stop if you’re exploring by land. Here you’ll find the ruins of another old distillery and sugar plantation, the remnants of which literally bisect the road at the beach. The snorkelling and scuba on the surrounding points are excellent.
One note for anyone on a bareboat charter: Brewers Bay appears on the “do not anchor” list for many charter companies — the reef layout makes fouling an anchor a real risk. Come by dinghy or land taxi, not by anchoring the main vessel.
Continuing east, Lambert Bay, Josiah’s Bay, and Elizabeth Beach offer more of Tortola’s quieter North Shore — deserted stretches of sand good for swimming, snorkelling, and watching the surf roll in.
Beef Bluff and Hans Creek, Beef Island
Beef Island is technically its own island, but it’s connected to Tortola by bridge — the airport is here — and it hosts one of my personal favourite anchorages in the entire BVI: Beef Bluff.
At low tide, the reef at Beef Bluff exposes shallow flats you can literally walk across in ankle-deep water. Tarpons patrol the deeper edges. Baby fish swarm the shallows. The snorkelling is excellent when the tide is up.
Just around the corner, Hans Creek is something else entirely. Upside-down jellyfish drift through the shallows in their dozens — a slightly surreal sight the first time you see it. The creek is shallow enough to paddle through by kayak or paddleboard, and the bird life is exceptional. Salt ponds stretch across the back of Beef Island and there’s a hike to the top with wide views over the Sir Francis Drake Channel.
The Sir Francis Drake Channel itself — the broad protected waterway running between Tortola and its sister islands of Peter, Salt, Norman, and Cooper — is your highway for the week. In normal conditions it sails like a well-protected pool. Whatever direction you’re heading, Tortola will be your reference point.
Sage Mountain and the Views
For a perspective that puts the whole island in context, Sage Mountain is worth a car or taxi trip. At over 1,700 feet, it’s the highest point in both the US and British Virgin Islands, and on a clear day the views reach across both the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean simultaneously.
The roads on Tortola have been a work in progress since Hurricane Irma in 2017. Unless you’re comfortable on steep, narrow mountain roads with left-hand driving, hire a local jitney driver who knows every switchback. The experience is part of the story.
Getting Around from Tortola
One of Tortola’s practical advantages as a charter base is its ferry connections. From Road Town and West End, you can reach Virgin Gorda, Anegada, Cooper Island, Jost Van Dyke, Norman Island, and St Thomas by ferry or water taxi — useful if any guests want a day on land while others stay with the yacht, or if you’re building a charter that mixes sailing with land-based exploration.
Road Town itself — the capital — is where you’ll handle provisioning, fuel, water, customs, and banking. It’s not a destination in the leisure sense, but it’s efficient and has everything you need to set the week up right.
While you’re in Road Town, Baughers Beach is just a short drive along the south shore and worth knowing about — though it tells a different story depending on when you first knew it. Years ago it was one of my favourite snorkelling spots, a quiet local beach where the people would bring their horses down to the shallows to bathe them after a day’s work. Watching a horse standing chest-deep in Caribbean water while you snorkelled past was the kind of only-in-the-BVI moment that stays with you. Today Baughers has become considerably more commercial and the horses are mostly long gone, but the water is still calm and clear on the south shore, and it’s a perfectly easy stop if you’re waiting for provisioning to be delivered to the dock.
Ready to Charter in Tortola?
Tortola will be part of your BVI charter week however you route it — most guests circle the island at some point heading north or south depending on the wind and their itinerary. The question is really how much time you give it.
My honest answer: give it more than a fuel stop. The Callwood Distillery, Great Thatch, Beef Bluff, and Smugglers Cove alone are worth half a day each — and none of them appear on the generic tourist brochure version of the BVI.
