Cooper Island Beach Club

In Depth

Cooper Island is only accessible by sea and so arriving is part of the fun. There is a developing sense of expectation as the island grows on the sea horizon and gradually reveals itself to you. Yacht masts come into focus against the line of palm trees and silver roofs materialise among their scratchy fronds. Then, as the jetty comes into view, the main buildings take form, the restaurant with thatched porch and the individual cottages line the bay. You weave among the yachts at anchor and disembark at the jetty.

From here you can see the layout of the small resort. The main bar and restaurant is just off to your left. To the left of the restaurant on the North Beach, four newly renovated guest rooms and behind that, hidden in the screen of palms, are the boutique and watersports hut. To the right of the restaurant, a beachfront pavilion and six more renovated guest rooms nestle in the hillside overlooking the South Beach. And that is it really. There are three private cottages elsewhere on Cooper Island and one local family, but Cooper Island Beach Club (or CIBC as it is sometimes known) is not big. It is however an extremely original and often lively spot.

The heart of the action is the main Restaurant & Bar. A traditional Caribbean ‘hipped-roof’ now covers the lower terrace of the restaurant and the high vaulted wooden ceiling in driftwood grey wood is complimented by solid brass lighting and nautical-style ceiling fans. The beachfront restaurant is still open-fronted with teak tables and chairs overlooking a criss-cross wooden balustrade onto the dock and The Sir Francis Drake Channel. The roof extends over to the left of the dining room over the bar. The new bar is topped with copper, made by local Trellis Bay artist, Aragorn and the bar stools are made from recycled fishing boats. This again is open sided, with additional bar stools looking out to the yachts offshore and then the sunset beyond. At the rear is an indoor lounge with more ‘fishing boat’ chairs, Admiralty prints on the walls. A flat screen TV sits inside a cabinet and is only used to screen special events on request. Next to the lounge is an open kitchen, where the chefs are visible at work - the kitchen serves lunch and dinner daily offering a range of international and Caribbean fare. With so many yachts anchoring in the bay, either for a day stop or overnight, there is often a good crowd of yachtsmen at the bar. In season it can be very lively indeed

The beach runs in both directions from the main building, but most of the day visitors tend to go to the north, beyond the bar area. The sand is good and runs for over 100 yards. The water is calm here – this is the protected side of the island - and so the swimming is excellent. Among the palm trunks on the shoreline are some sea grape plants which provide shade for loungers. There are also hammocks slung between the tree trunks.

Hidden in the trees are two buildings. The first is the Seagrape Boutique, where you will find t-shirts, beachwear, holiday essentials, postcards and books to read while on island. Next to the shop is the watersports building. This is occupied by the dive company Sail Caribbean Divers. They offer scuba diving (dive packages are available to guests of the beach club) and snorkelling trips to nearby islands. They also have some watersports equipment for use on Cooper Island itself, including kayaks.

These are the ‘public’ areas of Cooper Island, which see (and gain much of their character from) the yachtsmen and women anchored in the bay. If you are a guest of the beach club then your experience will be a little different if you wish – there are some areas, mainly to the other side of the main building, which are reserved for guests. It enables you to have a more tranquil experience on the island when you want time away from the crowd.

A walkway leads south from the main dining room (on the opposite side to the bar) to the Pavilion, an open-sided building with access onto the beach. This provides a shady area for in-house guests to relax with a book or play games at a table. This area can also be hired for private parties, small weddings and a meeting place if you decide on a small and very remote conference.

Wooden boardwalks lined with small boulders lead through the gardens of tropical palms, flowering shrubs, cacti and Aloe to the duplex cottages that contain the rooms. There are two rooms to a cottage but the adjoining door is only on the front balcony so each room is completely separate and private. Inside they have tiled floors and pleasant and simple decoration, with white walls and a pitched white wooden ceiling. They feature king four-poster or twin Simmons Beautyrest® beds and eco-friendly pillows, linens and amenities. The rooms are not air-conditioned, rather fan-ventilated, with wooden louvers to allow a through-flow of air and a cupola roof allows the warm air to escape.

The resort’s new state-of-the-art solar power system provides up to 75% of the resort’s needs and all the rooms now have 24 hour electricity. While the system does not work for hair-driers (and it’s probably worth pointing out that if you are the type to insist on one then Cooper Island might not be the place for you anyway), but it will charge a camera or a laptop. It may also be important to know that there are no televisions or even phones in the rooms but there is an iPod dock/clock/radio.

Cooper Island Beach Club is set on a very good beach and comfortable woven rattan loungers and beach chairs are reserved for the hotel guests. Beyond the limits of the land the island is private, but you will find a handful of villas along the waterfront which give the island a little different feel and bring a few more ‘permanent’ residents (than the yachtsmen) who you may meet. That said, the yachting crowd give Cooper Island a considerable part of its character and much of its liveliness.

Beach & Swimming

Cooper Island Beach Club is set on a very pretty curve of light sand that is backed by a classic range of palms. It is on the protected side of the island, so the water is calm and excellent for swimming. There are yachts in the bay, usually tied to the moorings, but there is plenty of space to swim. Although the beach is used by the visiting yachtsmen, the Beach Club will make sure that loungers and other beach equipment is available for in-house guests. The southern side of the beach, beyond the Pavilion, is quieter and this is the area often used by guests. There is a good snorkelling reef at this end of the beach too.

Sports & Recreation

The Snorkelling is excellent at either end of Manchioneel Bay and the Sea Grass beds provide food and shelter for turtles and numerous species of fish. Scuba diving is one of the leading features of Cooper Island and Sail Caribbean Divers, a Tortola-based company, keeps a station out on Cooper Island which is at the heart of the BVIs best dive sites. Diving packages are available to in-house guests and they also offer a full range of PADI Dive courses including a day Discover Scuba Diving course for those who have never tried it before.

Watersports equipment available to guests includes Stand-up Paddleboards and snorkel gear for rent (though packages include it) and kayaks of course.

A number of operators offer day-sails to neighbouring islands including The Baths - spectacular formations of boulders, tunnels & tidal pools on Virgin Gorda. Some guests prefer to rent a powerboat for their stay and island-hop at their leisure.

Massage Therapists from Sole Spa in Tortola will visit the island by prior arrangement to pamper you.

Staff

The resort is owned by the Harris family, from the UK, who bought the resort in 2009 following 20 years of boating holidays in the BVIs. Since then, their plan to improve all aspects of the resort's style, functionality and environmental sustainability is nearing completion.  Cooper Island Beach Club is managed by Andrew Murrant and Samantha Baker, who have been managing resorts, lodges and dive operations together in remote islands for over ten years. They manage a staff of 18, who live on-island full time.

The Rooms

There are ten rooms in all at the Cooper Island Beach Club. They are West Indian in style, offering fairly simple but comfortable tropical living, with a balcony and a magnificent view. They are fan ventilated and designed to be opened to the natural air, through screened, wooden louvers in the windows and doors.

Each of the five duplex cottages (ten rooms) have been completely renovated and re-designed. Recycled timber and natural materials have been used throughout and they now feature an extra large front balcony, four-poster King bed, en-suite bathroom and enclosed wet-room style shower.

All rooms have tea/coffee facilities, mini fridge, ceiling fan, and daily housekeeping service. Beach towels are provided and bathroom amenities are Earth Perfect organic products in keeping with the resorts eco-policies.

Dining

The restaurant and bar at Cooper Island is set right on the waterfront. It is extremely informal and often pretty lively because it sees so many sailors from the yachts that put in by day or overnight. Guests of the beach club have preferential treatment when it comes to seating, on the tables at the front of the restaurant. The renovated bar deck now features low teak sofas with comfy Sunbrella cushions under the shading palms.

The fare is international and from the Caribbean, so in addition to the sandwiches and salads that you might expect, there are also West Indian conch fritters, rotis, Yellowfin Tuna and Certified Angus steaks and burgers.

Weddings & Honeymoons

Cooper Island is perfect for honeymoons and small, low-key weddings and if you imagine yourself tying the knot, barefoot on a remote and very informal island, then the setting might well be the place for you. The Beach Club will arrange for a Registrar to be brought over from Tortola and they will happily cater for a reception in the Pavilion.

Children

Cooper Island is happy to accept children but they offer no special facilities for them such as baby-sitting or equipment (cots and high chairs). The atmosphere at the club is fairly adult and so any children that stayed on the island would need to be fairly self-contained. Some of the adjoining rooms in the cottages have twin beds rather than a king so a family of four could share a cottage.

Useful Hints

Cooper Island is pretty remote, however it is an extremely popular stop with the yachting fraternity during the winter season, when it can be quite lively. If you prefer a quieter experience, it might be best to avoid the BVIs main sailing season which runs from from January to March.

Locality

Cooper Island is in the chain of islands that runs along the southern edge of Sir Frances Drake Channel, opposite Tortola. The Beach Club itself looks west from Cooper Island onto Salt Island and beyond it Peter Island. St John and Tortola blend in the distance to the west. Over its right shoulder is Ginger Island and beyond that there is a run of rocks and outcrops that lead up to Virgin Gorda.

Salt Island is almost completely undeveloped but it is popular as the site of the wreck of the RMS Rhone, the BVIs most famous dive site. In the bay off Peter Island you can see Dead Chest, which was made famous in the sea shanty about Blackbeard and his men - Yo! Ho! Ho! And a bottle of rum. Fifteen men on a dead mans chest. Peter Island itself is home to a smart hotel with around 50 rooms and a handful of villas, but is otherwise pretty undeveloped. Their spa accepts outsiders for treatments.

Ginger Island is also completely undeveloped, as are the smaller islands near to it, including Fallen Jerusalem. This is where you begin to see the strange jumbled rocks that make up the shoreline of Virgin Gorda, the next island in line. Here you will find the Baths, the famous beaches.

It is possible to spend a day on Tortola of course (for transport possibilities see below), but most guests tend to visit either before or after their stay on Cooper Island, to which they generally come to avoid the larger and busier islands anyway. There are some excellent beaches on the northern side of Tortola.

Meet & Greet

Cooper Island is accessible only by boat. The resort's supply/ferry boat is used to transfer guests and it operates from Road Harbour Marina, Port Purcell in Road Town (off the main road to the east), where there is a small Cooper Island dock house on the waterfront.

Supply runs/guest transfers are usually made on the following days and there is no charge for hotel guests.

Monday, Wednesday & Friday
FROM Cooper Island TO Road Town departs at approx. 7.30am
FROM Road Town TO Cooper Island departs at approx. 11am (confirmed the previous evening)

They can also re-arrange the supply boat trips to similar timings on a Tuesday, Thursday or Saturday to accommodate guest travel arrangements, if given enough notice. If CIBC are unable to do this, or you cannot reach Road Town in time for the 11am departure, they can arrange a private charter for you at extra cost.

Transfer arrangements should be made at the same time you book your accommodation and Cooper Island will advise of the best options available to you, based on your travel arrangements to the BVI. As flights into Tortola (Beef Island - EIS) and St Thomas (STT)  tend to arrive in the late afternoon or evening, you may wish to spend the night there before heading across to Cooper Island the next day. Tthere are plenty of taxis available at the airport and at the international ferry docks to take you to Cooper Island's dock.  On your departure, they will arrange for a taxi to meet you and take you to the airport or ferry terminal on Tortola.

Getting Around

Walking opportunities on Cooper Island are limited to the beaches only, as there is no access to the privately owned land surrounding the resort.

Excursions off island are available through Sail Caribbean Divers, plus a number of other operators, see above under Sports and Recreation. It is also possible to hire a small Rigid Inflatable Boat (RIB) if you wish to explore independently.