Apple Bay Beach on Tortola

Apple Bay at a glance

Facts checked Oct 18, 2026.

Conditions today at Apple Bay

As of 7:00 AM on Oct 22, 2026, island time. Read each morning from Open-Meteo at the pin, the one feed that covers the British Virgin Islands; the bay opens northwest, by our read from the map.

Sea state

Sheltered. The swell is from the east-southeast at 0.6 m, period 5 seconds; Apple Bay opens northwest, so the bay sits in the lee.

Open-Meteo wave model at the nearest ocean cell; the bay's opening is our read from the map.

Surf and water test

No forecast office writes a surf zone forecast for these beaches and the British Virgin Islands publish no weekly water test we can read, so the sea state above is our read from the wave model at the pin, and this page carries no water-quality line.

Open-Meteo wave model at the pin; no BVI agency publishes a beach advisory.

Rain

Dry through the day; the chance of rain peaks at 8%.

Open-Meteo hourly forecast at the pin.

The day

UV index up to 8; sunset 5:51 pm; sea 30 °C, 86 °F.

Open-Meteo.

Routes to Apple Bay

About 32 minutes by car from Road Town. How to reach the British Virgin Islands: British Virgin Islands map, British Virgin Islands weather, month by month, Ferries between the British Virgin Islands, Getting to the British Virgin Islands, Things to do in Tortola and the British Virgin Islands.

Getting to Apple Bay from the West End ferry

By car along the north coast. The beach lies beside North Coast Road east of West End, and the road runs right along the back of the sand, so there is no walk to speak of: you pull off where there is room and step down. No lot is mapped, and on a good swell day the roadside fills with surfers' cars.

From the West End ferry terminal, where the boats from Red Hook land, it is 10 minutes, which makes Apple Bay a natural first swim for anyone arriving from St. Thomas. From Road Town it is the far side of the island. Without a car, a taxi from West End is the way; agree the fare and the pickup before the driver leaves. Driving is on the left.

Apple Bay today, and what became of Bomba's

A narrow, low-key beach with one hotel on it. The sand runs between the road and the water, with Sebastian's on the Beach, a 35-room hotel, at Little Apple Bay on the western end. By its own site it has two places to eat, Nardie's Beach Bar and The Bistro, and rents surfboards; its restaurant page prints Nardie's hours, brunch from 8 am and dinner until 10:30 pm as of October 2026. At the eastern end, the Sugar Mill appears on the BVI Tourist Board's Restaurant Week list for 2026, yet its own site still carries the closure notice it posted after the 2017 storms; call before you count on it.

The name most people know here is Bomba's Surfside Shack, the small wooden bar at Capoons Bay, the eastern stretch of the bay, famous for decades for its full moon parties. Hurricane Irma destroyed it in September 2017, and its owner spoke the next year of rebuilding. We found nothing to say it has reopened as of October 2026, though many guides still describe the party in the present tense, so ask locally before you plan a night around it.

The tradeoff: this is a strip of sand beside a road, not a postcard bay, with no public restroom and little shade. The beach is the surf and the hotel bar, not the setting.

Surf in winter, a swim in summer

The sand faces northwest, by our read from the map, so the north and northwest swells of winter run straight in, roughly November to March, and break over reef and rock in front of the beach. Those are the days Apple Bay is known for: the west end's surf break, crowded in the water when it is good. The peak months vary from year to year; our read is that it belongs to surfers who know a reef, and that learners do better on a small day or at Josiah's Bay, on the north-east shore, where a surf school works the beach.

In summer the swell usually drops and the bay can lie flat enough for an easy swim. There is no lifeguard at any time of year, and on a swell day the water in front of the sand is surf, not a swimming beach. We rate the snorkeling 2 of 5: rocks at either end and a few fish on a calm day. For a reef with a mask, Smuggler's Cove at the end of the road west is the better morning.

Who Apple Bay suits, and who should skip it

Surfers in winter, first. For everyone else, Apple Bay is a stop rather than a day: a drink at the hotel bar after a swim at Long Bay or Smuggler's Cove, or the first look at the north shore on the way from the West End ferry to Cane Garden Bay. It suits a couple or a group of friends who want the surf and a beach bar without the crowd of the bigger bays, and will bring their own shade.