Little Thatch & Great Camanoe: The BVI’s Quiet Outer Islands

Ask ten charter guests to name a BVI island and you’ll get the same eight or nine answers every time: Jost Van Dyke, Norman Island, Virgin Gorda, Anegada. Fair enough — they earned their reputations. But some of our favorite stretches of water don’t have a beach bar or a mooring field full of catamarans, and that’s exactly the point. Little Thatch and Great Camanoe sit less than an hour from Road Town by boat, and most visitors sail right past them without a second look.

We don’t skip them. On the right kind of charter day — when guests want fewer crowds and more reef — these two make for one of the quietest afternoons you can have in the territory, and neither one requires you to fight for anchor space.

Neither island is a secret, exactly. Charter captains who’ve been running this water for years know both spots well. What they are is inconvenient for the standard week-long bareboat itinerary, which tends to string together the same handful of anchorages because that’s what the cruising guides map out and what other boats in the mooring field are already doing. A private day charter doesn’t have that constraint. We can run wherever the wind, the swell, and your group’s mood point us, and on plenty of days that means pointing away from the crowd rather than toward it.

Where These Islands Sit (and Why They’re Different)

Little Thatch sits barely 500 yards off Tortola’s western tip, closer to Frenchman’s Cay and West End than to anywhere else you’d recognize, with St. John visible about a mile across the Sir Francis Drake Channel. Great Camanoe is a different kind of quiet — it sits northeast of Tortola, just north of Beef Island, close enough to see the lights of Marina Cay and Scrub Island across the water but far enough that almost nobody actually stops there.

What links them isn’t geography, it’s character. Both are privately held, both are mostly undeveloped from the water’s perspective, and both reward guests who’d rather snorkel a reef nobody’s touched today than wait in line for a mooring ball.

Little Thatch: The Private Island You Can Still Snorkel

Little Thatch is privately owned — currently home to a small luxury resort — and it isn’t a place you walk ashore uninvited. But the water around it is a different story. The southern bay, facing St. John, has shallow reef structure that draws black coral formations and a steady population of angelfish, and because so few boats bother to stop, the fish haven’t learned to scatter the way they do at busier sites.

A few things to know before you point the bow that way:

• Don’t anchor close in. Strong currents run through the channel between Little Thatch and Tortola, and the reef shelves up fast. We hold position in deeper water — anything under 50 feet puts you too close to coral you can’t see until you’re on top of it.
• Go on a calmer day. The exposed western position means Little Thatch isn’t the move when the channel’s kicking up chop. It’s a fair-weather stop, not an all-conditions one.
• Great Thatch is next door. The larger, adjacent island of Great Thatch is designated BVI national parkland — worth a slow pass even if you don’t get in the water there.
• Keep expectations realistic on land. This is a look-but-don’t-land situation. The draw here is entirely underwater and along the beach fringe, not a resort visit.

Great Camanoe: Lee Bay, Cam Bay, and the Real Quiet Side

Great Camanoe is almost entirely residential, reachable only by boat, and carries none of the commercial clutter you’d find at nearby Marina Cay. There are two spots worth knowing on this island, and they couldn’t be more different from each other.

Lee Bay, on the west coast, has no mooring balls but allows anchoring, with a rocky shoreline that makes it a practical dinghy launch point toward Cam Bay rather than a swimming destination in its own right.

Cam Bay, on the east coast, is the one you actually want. It’s a national park and marine protected area, with calm water, a white sand beach, and a shallow reef-and-seagrass system that regularly hosts sea turtles grazing in the grass beds. The reef fish variety here rivals sites that get ten times the boat traffic — we’ve had guests spend forty-five minutes in one patch of seagrass just watching turtles surface and dive.

There’s genuinely nothing commercial on Great Camanoe itself — no restaurant, no bar, no dock shop — which is precisely why people who’ve done the BVI a few times ask for it by name. When you want food, music, or a proper beach bar afterward, Marina Cay and Scrub Island are a short hop across the water and worth the stop on the way back in.

Expect warm, humid conditions with very little natural shade on either side of the island, so this is a spot where sun protection matters more than usual. Bring an umbrella or a light shade canopy if your group plans to spend real time on the sand rather than in the water. Kayaking the shoreline between Lee Bay and Cam Bay is a nice option too, if you want to see the island’s rockier western face without getting in for a full swim.

Why We Keep This Route Off the Standard Itinerary

Most first-time charter guests come to us with a mental list built from guidebooks and Instagram — the Baths, the Indians, Willy T, White Bay. Those are on the list for a reason, and we’ll happily run any of them. But by day two or three of a longer stay, or for guests who’ve already done a BVI trip before, the question shifts from “what’s famous” to “what’s actually good.” Little Thatch and Great Camanoe are usually the answer.

Part of it is simple math. A reef that fifteen boats visit in a day looks different than one that sees two. Fish behave differently, coral takes less of a beating from fin kicks and anchor chains, and the water itself tends to stay clearer because less sediment gets kicked up. None of that is exclusive to these two islands specifically, but they’re a reliable, repeatable example of the pattern — quieter geography, healthier reef, better encounter with the actual wildlife rather than a crowd of snorkelers all photographing the same fish.

The other part is pacing. A full day built entirely around famous stops can start to feel like a checklist — anchor, swim, photo, back on the boat, repeat. Working in a stop like Cam Bay, where there’s genuinely nothing to do but float in warm, clear water and watch a turtle graze, tends to be the moment guests mention afterward as their favorite part of the day, even though it’s the one place they’d never heard of before we suggested it.

Practical Details: Planning the Stop

How to Fit Both Into a Charter Day

Because Little Thatch sits off West End and Great Camanoe sits off Beef Island, doing both in one day means committing most of your fuel budget to distance rather than lingering time — that’s a Full Day itinerary, not a Half Day one. If you’re working with a shorter window, pick one and pair it with something nearby: Little Thatch pairs naturally with a Soper’s Hole lunch stop, while Great Camanoe pairs with Marina Cay or a quick look at Scrub Island.

We’ll usually build the route around whichever one matches what your group actually wants that day. Guests chasing the best snorkeling tend to gravitate toward Cam Bay’s turtle grass; guests who just want a quiet swim away from any crowd tend to prefer Little Thatch’s southern reef. Either way, the boat itself — our Axopar 37 Suntop — draws shallow enough and moves fast enough that neither stop eats into your day the way it would on a slower vessel.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I go ashore at Little Thatch?
No — it’s privately owned and operated as a resort. Charter guests enjoy the water and the fringing reef, not the island itself.

Is Great Camanoe good for beginners or nervous swimmers?
Cam Bay’s shallow, calm, protected water makes it one of the gentler snorkel stops in the territory — a good option if someone in your group is still finding their confidence in the water.

Are there mooring balls at either island?
No moorings at Lee Bay, and anchoring at Little Thatch requires staying in deeper water off the reef shelf. Both spots reward a captain who knows exactly where to sit.

What’s the best time of year to visit?
Both hold up well most of the year, though the calmest water and clearest visibility tend to line up with the drier winter and spring months.

Can we combine this with a stop at Marina Cay?
Yes — it’s one of the most natural pairings we run, especially on a Half Day Charter that starts or ends near Beef Island.

If a quieter corner of the BVI sounds like your speed, get in touch and we’ll build a route around Little Thatch, Great Camanoe, or both.