Trellis Bay

Trellis Bay sits directly across the runway from the territory’s main airport on Beef Island, which sounds like it should ruin the mood and somehow doesn’t — the planes are small, infrequent, and gone in a few seconds, and the bay itself is one of the most sheltered, easygoing anchorages in the BVI, ringed by a beach lined with low-key shops, an open-air cafe, and the studio of an artist named Aragorn Dick-Read who has spent decades turning the place into something closer to an open-air gallery than a harbor. His fire sculptures — enormous welded metal figures, some shaped like human forms wrapped in flame, others abstract spheres — stand out in the shallows during the day looking like industrial art installations that wandered into the wrong setting, then get lit at dusk on full moon nights into something genuinely spectacular.

I happened to be there for one of the full moon parties, which draws boats from all over the BVI into the anchorage for the night, and by the time the sculptures were lit the whole bay had that low orange glow bouncing off maybe forty hulls at anchor, with a steel pan band playing from the beach and rum punch changing hands faster than anyone could keep track of. It felt less like a tourist event and more like a community showing up for something it genuinely loves, which happened to include a few dozen visiting sailors that night.

Even without the full moon crowd, Trellis Bay is worth a stop — the studio and gallery are open most days, the cafe does a good breakfast for anyone coming off an early flight, and the anchorage itself, protected almost entirely by a ring of small cays, is calm enough to make you understand why so many charter itineraries end their first night here.

When to go: Time it around the full moon if you can — the parties happen monthly and are the whole point. Otherwise any late afternoon works, when the light is good for photographing the sculptures before dark.