The Caribbean is a very special place. The downside is the heat (40C most days) & the bugs (billions everywhere), but once you get accustomed to the heat and the bugs start to ignore you, then life is very good indeed. There is a strong sense that the British Virgin Islands will eventually succumb to commercial pressures and become much more like their neighbours. Whilst inevitable, this will be a great shame. I hope that someone has the forethought and vision to develop it whist retaining it's special character; the friendliness of the locals. the very low crime rate (at one hotel resort, the rooms don't have locks!) and the atmosphere of a sleepy backwater that has been complicit in letting the world pass it by. I'll be back, next time with a boat at my disposal, so I can have even easier access to the sea. take advantage of those cooling breezes and explore even further.
It started early, as we had to be up before 4 to catch a small charter boat from Virgin Gorda to Beef Island. Despite the early start this was pretty cool – the day was just beginning to break as we set off, and James our skipper spent the whole trip telling us about the deep waves that we were seeing from Hurricane Bill (which explained the murky water yesterday), the annual cycle of bird and turtle migrations, the physical capacity constraints on air travel in the BVI, his life history and a number of other interesting topics. Clare has a theory on the type of person that talks like this, but I won’t repeat it here for fear of getting flamed.
We got to the airport on time, and LIAT did a good job getting us and our baggage to Antigua via a scheduled stop at St Maartens. I don’t know much about that island but it looks like a Caribbean Benidorm, an instant reminder of just how unspoilt the BVI are. We had a lonnnnng stopover in Antigua before our flight home so just like the outbound journey we got to know the departure lounge very well. Still it did at least give Liam to update his Facebook status for the rest of the day.
Thats it really - the plan was delayed two hours but actually even that worked out ok, as most of that translated into extra sleeping time as we landed just after 7am rather than the 5:30am scheduled time.
One great thing about an August birthday (as reader HotJonesy1 of Cheshire pointed out) is you get to spend it in nice places. In practice that can mean airports and motorways, but mostly she’s right. Clare’s preference for last-minute shopping means the exciting unpredictability of “made locally” presents, but this year was good, books, T-shirts, music and the obligatory Christmas Tree decoration (a strange tradition).
We had a very mellow day, chilling out at home in the morning before heading off for the afternoon to Devil’s Bay. The snorkeling was really disappointing as the distant storms seem to have churned everything up and visibility was about nil. It made for a great sea though, not so much crashing waves as all the water in the bay moving in and out like jelly.
Mike and Ciaran climbed rocks high enough to make me worry, never mind Granddad, and Clare, Liam and I kept getting in and out of the water to keep cool as it was blisteringly hot (too hot to walk on the sand). We had a lovely lunch at the “Top of the Baths”, recommended by our gardener, Ralph, then back home to say hi to my Mum and Dad.
We did a Skype video call to them from the poolside which was a hoot, though it was a miracle that Ciaran’s enthusiasm didn’t drown the laptop. We then all had a final swim in the pool (home tomorrow), and got round to discussing Mike's upcoming GCSE's results - due next Thursday. Liam's sole contribution was at the end, pitching in with "Hey Mike, bet you'll able to spell 'FUDGE' with your results", which had us in fits.
To end the day we went back to the Mine Shaft Café, this time getting their early enough to see the beautiful sunset. Dinner was good but conversation was drowned out by the singer who had set up right next to us. He was actually pretty good, both as a singer and a guitarist, and entertained us with a mix of traditional-style songs that he’d written and folk songs from the 60’s. He was from St Lucia and the general theme was “life was so good then, now its pants”. My philosophy on life is a bit different to that, but I respected his opinion and enjoyed the music. When he reached his Bob Dylan catalogue though enough was enough, your reporter made his excuses and left, cats wailing in harmony on all sides.
It was a great birthday, I must have more of them.
We went half-way up the island today to Savannah Bay, which we’d been told was great for snorkeling. Clare was first in but the weather meant the water was very cloudy (all the sand shaken up by the storms I think) so we couldn’t see far and after moving a few reefs around the bay by kicking them with her bare feet, she lost interest.
We had a nice morning swimming and reading, not much more to report than that really, other than that we had to keep our eyes open for the deadly Manchineel Trees. There was a warning nailed to a tree on the edge of the beach that described the 20 ways that these trees can hurt you – if you chop it the sap will burn you, if you burn it the smoke will blind you, if you eat the fruit (“which is tasty” – how do they know?!) it will choke you, if you stand under it and it rains it will drip acid onto you. It didn’t include a picture of this most fearsome of God’s creations but after 15 minutes reading the small print the description matched the tree the warning was nailed to – we took flight immediately but were lucky to escape with our lives!
So back to the pool, where the boys spent the whole afternoon larking about in the pool and were just getting the hang of "corpse photos" when thankfully the film on our disposable underwater camera ran out ...
I woke up very early that morning which was strange because on my normal holiday body clock by the time I'm awake it's time to got to bed, for the night three days later of course, so I got up and had a swim. After an hour or so I went upstairs and watched some TV (the same old american junk: mediocre TV such as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air followed by three consecutive days of monotonous stupid adverts aimed at even stupider people and made by people who are just so stupid that it surprises you that they don't fall down more! But by the way did you know that if you buy the easy maneuverable hovercruise you can also get a free collapsable grabber? And just for inquiring they will send you a free silent alarm clock! But never mind these brackets have been going on for far too long.)
Soon it was decided that we would have a lazy morning (swish!) and then we would go to the springs and continue through to the baths. (not so swish.) And I said that we would get side tracked at the springs and that it would be wiser to go through the baths first and then finish the day with spring bay. But noooo, not for the Hegarty family! We would do it the other way around and 'see how we feel from there on.'
So we went to the springs: a nice little beach just down the road it is in fact Jons favourite beach in the BVI. We went the day before, after buying dad's presents (for details see the 18th, the 21st and dad's facial expression.) So we went there I read a chapter of my book and then got into the water, which if you've been on holiday with me you'll know is an irreversible process, so I played around in the water. Dad came in showed me a few interesting fish one that had a nasty predatory head but with a body the size of a tadpole.
So anyway i soon decided that it would be cool to build a mound of sand that was large enough for it to stick out above the water and for me to sit on (this would require about a meter's height.) But sand being too fine would not withstand the tide so I began to build the mound with rocks from the sea.
What was interesting was that soon a group of fish started following me back and forth which was weird but I soon saw why: every time I shifted a rock these little fish would swoop down and eat whatever was hiding beneath the rock. And so I went back and forth, back and forth and guess what? Did we move through to the baths? Nope. Did we get sidetracked in exactly the way I said we would? Yes. And soon we had to leave because we were in danger of the restraunts closing and us having nowhere to eat.
So we went home undressed, washed, dressed quickly and sped off to a place called the Mine Shaft (going over a lot of speed-bumps fast resulting in a lot of sore heads) and had a blast. At the end of the night we went home, Mike and Dad argued about having gap years, I watched a little TV (see rant above) and then I went to bed.
I've been interested in diving since I was a youngster, but wasn't sure I'd ever get to have a go myself. We used to go on holiday in Ireland with my Dad's brother and sisters and their children, often to Valentia ("Paradise Island of Ireland" I now learn). We were always impressed by my Uncle Billy, who was very involved in the Irish Sub-Aqua Club, and would disappear out into the bay in all his gear and bring us scallop shells, starfish and sea-urchins. He also gave my parents a plate that was recovered from a wreck, the "Tayleur", that went down off Dublin in 1854 with the loss of almost 300 lives (Billy's story of how they discovered the wreck makes great reading) .
The temperature and clarity of the water make the British Virgin Islands an ideal location, so Mike and I signed up for the first step on the ladder, the one day "Discover Scuba" course. They could only cater for people 16 years or older so Clare and the rest of the Blue Team headed off to Spring Bay. We hooked up with two other nubes and had the "classroom" and "pool" sessions in the morning, before heading out on a boat for a proper dive. Another advantage of doing this in the BVI was that the "classroom" consisted of us sitting on recliners on the beach, while Paul our instructor took us through the gear and the safety info, and the "pool" was the shallow bay at Little Dix Bay
This was the first time I’d ever tried scuba diving and I loved it. The things I thought would be challenging proved to be very easy – breathing through the equipment was no harder than breathing normally, and going underwater (40’ was our maximum allowed depth) didn’t cause a problem with either ears or nerves. What was challenging was trying to do everything at once. Its amazing how much you control your depth by the way you breathe, and trying to do this while “clearing” my ears proved to me beyond doubt that men can’t multi-task.
We got to do our “proper dive” after lunch, when we took a boat up the coast to Mountain Point. Our guide, Johann, undid all my years brainwashing Mike to be a steady chap with a solid career, by regaling him with tales of how he’d chucked it all in for a life of sun and sea. He looked good on it too, young, fit, tanned, relaxed, with his own boat and an all–female crew, but was he happy? That aside, he certainly knew his stuff, in our one-tank 45min dive he pointed out about 30 different types of fish, writing their names on a kind of slate. Best were two fish about 4-5’ long (whose name escapes us), a huge lobster that wouldn’t come out of his hole in the reef, and an Arrow Crab, about 9” across with legs thinner than matchsticks.
The dive seemed much shorter than it actually was, and I can’t wait to do it again, though when and where we’ll just have to see.
Clare picked us up from the harbour (technically we picked her up, from the outside bar, “Painkiller” in hand). They'd discovered Spring Bay and had a great time amongst the rocks - tomorrow it would be our turn.
There are two reasons why this is the "off season" in the British Virgin Islands.
One is that people like coming here when it is cold at home, so peak season starts with Thanksgiving in the US and runs through to the end of spring in the UK. The other is that it is hurricane season (which by the way led to some poorly-informed arguments about pronunciation and etymology , but lets not go there).
Its been pretty quiet while we've been here, but as Tropical Storm Ana became the first named storm of the season we saw how the storms become a part of everyday conversation, and noticed they were picked up a couple of times at mass on Sunday. In the end the BVI were very lucky, the storm swung south and bypassed us, but we did get really strong howling winds and lashing rain all through Sunday night. Monday morning was cloudy and still quite windy so we got a bit nostalgic for Mayo and went for an old-skool drive-around-in-the-rain kind of day.
"Just like Mayo" has actually been a recurring quote through this holiday and while its usually delivered in the smart-Alec sense, referring to the temperature of the sea or the heat of the sun, there is quite often an element of truth in it. Perhaps that's one reason we like Virgin Gorda so much, the rough landscape, the hills (once you get away from The Valley), the often-empty long clean beaches and the Atlantic crashing in.
Of course, not everyone is all that nostalgic about long drives in the rain, use your powers of deduction to see if you can work out which member of the family stayed in the car reading Harry Potter every time we stopped to admire the view...
When I say long drive, thats a relative term as the island is only ten miles long and two across at its widest, and the roads don't reach all the way to the north end. This is the fashionable North Sound, much of it only reachable by boat, and very big with the yachting crowd. We drove as far as Gun Creek, which we'd been told was the only resort that was still open. In fact everywhere was shut so we headed over to Leverick Bay passing the local jail on the way. Leverick was open, that is at least the resort was. Like the resort at Long Bay beach, this had the pros and cons of globalisation - on the down side you could be eating in any bar restaurant in the US, on the plus side it was actually open and the chips were terrific. You'll not be surprised to hear that we swallowed our ideals almost as quickly as we swallowed our Painkillers. It was striking though just how quiet it was, there seemed to be only about a dozen other people in a resort geared up to cater for hundreds, so hurricanes or not, this is the time of year to come here.
After lunch we headed back home. The weather had started to lift as Ana receded so the views just got nicer and nicer. The plan was to spend the afternoon chilling out in the pool, but in the end the 20-mile round trip and the challenge of lunch proved to have worn some of us out ...
I love rocks and guess what The Baths is full of 'em! They are angels in disguise! You can jump on them, you can climb them e.g Me and mike climbed a big pile of them but then dad called us down! UNLUCKY! I think rocks are the equivalent to bread and butter anyway lets move past rocks.
Woh! Just had a bit of DeJa Vu!
Day 12
Right now after the 'Holy People' took off I decided I'd have a bit of a read. Now if you remember, which you most likley don't! I had no books to read! But fortunately help came! Liam has been reading the Harry Potter series and fortunately brought Harry Potter four (Goblet of fire), Harry Potter 5 (Order of the Phoenix), Harry Potter 6 (Half Blood Prince) and finally Harry Potter 7 (Deathly Hallows). Phew! Anyways I decided to read them too! At first I read No. 7, but after whizzing through it (In three days!) Then I decided to read from no. 4 up, and am currently half way through no. 5.
I was reading for what must've 2 hours! Before 'The Holies' got back and made lunch. They announced that we were going to The Baths after there failed attempts yesterday.
Seeing as it was only a 5 minute walk up the road we walked up. Now The Baths as I heard were lots of rocks. Yeah. Rocks. So I have to admit I wasn't to enthusiastic, but when we arrived I have to say It Was Awesome! There were big rocks leaning on what seemed to be a tennis ball sized rock, there was even a skull shaped rock although mum said this wasn't the one she were talking about.
As we walked on we reached sand. were there was some nice lookin sea! There was a really cool cave which I raced into, then climbing on top with in a matter of seconds. As you can tell I was pretty eager. I then climbed a fairly large rock.
After a lot of photo-taking we carried on to 'the pool' (no not the swimming pool back at the villa!) it was a pretty amazing sight (look at slide-show above) then we carried on trudging through water seeing a jelly-fish on the way.
We stumbled across a breath-taking sight. there was the sea with both big and small rocks dotted around everywhere. we camped on one and I started to jump from rock to rock until I had hopped on every rock and resorted to watch the others snorkel.
THE TIMES
WE HAVE A BREAKING NEW
STORY ANNOUNCING THAT
CLARE HEGARTY SAYS THAT
SHE HAD THE BEST
SNORKELLING IN HER LIFE!
IT'S TRUE WE HAVE EYE
WITNESS ACCOUNTS THAT
CLARE HEGARTY (WIFE OF
MICK HEGARTY) DID IN
FACT COMMENT ON THE
SNORKELLING SAYING
IT WAS THE BEST SHE HAD
DONE IN HER LIFE!
THIS IS THE MOST
EXCITING
THING
THATS
HAPPENED
SINCE JIM
ATE FIRE
AND DIED.
REPORTED BY CIARAN
Wow nice news flash.
Me, mum and dad split off from the others to explore. We found an amazing place where there was a giant rock looming over you that looked exactly like a dinosaurs head. So we found a narrow gap in which we squeezed through and walked on, squeezed through another gap and came back through under the dinosaurs head.
We finally left to go to Devils Bay (just a minutes more walk) and I have to say, it was Little Thatch standards. there was a cool cave which I found, nice sea, rocks and some nice sand! But all was not well in paradise for the noble knight Sir Liam Hegarty was ambushed by several thousand jellyfish so he sliced and he slashed but unfortunately the most biggest and most scariest managed to sting Sir Liam under thy armpit. But brave Liam managed to slay the Evil jellyfish with a thrust straight into its head. But the sting had upset Liam's tummy and the sting was stinging and he was forced to retire to his castle Bigger Splash.
Meanwhile me and Mike were half way through climbing what looked like a giant pile of rocks. But dad said we had to go home. We found liam in the pool and me and mike joined him. Now in the pool we have a foam tube designed to keep you afloat, however we have made a fun game out of it.
Anyways mum and dad announced that we had to go out for dinner. So we went to The Rock cafe "Italian with a little Caribbean" we were seated at a table near a fountiany, waterfally thing-a-magig. So we ate, We drank and we ordered desert. Me mum and mike got terramisou and the others got chocolate mousse (I think thats how ya spell it). Now the terramisou was lovely and in chocolate writing was the words Hard Rock cafe.
So finally I decided to go bed although for some reason it took me five hours to get to sleep!
First up, this being a Sunday, we were late for mass. A week late and then some, as we were too lazy last week to go at all and too slow out the door this time - nothing new there. The Yout knew we were having too much difficulty getting ourselves out the door to have enough energy to fight them, so they hunkered down and left Clare and I to go on our own.
Which is a pity, because they missed something special. We went to the local catholic church, St Ursula's, and though it took us a while to find the actual church, we struck lucky on three counts. Firstly, it was the feast of the Assumption, so the mass would have had a little bit more about it in any parish. Secondly, it was the 20th anniversary of the building of the church so this was quite a special mass in this parish. Thirdly, because of the first two, they had guests coming from the catholic community on Tortola and had to wait for the boat to arrive. That meant mass started twenty minutes late, and we made the start by the skin of our teeth.
As you might imagine, a Caribbean mass is a very different experience from a British one. The two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), keyboards, conga and massive speaker give a clue. The congregation was pretty small (maybe 100 people in all, including guests) but boy can they sing! The priest, Polish I think, also got with it and the whole mass was loud, colourful and vibrant. The offertory procession was led by a really elegant dance from the senior girls, and there was a separate dance from the junior girls at the end. Everything that could be sung was sung (including the "I Confess", new to me but very effective) and a very memorable Our Father that started solemnly then clicked into a Calypso swing.
As if all that wasn't enough they asked if there were any first-time visitors to the parish - Clare and I fessed up and got to stand up and have the whole parish sing us a welcome song. They then asked if anyone had a birthday in the coming week, so Clare gave me a shove and I joined three other happy campers at the front to get a special blessing, a song from the parish and a special birthday ribbon pinned on me by two members of the choir. Finally they asked if anyone had an anniversary in the coming week and repeated the special attention for an elderly widower and his children and grandchildren. The whole service felt like it came from the parish community, and indeed this is reflected in the history of the parish. It was very thought provoking and they invited us to stay for food afterwards and join them in the afternoon at Savannah Beach, but we'd been out for nearly two hours and had visions of crucifixions taking place back at the ranch.
Our house on Virgin Gorda is the groovily-named "A Bigger Splash". Its a terrific house, located at the south end of the island about 5 minutes walk from The Baths (more on that from Ciaran in tomorrow's blog).
Even after just a day or two here, the feel of this island is very different to Tortola. This end of the island is flat and quite dry, more sand and cactus, less jungle and hillsides. Its more open to the winds which make it cooler and best of all less buggy. The house is really big, laid out on several levels with a wonderful pool and the luxury of a room for each boy. One of my fellow travelers commented that the colour scheme wasn't quite as original as Limeberry's which reminded me of Chandler's comment about the problems of small wallets.
The sensible thing to do on our first full day would be to explore the island, get our bearings and plan out the rest of the week. But holidays aren't about being sensible are they, so we decided to just chill out, and spent the day reading, swimming and, of course, blogging.
Time to switch islands. After a great week on Tortola we had to catch the midday ferry from Roadtown to Spanishtown on Virgin Gorda. Our taxi driver was great, like all the locals we've met, he was proud of Tortola and keen to tell us about it. First up was the racetrack, which we'd seen on our drive to Sage Mountain but had assumed to be an athletics track. I asked him how they got the horses to run in this heat and he said it was no problem, they loved it, went swimming in the sea every day. He also showed us the power station and explained how they got their electricity (all from imported diesel), why they'd changed their currency to the US dollar (the majority of their exports go to the US Virgin Islands) and how different the USVI are (St. John's is the "New York of the Caribbean", six times the population per square foot compared to the BVI). I was tempted to get him to take us round the island but we had a boat to catch.
The ferry was a hydrofoil so very quick and smooth. It was lovely and cool, reminded us that really the best way to manage the heat of the Caribbean is to be out on the water.
We also had a great view of the smaller islands as we crossed - Peter, Salt, Cooper and our favourite of course, Ginger, for you sir, a deal at just $20million.
The heat and the paleness of our skin makes a holiday in the tropics something of an obstacle course. We cannot go out unless a good slathering of sun cream has been applied and anything that you are likely to do washes off the sun cream. By the time you’ve applied sufficient sun cream, you are either exhausted by the heat or it is now the middle of the day and the fear is that the sun will break through, no matter how many tubes of factor 50 have been applied. Consequently, achieving a whole day out is quite an undertaking, but for our last day on Tortola, I thought that it was worth a try. When I presented my plan, Ciaran cried out “but why would we spend our last day in Tortola on another island?” I had no answer for this, so I just did what I always do when faced with children that are too clever – stick to the plan!
The plan was a 10 o’clock ferry from Soper’s Hole to Jost Van Dyke, the island that we had been looking at for the last week from our villa. Then we could have a swim, a snorkel, a leisurely lunch and back on an afternoon ferry.
The island has less than 200 inhabitants, so we were prepared for a different vibe to Tortola, but we were presented with the sleepiest town we had seen yet, the only thing moving in it was us. Having walked the length of it in less than 15 minutes, even at our heat of the day snail’s pace, we selected a bit of shady beach and sat down to contemplate how early we could get the ferry back. I could sense the serious dissension growing amongst the family.
Then our day changed with the arrival of Caesar. The family, with skin that glows like the moon, had obviously fascinated the locals sitting on the town beach amongst the thistles. He recommended that we get down to White Beach where we could start enjoying ourselves. He could even organise a taxi and get us a good rate. Oh God, we were going to die! The open taxi was summoned and we rattled over the hill to the other side of the island. Oliver offered us a deal whereby if we paid in advance for the return journey, we would get a discount. With some misgivings, the money was handed over; we were also committed now to the last ferry at 5 o’clock.
We were dropped at the back of the famous Soggy Dollar Bar, so named because the sailors would swim ashore from their ships and pay for their rum with wet money. The White Bay Beach is a beautiful gently curved beach covered with eye scorching white sand and lined with palm trees. The beach is a very popular day-sail venue, so the bay was dotted with sailboats, catamarans and dinghies. The people alighting from these boats were almost exclusively white, twenty-something, beautiful, loud and American. We headed to the part of the beach furthest from them, but after some snorkelling & swimming, the most entertaining activity became the people watching. Without exception, they rolled off the boats into the water (pronounced war–der) and proceeded to the bar for iced drinks. This part of the process was completed without wetting any part of their bodies above the waist. Drinks purchased, they than stood around in the shallows ribbing each other. One man looked irritated when Ciaran swam quite close to him, he held his drink higher lest any seawater should splash in. My favourite conversation piece, which drifted over, was from a girl with improbably large breasts “Oh my Gawd, I have never seen waves this big in the Caribbean (pronounced with emphasis on the Car), it’s like totally ruined my day.” I think that maybe her hair had got wet.
After a while, a conch is blown from the boat to call the partygoers back. This was my favourite part of the afternoon, rather than abandon their iced drinks or knock it back in one, they would all complete a complicated manoeuvre of walking, then swimming, then paddling on their backs to the boat with the drink held above the waves. It was like watching the culmination of some strange evolutionary process.
The English in the Caribbean are just as much a type but they are quieter and therefore less entertaining. Typically, they are older sailing types. The Dad is playing the experienced weather-worn captain, but overall he’s pretty pleased with himself – he is rich enough to take his whole family sailing in the Caribbean after all. Mum is practical, hair slicked back with seawater, absolutely no make-up. The children (two) are gorgeous, tanned and with that self-assurance that comes with a life of privilege. They always have the right gear on. They have never come ashore to party; they just have to get provisions, so that they can sail off into unchartered territory again, probably to a little private beach that even the locals don’t know about.
The third group of tourists that is completely separate is the black Americans. Some beaches appear to be completely one colour. At White Bay, one end was black, the other white. The degree of self-segregation is surprising and discomforting.
Caesar suddenly popped up on the beach, to tell us how right he was to send us over this way. He clearly saw us as the strangest group on the beach; 5 people laying in the shade, reading. He thought that we were forcing the children to read against their desire to party. More reassuringly, Oliver the taxi driver did come back for us and we were able to escape from this crazy island. The day wasn’t quite what I’d plan, but I think my family were grateful?!?
After a few hours of slouching around the pool, we were called to assemble at about 10:30 yesterday morning by the dinner table to do battle. Mum and Dad wanted to go out to explore the island, to drive up into the mountains and perhaps hike to the highest point of the BVI. They wanted to check out the rainforest in the National Park up there and maybe have lunch in this wonderful sounding restaurant affording panoramic views of the surrounding islands from atop a mountain peak. Liam and Ciaran did not. I was initially ambivalent until I realized it would be more than 12 hours until I went to sleep. In the villa, there are two things to do – swim or read. 6 hours of each? I had to admit it was a bit of a stretch even by Hegarty standards, so I threw my lot in with Mum and Dad. Lucky I did too, in light of their eventual (inevitable?) victory.
We dragged ourselves into the car and started up the mountain. The views were pretty spectacular all the way up, so it was a hot, slow journey, frequently punctuated by stops to take photos. All three of us boys were sandwiched in the back. Dad seemed snappy. For a cherry on top, Ciaran managed to step on goat shit at some point and brought the smell back into the car. Mum washed it off and stuck it in the boot, but the smell stuck with us for all 1750 feet of Tortola, up to the car park a half hour’s walk from the summit of the BVI.
The walk to the top was sweaty and steep but (in my opinion) great fun. The path was gnarled and jungly and looked like it was leading to some crusty Incan tomb. On this holiday I've managed to pretend in my head I am James Bond, (ordering alcohol by the moorings from the waitress: "Red Stripe...shaken, not stirred") Jason Bourne, (floating face down in the pool with the lights off as the authorities come to get me) and now Indiana Jones, hacking my way through dense jungle in search of treasure. Quality. The view from the top was the best yet. The humidity of this part of the world means there is usually some degree of haze hanging in the sky, and this means that when you look out to the sea from a great height (such as from the top of Tortola), it’s hard to make out any definite horizon, any line dividing sea and sky. It’s all just a steady, calm and constant blue. We foolishly brought with us to the top no map of the criss-crossing paths that make up this park, so finding our way off the top was like tumbling down the stairs and hoping to land on our feet. Getting to the top was easy (keep going uphill) but trying to find our way back to the specific entrance we came from (one of many) was a bit more of a lucky draw. Nevertheless, we tumbled down alright, all the way into the off-season/under-construction restaurant/giftshop/smoothie bar owned by a peculiar smiley Brit whose name we can’t remember. We’ll call him Jonathan. He was interesting. While we sucked on the mango smoothies he made us, he talked to Dad (though he was really addressing all of us. Dad didn’t say much, just more than the rest of us) all about hurricanes, immigration, and why he loves it so much here. We learnt an awful lot about the BVI from him. He also displayed a pretty incredible knowledge of World Economics for a shopkeeper. He threw out all sorts of UK growth figures and stock market quotations and we nodded, scared to open our mouths lest we be revealed as the economic ignoramuses we really are. He wasn’t doing it in any sort of self-conscious or intimidating way though, he was just making conversation with us folks. He talked about people leaving the Caribbean to live in England, and had no qualms about saying, in front of 5 Londoners, “To my way of thinking at least, I can’t see any reason why anybody would leave here to go over there. I mean, really, what on earth have you got?” I quietly sucked on my straw to calm the sudden surge of defensive patriotism I felt. But I liked him; he made a living selling smoothies and posters on top of a mountain.
Actually that's not quite true. "The Yout" voted to have a chill-out day (like there is any other kind on a Caribbean holiday) so we spent the day at home, doing lots of reading, lounging around in and out of the pool and getting dive bombed by Stukka.
We did manage to drag ourselves out in the evening however, visiting the resort hotel at Long Beach for dinner in their beach restaurant. Food was pretty good, a buffet of local Tortola food, served on an eat-as-much-as-you-like basis, which is always a winner with The Noo-Noo and his friend. We tucked into ribs, jerk chicken, peas'n'rice, mahi-mahi, fried plantain, corn-bread and ox tail (which Liam loved) then watched the lightning as a storm came in and the rain poured down.
All this doing nothing is well and good but it was time to strike out for somewhere. We had been told more than once to go to Smuggler’s Cove, named so – well I’m sure that you can guess – because it is beautiful and the snorkelling is great. Nobody lied. It is a perfect little heart shaped beach with a reef starting at the shore. The sand is white and the sea is that beautiful aquamarine that you see in every photo of the Caribbean. The variety of fish that we saw was phenomenal and I wish that my knowledge was greater to share them with you. But suffice to say that we saw every size, shape and exquisite colour.
The reef was quite close to the surface, so it was safer to swim around it, but coming in the last time, I messed up and ended up in waters too shallow to swim in and too slippy and wavy to stand up in. The result was cuts and bruises all over my hands and legs and possibly a little black spine from a sea urchin embedded in my heel. All this adds rather beautifully to my insect bites to make my legs rather attractive!
After a few days here, we are starting to get the measure of this unique place. At first, it seemed that it had no culture of its own, that it had only borrowed culture from the current dominating power (now the US) and with traces of all the previous powers that have passed through. But with longer here, it feels that the culture is the ability to survive these passing phases, to be completely dependent on the economies outside of the islands but to remain completely independent. People who live here cannot contemplate living anywhere else and they are fiercely proud of what it means to be an islander. They must be outward looking and that makes them knowledgeable about the world and its affairs, but far from feeling cut off from where it’s all at, they are glad when some of the world’s problems pass them by. However, the people that we have interacted with have been predominantly white, perhaps we only know half of the story.
Not sure that I can follow Ciaran’s entry, that boy can tell a good story. The day on the island was as magical as he described. For adults, who I know are interested, you can no longer hire the whole island, when you could it was $10,000 a night, 3-night minimum. Now there is just a little one-bedroom cottage on the beach, which is rented out mostly to honeymoon couples. For everyone else, money cannot buy you a visit.
Mick & I spent some of the day reflecting on whether Jon & Katie’s life is as idyllic as it seems. It certainly works for them but it is not for everybody and not for us. The day of snorkelling & kayaking was more exhausting that we had realised so much of today was spent in reflection, reading or lazing in the pool.
The house here is beautiful, painted in bright Caribbean colours with orange walls, mint green roofs and blue woodwork. The main room is completely open with windows with shutters but no glass. The dining area is the terrace. The three bedrooms are like separate houses opening onto a courtyard, which resembles a mini town square.
We share the house with a nest of young Pearly-eyed Thrashers and their ever-attentive mother (click on picture below to see the glint in her eye!) who swoops at us each time we get too close to the nest. She also comes into the kitchen to forage for food and was caught standing on a packet of bread dive-bombing it with her beak in an almost successful attempt to break through the plastic.
Around the house is the very noisy rooster complete with hen and chicks as well as numerous lizards and koi in the pool, but by far the greatest amount of wildlife is bugs, large and small but all of them intent on finding white skin to munch on. Our legs look like we have all caught leprosy – not a good look!
Our view from the terrace is spectacular, looking across lush green vegetation down to the coast, the sparkling sea and across to the island of Jost Van Dyke.
The first few nights here, the moon was fairly full but this night, the sky was clear and the moon dimmed enough to reveal the beauty of the heavens. We lay down by the pool, looking up at shooting stars, satellites and all the constellations and clearly visibly was the milky way. The best star viewing I have ever experienced. Then Michael started to freak out at the swooping bats…..
ANTZ! ANTZ! ANTZ! I hate ants and guess what the villa is full of 'em! They are the devil in disguise. They crawl on you, they crawl on your food e.g both of our cereal box's and my sandwich which mike took a bite out of! YUK! Liam like to say ants are my equivalent to Indiana Jones and Snakes well any way lets move past ants.
Now before I tell you a about day 4, I feel obliged to tell you my part of the holiday up to now. Wake up at 4. Feel grumpy. Airport. WAY TOO LONG FLIGHT. Heat. Wait for hours. Plane. Laugh at dad. Moan at dad. Swim. DAY 2. Swim. Swim. Go out. Swim. Swim. Swim.DAY 3. Swim. Swim. Beach. Swim in sea. Get pushed under the sea by wave. Swim. Swim. Get pushed under the sea by wave. Swim. Home.
Day 4
Today was probably one of those days you will remember for the rest of your life! It started of with me waking up at 6 O'Clock in the morning. I started to read my book (which I just started) seeing as no-one else would get up for another 4 hours. I read for maybe and hour until I realized that this book was a sequel to another book which I hadn't read. So with no more books and 3 hours to kill I resorted to one thing ' THE POOL' So I swam. And swam. And swam. Until eventually LIFE! Mum woke up.
Later I found out that we were going to Jon's Island to snorkel, So we quickly bought some snorkeling gear and met up with Jon. Who took us on one hell of a boat ride to his island!
When we arrived Jon told us were to go and that he'd meet us there, so we headed of across this beautiful beach. Now when I say beautiful I mean a beach that looked like it was from a film or a dream. The palm trees were swaying in the wind. There were hammocks HAMMOCKS! There was crystal white sand. It was Perfect. Jon met us at this house on the beach itself with drinks. He told us were to go snorkeling and that if we wanted to we could go Kayaking. Which if you have read the Blog that michael did 'Two weeks Seven states' you would know we've done it before. So of into the sea we parade with snorkels on and eager minds! The minute I plunge my head into that water I know I'm gonna have a good time. There were fish, more fish and coral. It was amazing! We swam onwards and see tons of fish but what blew me back was when we were swimming through what I could swear was Tens of Thousands of tiny fish no bigger than my thumb. I could of stared at it for ages until Jon came with Pizza!
We ate the pizza with in minutes, me and liam after food went out to enjoy the beach. he lay in the hammock and me left swimming in the nice warm sea. After maybe 45 minutes we split up into blue team and green team (Blu= the mikes Gre= me, mum and the rest). the Blue team were going Kayaking and the Green snorkeling. Half way through my snorkeling I joined the Blue team in there Kayaking. The transition was dodgy but somehow I lived. Mike complained of leg cramp so we went back to the land. Dad and Mike were then planning to go Snorkeling but I said otherwise. So Dad had to go out again in the kayak with me. A minute later I knew exactly why mike was talking about leg cramps.
Mum saw us and asked if she could go kayaking so me and mum then set out (again) on the kayack (again) into the sea (again). To be honest mum was kinda lazy. Half the time I was doing all the work!
Me and Blackbeard docked at what landfolk call Arrrrgh beach! We abandoned ship and swam to Ye ol' diving platform where miiiike was before.
Now before I do turn into a pirate I'll start to talk english. Now the diving platform was all slimy and green and had lots of holes in it, I'm surprised it isn't at the bottom of the sea which was only a couple of feet away and because the water was so clear you could see the bottom. In england you couldn't see one inch down! So I jumped in a couple of times and the set off for land.
Now that we were all dry and ready to go home we were offered a lift to the top of the island to the owners house. Now if you've read the Killington 2008/9 you know when I like somthing I can go on for EVER about it. The house was one of those things. Now I cant't explain but picture's probally can.
After looking at the Dream House which by the way Mel Gibbson, Heath Richards and Johnny Depp had all stayed in! We got on the boat home.
We had dinner Pusser's before making our way home where I had a nice swim in the pool and then I decided that it was time to go to be- ZZZzzzzZZzzZZZzzzz...-d.
Today we got our first proper taste of the Caribbean, walking from Limeberry to our nearest beach at Long Bay, about 10mins walk. Most of that is through what looks to our city-boy eyes to be jungle, so there was lots of excitement and talk about Vietnam films before we emerged blinking into the daylight: The beach is amazing, perfect sand, warm clear waters, waves not big enough to surf maybe but big enough to turn you upside down if you get a bit lippy. It was also deserted, perhaps in part due to our city-boy nous guiding us to go to the beach at midday, so we could fry our lilly-white skins in the hottest part of the day!
Thankfully we escaped without too much damage, just a feint sizzling sound and a whiff of bacon as we walked home. Our local contact Jon has been encouraging us to get out more, and we were almost tempted to catch Maxi Priest, who was playing at the next bay up from Long Bay, bit in the end sitting on our arses won the day.
I continued my reading frenzy, and finished my first Chuck Palahnick novel - Survivor. Clare and Mike are both fans and it was actually from Clare's holiday reading pile, which I'd had to raid on desperation. Terrific book, like to read some more of his stuff, Fight Club next I guess.
Anyway the day ended on a high as LIAT finally found my bag and I was able to shave, shower and put on clean clothes, much to the relief of everyone in Limeberry and indeed the West End of Tortola.
First day on the island we basically just took our time and got our bearings. Spent the morning unpacking then headed into Road Town, the main town on Tortola (and the British Virgin Islands) to get our victuals. We found a big supermarket that had pretty much everything you need, even down to Waitrose Pesto! We also grabbed a lovely lunch at The Moorings, where the kids discovered the delights of Maraschino Cherries ("The Fruit That Made Oregon Famous" would you believe).
I also finished my first book of the holiday, Manicdotes by Chris Joseph. I know Chris quite well, though I haven't seen him for 25 years. We were at Liverpool University at the same time and spent our first year living in Morton House, ground floor of B block as I remember. I therefore can't be an objective critic, but I thought the book was terrific. Its a series of anecdotes that provide a skeleton autobiography, and a large part of it portrays the impact that bipolar disorder has had on his life. Chris says that this first hit him a few years after he left university, so it was never a factor when I knew him. Even at that stage however he had had a more interesting life than anyone I met, having already started at University once before, quit to pursue a vocation as a Catholic priest, spent time in a Benedictine monastery, worked as a night club bouncer, and worked in a steel factory where he lost his right arm in a horrific accident. As you might guess, the next 2o-plus years have not been uneventful and I hope our paths cross again some day.
There must be a better way to start a holiday than a 4am alarm getting you out of bed.
To be fair, my holiday actually did start better than that, as the alarm was to get Clare out of bed and I hung on in sleepy denial for another 20mins or so before bowing to the inevitable. We've had a busy 2009, and haven't been away since Christmas, so we're all ready for a good break.
We'd had a bit of hassle getting Ciaran a last minute passport (long story) so were delighted the journey went well, we got out on time, checked in early, took off on time and had a good flight over. We'd booked Virgin, the family favourite, so enjoyed a couple of films with "Looking for Eric" as the standout:
The Virgin plane landed at 1pm local time and we then had a few hours to kill in Antigua airport before catching the LIAT airlines flight to Beef Island in Tortola. This was quite a cool flight as it was a small propeller plane, full with less that 40 people on board. It was more like getting on a bus than a plane, especially as it had a row of five seats across the back, perfect for the naughty kids coming home from school, or the Hegarty family going on holiday. This flight was only an hour and while the views either side were pretty cool everyone was too dozy from the long day to get very excited. Things got more excited when we landed in Tortola, as it turned out that the plane had carried rather less luggage than passengers. We were relatively lucky as we got four bags our of five, but mine was nowhere to be seen. Our host, Jon, later explained that LIAT stands for Luggage In Another Terminal, though in fact that is only one of several affectionate interpretations.
After a 40min queue to fill in a missing luggage form we met with David our taxi driver and came over to Limeberry. It was on this journey that everyone began to realise how different this place was. It wasn't any one thing, but the combination of accents, heat, sounds, vegetation and nightlife are very different to our usual Mediterranean or US holidays. Which is what we were after of course.
Jon met us at the house, we'd said we were fine but when I'd mentioned that this was our first trip to the Caribbean he was keen to welcome us in person. The house looks fantastic, but we all headed for the best part of it - bed.
These are just occasional stories of what we are doing (usually on holiday) for anyone who is interested in reading them - including ourselves maybe, in future years. Let us know what you think and please feel free to comment on any entries, just click on the word "comments"at the end of each entry. Also you can click on any of the pictures to see larger versions.
The Caribbean is a very special place. The downside is the heat (40C most days) & the bugs (billions everywhere), but once you get accustomed to the heat and the bugs start to ignore you, then life is very good indeed. There is a strong sense that the British Virgin Islands will eventually succumb to commercial pressures and become much more like their neighbours. Whilst inevitable, this will be a great shame. I hope that someone has the forethought and vision to develop it whist retaining it's special character; the friendliness of the locals. the very low crime rate (at one hotel resort, the rooms don't have locks!) and the atmosphere of a sleepy backwater that has been complicit in letting the world pass it by. I'll be back, next time with a boat at my disposal, so I can have even easier access to the sea. take advantage of those cooling breezes and explore even further.
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