LIKE A VIRGIN- ISLAND-again
FEBRUARY 2009
British Virgin Islands
Woo Woo, we made it to Virgin Gorda at first light after a beautiful overnight run from Anguilla. We first visited the lovely British Virgin Islands waaaay back in 1974 and it became one of our favorite places to charter sailboats. We’ve not been back since the mid 90’s and see that it continues to change. For us nothing can match the simplicity that was, when the Bitter End was just a small collection of cottages with a nice bar and fresh seafood eatery. Chartering was a pretty new idea and brought work to the lovely gentle “Queens English” speaking locals. Today, with the proliferation of charter companies, that attitude has changed. Polite, but not what I’d call “welcoming”. Nevertheless, the island is still beautiful, large boulders tumble down into the still sparkling blue sea, the trade winds blow, and the sun shines brightly. Speaking of trades, they really are blowing this year and it’s cooler than the normally ideal 80 degrees in and out of the water.
After making landfall and checking into the country, we were off on a rip roaring dinghy ride to the Baths, the renowned beach at the SW tip of the island with large granite boulders extending out into the sea. The waves crash into the rocks and form large azure blue pools with the light and rushing water altering the look every few seconds. It’s fairly easy to clamber in, over and around these giants, and gentle enough to swim and splash in the pools, but getting to them is a riot. You used to be able to just pull your dink up on an adjoining beach and walk over. Now in order to protect the coral and I imagine with the crowds, there is a thick rope barrier to prevent you from dinking in. You tie the dinghy to the rope and swim ashore, timing the waves to insure you are not picked up and deposited ON it, or into the rocks. Not easy and I almost wimped out. But after watching others do it, and especially ladies I judged to be older than me…well, I sucked it up and jumped in too. Nothing motivates me like feeling like a complete dork sitting in a dinghy tied to rope while everyone else is in the water. On the eve of my 59th birthday, I guess I’m a little long in the tooth to use the high school excuse of “it’s that time of the month” to avoid doing something I’m afraid to do.
I survived that, took the obligatory photos for the “At the Baths” wall at home which shows the kids at various ages, and went back on WS for a nice afternoon nap. It was dinner topsides on the fly bridge, and movies that Pat brought from her “For Your Consideration” collection. As part of “the” Academy, she gets the great Oscar nominated films on DVD’s to preview, and she knows we just love movies and haven’t seen anything new for months, and the Oscar telecast is next Sunday, so we’ll be caught up.
The next day we cruised the length of the long mountainous island up to the Bitter End Yacht Club and took a mooring. Tried more snorkeling, but “where oh where have all the fishies gone?” We hopped on and off the dinghy with a little coral reef chart looking for the perfect spot…but never really found much, maybe we’re spoiled, or maybe things really aren’t as they used to be, people moved in, the sea life moved out.
In honor of my birthday, we had a progressive evening and went place to place in the dinghy. First it was cocktails at the BEYC, then to Dreamweaver for a fantastic dinner Dottie and Rose made of fresh caught Wahoo (Capt. Chaos caught it) and then over to Voyager for a riotous game of Cranium, and the rich Bread Pudding cakelike dessert Dottie and I learned to make in St. Kitts. What fun, I love a fuss over moi! Friends, food, wine, presents, cake and games…life is good, and in fact it keeps getting better.
Weather being so -so, and not clear enough to dive the Wreck of the Rhone, we decided to stay put and have a nice relaxing day. We went ashore to explore other parts of the bay. Posh Biras Creek Resort is “next door”, we climbed to the top of the hill and down to the beach on the other side at Bercher’s Bay. We had lunch out at the waterside Fat Virgin Café, and tried the water again. Pat and I cooked up some Caribbean favorites for dinner onboard, and we selected another great movie.
Our guests don’t have much time left, and we are determined to see our old favorite haunts and with that intention, we cruised all day through the BVI chain, planning to stop at the ship restaurant William Thornton on Norman Island for lunch, but it looked abandoned, so we just cruised into the bay, dropped the hook and had lunch aboard. We continued onto Jost Van Dyke for a big Thursday night at Foxy’s. Hmmm, apparently Thursday is no longer the big night at Foxy’s, now it’s Friday. Darn. Never mind, we had 6 members of the Big Bear Lake Yacht Club in attendance and we were going to have fun…no matter if we were the only ones. With a little effort, we livened the place up and had a good time. When Les and Rose went the following week with their young nieces, and on a Friday night, it rocked. Timing is everything.
Wind and seas picked up and it was a nasty wet ride back to the boats, but we survived the night and even made it back on shore in the morning for a walk through the town. As this was Bob & Pat’s last night aboard and we needed to get them within ferry distance of their flights out of St Thomas, we secured reservations at Soper’s Hole on Tortola’s West End, a nice, but very busy and pricey marina. In tootling around Frenchman’s Cay we discovered a wonderful new restaurant at the little hotel that Bob & Pat wanted to take us to for dinner. It was wonderful and a nice walk from the marina under starry skies.
After breakfast with Dottie and Ken, we learned that the marina needed our slip NOW as they had returning charter boats that they had to turn around, and guests that had to catch flights. Panic! The boys quickly went across to clear out of the BVI, we tossed Bob and Pat their luggage, thanked them for coming as they rushed to catch the next ferry to the USVI and we threw off the lines just as the charter boat was turning down the finger. Before we knew it, we were out the channel, waving goodbye and on our way…somewhere. Let’s see can it be that we were only in the BVI for five days, and somehow, it was enough? Looked at each other, and said, “Yeah, we’re done”, let’s see what St. John has to offer!
USVI
St. John is one of the islands we have never explored, and we were ready. We found a dock to tie to in Cruz Bay and checked back into the USA! We’d been out of the country, well Wandering Star had, for a year and a half. I thought Uncle Sam’s Customs official would come down, pull her apart, demand to see everything we’d purchased, confiscate our liquor and hand us a tax bill. They could not have been more blasé. “Your Passport please” and we handed them over, he scanned it, handed it back and said “Welcome Home”. I asked if that was all, and he said, “Yes”. Not a man of many words, so we picked them up and skipped out the door.
There is no place to moor, anchor or tie up in Cruz Bay, but not far away is beautiful Caneel Bay and a wide open anchorage. We knew that Ade’s long lost cousin on his father’s side was due there somewhere, but Ade didn’t know what the boat looked like, and in fact had only seen his cousin once a few years back. Ade’s sister and brother in law were also flying down to join them. Amazingly, soon after we settled on our mooring, a nice guy dinked by and asked Ade if he was Bobby’s cousin. It was Michael, the fellow who’d just sailed the boat down with him from Mystic, Ct. “Joy for All Seasons” was nearby. They were on their way to Red Hook to pick up Bobby’s wife Paula, and Don & Audrey. Small world. In the meantime, Dottie and Ken caught up with us and we had a dinner together before Dottie flew back home for a job interview.
Over the next days we cruised around St. John, had the gang over for drinks and nibbles, and enjoyed fantastic hamburgers on “Joy”. Once everyone else flew home, we met again onshore at one of Bobby’s favorite haunts. I spent lots of time in the square where local artisans had set up an open market for an art festival. I found lots of little trinkets to share with friends back home.
We made our way to St. Thomas and soon realized that the marina had changed completely and that this IGY was so totally catering to mega yachts that it is not even practical for a 43′ to tie up - huge concrete docks and almost impossible for us to get on and off the boat. We anchored out instead. Met Les and Rose for happy hour and told them that we’d be heading back to St. John. Too much city for us…we need a more gradual reentry. Les is in the midst of forming a new company and needed to be in close contact with his partners and the real world, so they were staying put until their guests arrived.
We couldn’t get back to Caneel Bay fast enough. We went ashore for lunch to the still elegant Caneel Bay resort, formerly one of the chic Rock Resorts developed by the Rockerfellers and catering to the elite, it is still nice, but less exclusive. At the other end of the scale, we also spent a few days over in Coral Bay, this is where the real people of St. John live…some on their boats, others in artist cottages, or hippie huts scattered along the shore and in the hills. It’s Funkytown to be sure. We liked it. Craziest dinghy dock we’ve ever seen with an astonishing assortment of boats behind Skinny Legs. Too early to try that renowned Bar & Grill, so we walked the entire bay, found lunch at the Aqua Bistro, provisions at the complete Lilly’s Gourmet Market and Deli, and finally tired, stopped back at Skinny Legs for happy hour. We found the people to match all those dinghies’s…artists and sailors, and hippies in a time warp, with a few middle aged cruisers like us on the outer edges.
It was time to get some clean up done, so off to the quieter side of the island of St. Thomas at Red Hook. American Yacht Harbor, another IGY marina, is still cruiser friendly. As we were backing in, we realized that our immediate neighbors were Walter and Susan from Kingdom, a fun couple we’d met at Thanksgiving in Grenada. We made plans to get together and later heard all about their amazing few months. They had crew aboard, one of whom turned out to be a Cuban doctor with a Guyana passport who sought exile in the US once they arrived in the USVI. What a story.
Red Hook is very convenient. A good market is across the road, there are several great restaurants (fish at Off the Hook was very good), and a sophisticated Wine Bar & Restaurant for evenings when you want quiet conversation, not reggae. I was able to take long walks, but warned not to do it at night as apparently there is a crime problem. I tried walking to a large shopping center with a K Mart, but after 4 miles realized I was either lost, or it was much further than described. I was rescued by a bus-van that is very inexpensive and goes in a counter clockwise route around the island all day long, much like in the Windward’s.
We had only a few days before we were due in San Juan, Puerto Rico for our flight home for work, so we plotted our course and reluctantly made plans to leave the Virgins. The weather was really nice now, and we would have liked to have had another week or two to just hang on a mooring in St. John. This island is still like a Virgin. Thank Goodness.
