Fungi Bands, the August Festival and the Sailing Calendar:
Everyday Life in the BVI

The British Virgin Islands fly the British flag and use the US dollar. Life there is shaped by the sea, a short season, a small population and an event in 2017 that most residents still reference.

A small territory in numbers

Tortola is the largest island, at 21 square miles, with 23,491 residents at the 2010 census, and Road Town, the capital, has about 9,400 according to a charter company's guide. The same guide puts the territory's population at about 27,800, though totals vary between sources. Tortola's highest point, Sage Mountain, rises to 530 metres, and Sage Mountain National Park is described as the territory's first national park. The Dutch held Tortola before the English captured it in 1672, and the oldest building in Road Town is His Majesty's Prison. The 18th-century Mount Healthy Windmill recalls the sugar era. In 2017, Barack Obama visited the islands on 23 January, and on 1 July of that year the territory introduced registers of beneficial ownership for BVI companies, part of its offshore financial services sector.

Fungi

The traditional music of the islands is fungi, played by scratch bands that use improvised instruments such as gourds and washboards alongside imported ones. The tradition survived the decline of other Virgin Islands folk forms by taking on new instruments and songs, and it is part of a broader revival of interest in folk culture. It is linked to the quelbe tradition, the official music of the US Virgin Islands, since the two island groups share close cultural ties. Reggae, steel pan and calypso are also common.

The festival and sailing calendar

The year has a clear rhythm. Sailing and hiking are best from December to April, the dry, breezy season, and New Year's Eve parties on Jost Van Dyke draw crowds. The BVI Spring Regatta and Sailing Festival is held in March. The August Festival, also called the Emancipation Festival, marks the Emancipation Act of 1834 and runs for several days with parades, calypso competitions and food. A Christmas festival lights up Main Street in Road Town. In 2017, the August Festival was cancelled after flooding from torrential rain, the first weather cancellation in decades, a few weeks before the year's larger disaster.

Climate

The seasons follow the usual Eastern Caribbean pattern. A travel company puts the best period at December to April, with hurricane season peaking from August to October, when visitor numbers and prices are lowest. August is among the hottest and most humid months, so a purchase decision made on a winter visit does not show how the islands feel in late summer.

Irma

On 6 September 2017, Hurricane Irma struck the BVI directly, causing widespread damage and four deaths, and Wikipedia's table puts the territory's damage at US$3.6 billion. Hurricane Maria passed obliquely about two weeks later and caused modest damage, but it hampered recovery. Much of the territory's tourism infrastructure had to be rebuilt, and the developments article earlier in this series describes what has reopened. For residents the storm remains a reference point, and it explains why insurance, building standards and generators come up in almost every property conversation.

What this means for a buyer

Life in the BVI suits people who enjoy boats, a small community and a season-driven calendar, and who accept that it takes planning to live there outside the winter months. Visit once in the high season and once between August and October. Residency and Belonger rules, the cost of living and the best areas are covered in the articles earlier in this series, and none of them makes the climate or the storm risk go away.