Caribbean Hideaways Perfect for Sea Dreaming : <i> For Boating and Diving </i>

About 27 years ago a group of yachtsmen sailed into the bay known as North Sound and immediately took a liking to it. Some stayed long enough to found the beginnings of a resort on the Caribbean island.

A decade later, in 1973, Chicago businessman Myron Hokin took a vacation from his steel mills and sailed his yacht into North Sound. He dined in the seafood restaurant opened by the earlier yachtsmen, looked over the seven chalets they had built and decided to buy the entire property.

Thus was founded the Bitter End Yacht Club Hotel and Resort, a gracious and remote hideaway on this tiny island, which, although of only eight square miles, is the third largest of the British Virgin Islands.

Even today the resort remains accessible only from the sea because the road from Spanish Town, the island’s main settlement, ends atop a mountain ridge overlooking North Sound.

Virgin Gorda is an elongated island, about 10 miles long, mountainous in the northeast and flat in the southwest. The name was given to it by Spanish sailors who thought that in outline it resembled a plump maiden on her back.

Such sea-dreaming apart, Virgin Gorda remains an island of green set in a sparkling blue sea and ringed by beautiful beaches. Its waters are ideal not just for swimmers but also for snorkelers and scuba divers.

The Baths, for example, is one of the premier tourist destinations in these British islands. At the southern tip of Virgin Gorda are a jumble of huge granite boulders, forming odd shapes and coves above the sea and intriguing caverns and grottoes below.

Colorful shafts of light filter through from above, and the tides and swells of the sea push into ideal bathing pools.

The Bitter End has grown to 94 accommodations in waterfront villas, hillside cottages and chalets. Although the furnishings do not have the luxury touches of the tonier Little Dix Bay Hotel (see accompanying story) on the other side of the island, but there are all the comforts for relaxing in the sea breezes that rustle thatched veranda roofs.

The complex reaches around its bay like a small village. Vehicles somewhat like golf carts carry guests to the chalets. Small launches provide shuttle service around the harbor. Yachts have their own landing boats and motorized rubber rafts.

Paths wind beneath coconut palms and hibiscus blossoms past a swimming pool that is tucked beside one of the beaches.

The sheltered nature of North Sound makes it a natural anchorage for yachtsmen, many of whom live aboard their own boats while enjoying the restaurants and other shoreside amenities.

Snorkeling and scuba diving along the reefs of Virgin Gorda is excellent. The Spanish mined gold and copper on Virgin Gorda and pirates circled its waters. Many ships came to grief in the waters surrounding the island and divers continue to search for what are believed to be more than 300 uncharted wrecks.

For modern sailors, the Bitter End maintains a fleet of 100 rental boats for every level of sailing interest and skill. The Cal 27-foot and Freedom 30-foot yachts are large enough for overnight sailing adventures. Smaller Boston Whaler boats with outboard motors are available to find your own reefs for snorkeling and diving.

The sailing school based at the resort provides lessons for beginners or helps experienced sailors reach for bigger challenges. Seminars are conducted on such essentials as basic navigation, anchoring and “man overboard” drills. A four-hour intensive course is $75. Sailboards, too, can be rented at $20 for two hours.

The resort also has a staff of diving instructors. A three-hour “introduction to scuba diving” class begins with training in waist-high water and leads to a reef dive to see vibrant corals and schools of tropical fish. The complete course for full certification as a scuba diver is $600.

For divers already certified, a one-tank underwater tour is $50. A special dive down to Anegada Horseshoe Reef, graveyard for ships dating back four centuries, is $90 per person in a group of five. If you just want to snorkel, a guided half-day adventure is $25.

The resort has two restaurants, the English Carvery and the Clubhouse Steak and Seafood Grille. Dinner specialties such as the seafood casserole or local lobster average about $25, plus a 12% service charge. A luncheon of, say, Welsh rarebit or lobster crabmeat crepe, is $15 in the Clubhouse.

Daily double rates at Bitter End are $275 a night for marina rooms, including three meals and unlimited sailing. Other rates in the current high season are $320 for hillside villas, $360 for beach-front villas and $380 for chalets. From April 30 to the end of September the rates drop to $240, $280, $320 and $350.

Most Virgin Gorda visitors fly from the United States to St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, then take the two-hour ferry to this island. They can also fly to Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands only eight miles from Virgin Gorda. The ferry from Tortola to Virgin Gorda is $15 one way.

There is also air shuttle service to the small airport near Little Dix Bay resort and Spanish Town.

For more information on Virgin Gorda and the rest of the British Virgin Islands, contact the British Virgin Islands Tourist Board at 1686 Union St., San Francisco 94123, or call toll-free (800) 232-7770.

For more details on the Bitter End Yacht Club Hotel and Resort, write to the resort at 875 N. Michigan Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60611 or call toll-free (800) 872-2392.