'Great Camanoe' is a small island located just north of
Beef Island and northeast of
Tortola in the
British Virgin Islands, a group of islands which forms part of the
archipelago of the
Virgin Islands, located in the
Atlantic Ocean and
Caribbean Sea.
Great Camanoe is primarily a residential island. Access to the island is by boat only. Visitors often anchor at Lee Bay or Cam Bay, a national park and good
snorkeling site. On the side of the island in which Cam Bay National Park is located, traveling from Road town a little farther down around the point is a bay we like to refer as North Beach.
Great Camanoe was named after
Pieter Adriensen (whose nickname was "the Commander", from which Camanoe is derived), who was effectively second in command of the Territory during the
1630s, when his brother,
Abraham Adriensen, was appointing Patron of the British Virgin Islands by the
Dutch West India Company.