R/V Dawn has wrapped up another chapter of her 2026 Caribbean research mission, sailing from St. Martin/Sint Maarten across to the British Virgin Islands. Along the way, the crew collected water samples at every stop, watched the islands come alive with wildlife, and found a little time to enjoy the very waters they’re working to protect.
A Passage Rich With Data and Discovery
The leg began in Marigot Bay, St. Martin, with the crew setting sail across open water toward the BVI. As always, the science didn’t stop the moment the anchor went down. Water samples were collected throughout the passage, adding to the Sustainable Seas Institute’s growing dataset on PFAS and contamination across the Caribbean basin. Each sample taken along this route helps build a clearer picture of how pollutants move through these waters, from open ocean to coastal anchorages.
The first major stop was Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda, where the team continued sampling before heading on to explore more of the island chain, including a stop at Jost Van Dyke and time spent around Tortola.
Wildlife at Every Turn
If there was a theme to this leg of the trip, it was abundance. The crew encountered sea turtles gliding through the shallows, sharks cruising just offshore, and barracuda hovering near the boat in that way only barracuda can. On land, lizards scurried across rocks and pathways, hermit crabs and other crabs worked the tide lines, and the skies and shores delivered an extraordinary variety of birds, seemingly one new species at every anchorage. For a team focused on ocean health, these sightings are a welcome reminder of what’s at stake, and what’s still thriving, in these waters.
The Baths, Roxy’s, and the Soggy Dollar
No visit to Virgin Gorda is complete without a stop at the Baths, the otherworldly maze of giant granite boulders and hidden saltwater pools that has made this stretch of coastline famous. The crew swam through the grottos and took in one of the Caribbean’s truly singular landscapes.
From there, it was on to two BVI institutions: Roxy’s and the Soggy Dollar Bar, where the crew relaxed after days of sailing and sampling. The Soggy Dollar, accessible only by swimming or dinghy ashore, has earned its name and its reputation as one of the most laid-back stops in the islands, and it lived up to both.
Resting Up for Hurricane Season
With this leg complete, R/V Dawn is now up on the hard in Virgin Gorda, where she’ll sit out the heart of hurricane season. The pause is well timed. Beyond keeping the vessel safe through the Atlantic’s most active months, this downtime gives the crew a chance to make upgrades and tackle maintenance that’s hard to fit in between legs of an active research season.
R/V Dawn will be back in the water and back to work before long, continuing the Sustainable Seas Institute’s mission of tracking ocean contamination across the Caribbean and beyond. Until then, fair winds, and thank you for following along.
Follow R/V Dawn’s ongoing research voyages and PFAS sampling work at the Sustainable Seas Institute.
