Back in the BVI.
It's an interesting feeling to be here on our own boat. We chartered boats in 1991 and '94, and in '97 with Ian, Anna and Tom. For the first time since we left Halifax, I'm revisiting places I've been before. In the olden days, we flew into Beef Island Airport, which has expanded greatly if the view from the water is to be believed. There's a snazzy two-story building, and the bridge to Tortola is modern, substantial and stable looking. Last time, it was a one-lane job, and traffic moved according to a system that involved carrying a stick across the bridge to the fella at the other side.
This time, we came in from Culebra. We might have been better off waiting a few days, but the forecast was for the thundershowers and squalls to move north of us as we moved south. We just didn't know that there would be such a bunch of squalls having to make that northerly movement. So we had a very wet day, punctuated with the thrill of spotting four major waterspouts. It's a very strange formation -- a long, very skinny tube reaches down from a big black cloud and as soon as it hits the water it's obvious that it's spinning at a great rate. The surface instantly churns up a whirlwind of water that sprays up and out in all directions. A hand blender gone bad. If you pass through it, it sure would clean off the decks. Probably get rid of dandruff, dust and bits of potato chip lurking on deck. Not to mention lines, gas cans, the bbq, and all your clothes. We dodged them all without incident.
Checked in at Soper's Hole on the west end of Tortola -- and we didn't have to pay all of the extra fees and taxes that charterers face. Just $19, plus 20 cents each to stamp our passports. There are so many things in life that I don't understand. Dinghied over to Pusser's to have a Painkiller. They're not as fabulous as I remember, but then many long winters in Halifax may have distorted my recall. Randy did some rapid calculations, and determined that a six-pack of Pussers Rum was a fabulous deal. We are now stocked. Stayed overnight on a mooring at Soper's Hole (too deep to anchor - 70 ft), and watched the goats roam around the hills, reminisced about earlier trips and bobbed around in the wakes from the many ferries running in and out dock just behind us.
The British Virgin Islands are particularly green right now after lots of rain, and the huge hills looked draped with green carpeting. The water isn't as clear as in the Bahamas, and snorkeling the past few days, I've noticed that there's not much live coral, just heads covered with silty-looking beige growth, but still lots of fish grinding away at it. We did an initial grocery and laundry run in Roadtown (aka Rolltown - a miserable anchorage to be avoided in just about any wind direction). As we get farther south, we're finding that the laundries want you to leave your stuff and have them do it, and the cost can be up to a dollar a pound. So this time, I said I wanted to do my own laundry, and it only cost about 13 dollars for 4 big loads to wash and dry. Sounds like a lot, but it's been much more expensive on dryer islands where water is at a premium. You'd think they'd be making some money in the process, but it sure doesn't look like it. Half the machines don't work, the defunct dryers are used for storing plastic bags and odd socks, and there were bags of dirty laundry everywhere. Looked like somebody's horrible basement with the detritus of a week at sailing camp. One bag was labelled "please wash twice." Randy went out and did some scouting for supplies and brought me back a mango/papaya/coconut smoothie, and I hung around and read a book and chatted with the laundry lady, and after a couple of hours, we had clean laundry, and my ankles were so covered with bug bites, I though they were on fire. Travel can be so interesting.
Then we went to Savannah Bay and had a wonderful day swimming and snorkelling (me) and a bit of wading and shelling (us), and then we headed up to Virgin Gorda and had a fabulous interlude on a tiny beach, Isoletta Beach. Tiny tiny bit of paradise for a wee swim in the altogether. Even Randy.
The laughing gulls are out in full force by the time you get to the Virgins. They show up somewhere in Florida, but as you move south, they get more vocal, and more aggressive. We had lunch at Marina Cay yesterday, and as soon as a table was vacated, the gulls swooped into the open air restaurant and grabbed whatever they could grab. There seemed to be one employee in charge of shooing the birds away. So never feed a laughing gull. I'm sure that's where Hitchcock got the idea for "The Birds."
Cane Garden Bay is loaded with dozens of charter boats on moorings, and four cruising boats at anchor. The charter boats are uniformly white and equipped with gear to make life easy, if not in any way elegant. (And most of them seem to be flying pirate flags. Determined to let loose and be wild on this vacation?) Our boat really stands out, which is why Randy is again scraping old varnish, trying to be more worthy of the compliments. I've been trying to keep the decks tidy -- some days I look around and there's tshirts and towels draped on things, beer cans, several pairs of flip flops, hats, chip crumbs, etc. You'd think we were on vacation.
There's loads of cruise ship passengers on the beach, shipped over from Roadtown, they swim and fry to a lurid pink for a few hours, then back they go, and people go around rolling up umbrellas and folding up hundreds of deck chairs. That was when I dinghied in for a swim along the beach. Cane Garden also has grocery store, and we were pleased to see the big Scotiabank sign indicating an ATM attached to the store. Actually, it was just the concrete shell with no atm installed as of yet. Manana? That doesn't mean "tomorrow" in the Caribbean, it just means "not now." We tried to get a cab to Roadtown, and when we asked at the reception desk of one of the little hotels here in Cane Garden Bay, did the lady pick up the phone? She looked out the window, and said, did you look out there?
We've finally finished the mahi mahi. Time to go fishing again, which we'll do when we head St. Martin, probably on Sunday. In the meantime, more beach, more swimming, more scraping of varnish.
Funniest thing heard on the VHF lately: (woman's voice, agitated) "Okay everybody, stick together, this isn't a race you know."
Poor and intermittent connection here in Cane Garden Bay. I'll try to post pics too if I can get this up, but more likely photos will follow in the next day or so.
It's an interesting feeling to be here on our own boat. We chartered boats in 1991 and '94, and in '97 with Ian, Anna and Tom. For the first time since we left Halifax, I'm revisiting places I've been before. In the olden days, we flew into Beef Island Airport, which has expanded greatly if the view from the water is to be believed. There's a snazzy two-story building, and the bridge to Tortola is modern, substantial and stable looking. Last time, it was a one-lane job, and traffic moved according to a system that involved carrying a stick across the bridge to the fella at the other side.
This time, we came in from Culebra. We might have been better off waiting a few days, but the forecast was for the thundershowers and squalls to move north of us as we moved south. We just didn't know that there would be such a bunch of squalls having to make that northerly movement. So we had a very wet day, punctuated with the thrill of spotting four major waterspouts. It's a very strange formation -- a long, very skinny tube reaches down from a big black cloud and as soon as it hits the water it's obvious that it's spinning at a great rate. The surface instantly churns up a whirlwind of water that sprays up and out in all directions. A hand blender gone bad. If you pass through it, it sure would clean off the decks. Probably get rid of dandruff, dust and bits of potato chip lurking on deck. Not to mention lines, gas cans, the bbq, and all your clothes. We dodged them all without incident.
Checked in at Soper's Hole on the west end of Tortola -- and we didn't have to pay all of the extra fees and taxes that charterers face. Just $19, plus 20 cents each to stamp our passports. There are so many things in life that I don't understand. Dinghied over to Pusser's to have a Painkiller. They're not as fabulous as I remember, but then many long winters in Halifax may have distorted my recall. Randy did some rapid calculations, and determined that a six-pack of Pussers Rum was a fabulous deal. We are now stocked. Stayed overnight on a mooring at Soper's Hole (too deep to anchor - 70 ft), and watched the goats roam around the hills, reminisced about earlier trips and bobbed around in the wakes from the many ferries running in and out dock just behind us.
The British Virgin Islands are particularly green right now after lots of rain, and the huge hills looked draped with green carpeting. The water isn't as clear as in the Bahamas, and snorkeling the past few days, I've noticed that there's not much live coral, just heads covered with silty-looking beige growth, but still lots of fish grinding away at it. We did an initial grocery and laundry run in Roadtown (aka Rolltown - a miserable anchorage to be avoided in just about any wind direction). As we get farther south, we're finding that the laundries want you to leave your stuff and have them do it, and the cost can be up to a dollar a pound. So this time, I said I wanted to do my own laundry, and it only cost about 13 dollars for 4 big loads to wash and dry. Sounds like a lot, but it's been much more expensive on dryer islands where water is at a premium. You'd think they'd be making some money in the process, but it sure doesn't look like it. Half the machines don't work, the defunct dryers are used for storing plastic bags and odd socks, and there were bags of dirty laundry everywhere. Looked like somebody's horrible basement with the detritus of a week at sailing camp. One bag was labelled "please wash twice." Randy went out and did some scouting for supplies and brought me back a mango/papaya/coconut smoothie, and I hung around and read a book and chatted with the laundry lady, and after a couple of hours, we had clean laundry, and my ankles were so covered with bug bites, I though they were on fire. Travel can be so interesting.
Then we went to Savannah Bay and had a wonderful day swimming and snorkelling (me) and a bit of wading and shelling (us), and then we headed up to Virgin Gorda and had a fabulous interlude on a tiny beach, Isoletta Beach. Tiny tiny bit of paradise for a wee swim in the altogether. Even Randy.
The laughing gulls are out in full force by the time you get to the Virgins. They show up somewhere in Florida, but as you move south, they get more vocal, and more aggressive. We had lunch at Marina Cay yesterday, and as soon as a table was vacated, the gulls swooped into the open air restaurant and grabbed whatever they could grab. There seemed to be one employee in charge of shooing the birds away. So never feed a laughing gull. I'm sure that's where Hitchcock got the idea for "The Birds."
Cane Garden Bay is loaded with dozens of charter boats on moorings, and four cruising boats at anchor. The charter boats are uniformly white and equipped with gear to make life easy, if not in any way elegant. (And most of them seem to be flying pirate flags. Determined to let loose and be wild on this vacation?) Our boat really stands out, which is why Randy is again scraping old varnish, trying to be more worthy of the compliments. I've been trying to keep the decks tidy -- some days I look around and there's tshirts and towels draped on things, beer cans, several pairs of flip flops, hats, chip crumbs, etc. You'd think we were on vacation.
There's loads of cruise ship passengers on the beach, shipped over from Roadtown, they swim and fry to a lurid pink for a few hours, then back they go, and people go around rolling up umbrellas and folding up hundreds of deck chairs. That was when I dinghied in for a swim along the beach. Cane Garden also has grocery store, and we were pleased to see the big Scotiabank sign indicating an ATM attached to the store. Actually, it was just the concrete shell with no atm installed as of yet. Manana? That doesn't mean "tomorrow" in the Caribbean, it just means "not now." We tried to get a cab to Roadtown, and when we asked at the reception desk of one of the little hotels here in Cane Garden Bay, did the lady pick up the phone? She looked out the window, and said, did you look out there?
We've finally finished the mahi mahi. Time to go fishing again, which we'll do when we head St. Martin, probably on Sunday. In the meantime, more beach, more swimming, more scraping of varnish.
Funniest thing heard on the VHF lately: (woman's voice, agitated) "Okay everybody, stick together, this isn't a race you know."
Poor and intermittent connection here in Cane Garden Bay. I'll try to post pics too if I can get this up, but more likely photos will follow in the next day or so.
posted by Susan at 8:32 PM
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