Over the course of the past few years, Kevin has had the opportunity to take a number of sailing vacations to the Carribean and to the Mediterranean. But never has he had the opportunity to take along his dear wife (some may claim that he has never been so inclined, but such claims are without any merit!). But this summer, there was no barrier (some may claim excuse, but again, some are deeply flawed in their analysis!) to a joint trip to the islands. And thus, Abigail, Kevin, our dear friends JD and Maryl, and another couple (and new friends!) Pat & Allie, took to the islands for a ten-day extravaganza in the British Virgin Islands! Over ten days on eight British and one American island, we saw countless beaches, slept in beautiful anchorages, enjoyed wonderful company, and got soaked by dozens of tropical squalls.
But after all that, we're home now safe and sound! And we've had a
wonderful trip! And I no longer need to burden Abigail with stories of my past voyages to the islands. But we can burden all of you! To hear more about our trip, including a detailed day-by-day narrative, click below where it says 'Read More'
(to our parents: click on Read More!)
Passenger Manifest
JD & Maryl: This lovely couple, friends of ours from college and the product of our matchmaking, is no stranger to our sailing adventures. JD has captained Kevin's previous voyages with great aplomb, and spearheaded the organizational feat that was this trip. These two enjoy pina coladas (exclusively) and long walks on the beach, to be sure, but are also avid conoisseurs of board games and a stellar provisioning team. When you don't hear Jason asking Sunsail, "You want me to put my hand where??" you may hear Maryl with her call, "Kelsey Mae, Kelsey Mae, this is the dinglehopper, prepare to be boarded!"
Pat & Allie: Also a lovely couple, Pat & Allie are currently undertaking an earlier stage in their relationship than their four married boatmates. But you have to respect their willingness to share ten days with two other couples in a (highly) confined space! Pat is a pharmaceutical executive and Allie created much value on the
Kelsey Mae as a recent graduate of the French Culinary Institute. Pat could be counted on to command a Wreck on the Rocks in any port and exemplified a nautical sleeper if we've ever seen one. When Allie wasn't ensuring that Pat was still alive in his cabin, she was a busy subject of Pat's professional-grade photography and was establishing her expertise at manning the main halyard.
Us: By this point, you all know us quite well (quite frankly, if you've found this blog, you know
us far too well!!!). Suffice it to say that Kevin has been subjecting Abigail (a novice sailor - her rowing skills carried little weight on this wind-powered vessel) to much nostalgia over the virtues of a Carribean sailing vacation; said virtues were drowned on this most recent trip by the interminable tropical rainstorms, the oppressive heat, and accomodations that one might describe as "adventure-luxury" if luxury at all! Kevin's memories of past trips surely enjoyed a more sunny illumination!
Trip's Log
Tuesday, June 15: Boston to Tortola: When we arrived at Boston's Logan Airport at oh-dark-thirty, we were joined by roughly 900 other passengers and
one American Airlines employee at the ticketing-gate. Of course, our reservation had some problem that precluded our checking in online or at the kiosk and required some interface with a 'customer service representative' (said individual not apparently employed by this legacy carrier); thus began a delicate ballet wherein we tried to catch the eye of an American Airlines employee (all of whom, it is apparenty, are recent graduates of the training course: "How not to be available to our customers.") As always, the first-class check-in line was our last respite, and after an hour of standing and pushing our bags around the airport, we made it through security. Altogether, the trip from the St. Thomas airport to Tortola provided an acclimation to Island Time, the relaxed course of scheduling employed by those accustomed to a tropical and stifling climate. Arriving in Tortola, we spent most of the evening finding nooks, crannies, and homes for all of our food. The storage you find on a modest boat is quite remarkable: food finds its ways behind seat cushions, under floor-boards, under-seats, in cabinets formerly home to dock lines, fenders, first-aid kits, etc, etc. Finally, all settled in and spent from the tropical heat, we took our leave to our luxurious (rustic) accomodations and spent a miserable night tossing and turning in a stale, stifling, 90 degree humidity. It was an auspicious beginning to the trip.
It might seem we were ready to go, but before we left the dock, we needed to meet with Sunsail for briefing on our boat (cursory, often erroneous, and generally disheartening: "It's a boat... ...with sails") and on the various anchorages in the BVIs, hosted by Carlton, "...the supermarket in this harbour is the most expensive supermarket
in the world". Finally, after a number of hours of briefings and a number of gallons of perspirations, we left Wickham's Cay II and headed SSW to Norman Island. Norman Island was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's
Treasure Island, and the snorkeling at the island's caves is amazing. Moreover, Norman Island has, on past trips, required a visit to the eminent
William Thornton, a permanently anchored steel-trawler turned bar. But the Willy T grows tiresome (and rather repulsive), so this year we headed ashore to the Pirate's Beach Bar, complete with the best
bushwhackers in the BVIs and human-scale 'Connect Four' and 'Jenga.' We were at said beach bar when a crack of thunder shook the tin roof and rain began to full with such velocity that one could not believe it could persist for more than a few seconds. It persisted for an hour, soaking our boat's interior, exposed by the hatches we'd failed to close when we came ashore. It was a lesson well-learned.
Thursday, June 17: Norman Island to Cooper Island: The sail the next day was a robust beat Northeast into the wind, but it brought us to Cooper Island (via amazing snorkeling at The Indians), where we partook of frozen drinks. Cooper is one of those quintessential Carribean anchorages, beautiful and quiet, with an open Western sky giving a glimpse of an amazing sunset (made all the better with a Pina Colada). Our night at Cooper produced some of the clearest skies of the trip, allowing the two of us to look skyward at the stars for Cliff (and finding the Southern Cross). The next morning, we took in another rainstorm, this time short-lived and the producer of an amazing full, double rainbow (the shot to the left is the work-product of Pat, whose photos are amazing and whose boldness with taking his camera into the elements is laudable).
Friday, June 18: Cooper Island to Trellis Bay (via the Baths): Our journey continued Northeastward, with a stop by the Baths, a classic Virgin Island stop. The Baths are rock-formations of granite tossed by a volcanic eruption across the shore in such a way as to create mystic pools and craters calling for exploration (and, for Maryl, a game of sardines). Having explored the Baths, we waited for a repair from Sunsail for some time, and then headed to Trellis Bay, which turned out to be less of an idyllic - and more of an industrial - anchorage. Our trip, however, provided us with our first glimpse of sea-turtles; we saw three of them pushing their way toward shore. Trellis was also home to a coffee shop (what a treat!) and local artisans, who knew their customer and priced accordingly.
Saturday & Sunday, June 19-20: Rain at Saba Rock: After Trellis, we knew from weather reports that a
'Tropical Wave' was moving through the region, and that we needed to find a place where we were not obliged to enjoy the claustraphobia associated with six people in a small boat. We moved into Virgin Gorda's North Sound, where we'd often enjoyed the pleasures of Saba Rock Resort. This year was no exception, at Saba Rock and the Bitter End Yacht Club, we rode out the impressive rain-storms with games of Balderdash and Apples-to-Apples during Happy Hour and enjoyed family-movie-night, showing Disney's
The Princess and the Frog in a covered-sandbox-movie-theatre at Bitter End. We also had our only real emergency of the trip, undertaking a midnight, rain-soaked change of a frayed mooring line gratefully discovered by JD during one of his neuroses-fueled inspections of the boat's systems.
Monday, June 21: Anegada: The photo to the left, also Pat's, catalogues the beauty of Anegada's Loblolly Beach. Anegada, an iconic Carribean island, is the only coral atoll we visited. The navigation to the island is difficult, but the trip is worthwhile. Anegada is home to roughly 300 inhabitants and at its highest point is only 24 feet above sea-level. It is surrounded by the third-largest barrier reef in the world, which helps produce the perfect beaches Pat captured here. We had lovely weather at Anegada, with high-clouds tempering the hot sun and providing the perfect climate for reading a book in a beachside hammock. Anegada is one of those places that rests peacefully in your memory, pushing out the ill visions of rainclouds and stifling cabins. There's very few places like it in the world -- and it remains so remote that, gratefully, it will not be soon spoiled by masses of tourists.
Tuesday, June 22: Diamond Cay: The sail from Anegada back down to Jost Van Dyke is a long, downwind sleigh-ride, complete with rolling swells that call forth sea-sickness and vertigo. Our time at Diamond Cay was similarly pleasant. An intended hike for a bubbling tidal pool was thwarted by goats, land-crabs, stagnant brackish runoff from the rainstorms, and a cactus that did a number on JD's toes. We tried to improve conditions by continuing our ongoing Balderdash game during Happy Hour and finding quite decent snorkeling in the anchorage. Pat also discovered the 'Wreck on the Rocks,' a concoction of numerous flavored rums, and a splash of lime, and... that's it. Impressive.
Wednesday, June 23: Cane Garden Bay: We turned across the channel and found our way into Cane Garden Bay on the north-side of Tortola. We arrived just in time to beat a rainstorm that fell down the side of the mountains, with clouds descending and enveloping us in a matter of seconds. After the rain-storm, though, we were joined by a mother-child pair of dolphins, who danced around our boat and throughout the anchorage. Wednesday night, we toured CGB, with its numerous beach bars and restaurants, partook in a continued game of Balderdash at Happy Hour and enjoyed a
wonderful dinner ashore at Myett's restaurant. We either had become more weathered, or the occasional rainstorms were significantly less tiresome.
Thursday, June 24: White Bay & Great Harbour: A short sail back across the channel deposited us in Jost Van Dyke's Great Harbour. After a swim and lunch, we dinghied around the corner to White Bay, home of the infamous
Soggy Dollar Bar (so-named because the lack of a dinghy-dock at White Bay meant that patrons often turned up with soggy dollar bills, which are dried above the bar on a clothesline), home of the original Painkiller. We found six adirondack chairs on the beach and listened to the pleasant tunes of a Jimmy Buffett cover-band. That evening, after an onboard session of hors d'ouvres, we went ashore, dined at Corsair's, and headed over to the literally world-famous
Foxy's (For those in the know, by the way, Foxy's is the home of my childhood friend's immortal bar-top body-shot). At Foxy's, after thwarting yellow-jackets and a really, really horrible DJ, we hung above the bar a Williams pennant, in honor of past trips where we had yet to memorialize our visit in the traditional way.
Friday, June 25: Peter Island: A gusty wind precluded a long-sail around the South end of Tortola and instead required us to motor throughout Friday. Our final anchorage, however, off the Ocean 7 Beach Club on Peter Island, provided deeply surprising and amazing snorkeling, where we caught a glimpse of Tarpon and Barracuda, and some of us flirted with jelly-fish. We took in our final round of Balderdash (the winner of the week-long game will not identify himself here, ahem...) and our final round of frozen drinks in the BVIs. An impressive thunderstorm allowed JD, Kevin, and Pat to shower and dance in the rain before being chased into the cabin by increasingly proximate lightning. We had a wonderful final meal aboard, began packing our things (some of us were so repulsed by the condition of our cabins), and turned in early anticipating an early-morning sail back to Tortola.
Saturday, June 26: Tortola and Home: The next morning produced the best weather we had seen since our sail to Norman Island more than a week earlier. We thus raised our sails at six-thirty in the morning and sailed back across the channel in good spirits. Arriving at Wickham's Cay, we unpacked, showered, debriefed the boat, engaged in a negotiation over our complaints that none of us really cared about, and headed toward the ferry dock. I will say it one final time: going to the Carribean with four individuals who have all recently taken operations courses at leading business schools is an exercise in frustration; no experience quite generated this frustration as much as the ferry dock in Tortola. JD, Maryl, Kevin, and Abigail all had the same homebound flight, and thus watched the first-half of the American collapse to Ghana at the St. Thomas airport before flying back to the states.
Upon Reflection... This trip remains one of the best vacation experiences out there. Part luxury, part adventure, part relaxation, part excitement, it is best enjoyed with the type of company we had on this journey. We're not certain when we'll be able to take a similar trip again; but if you have the chance, it is highly recommended. For further promotion, you can see all of our pictures
here. They do not compare in quality or volume to those of our shipmates, but they give you a sense!
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