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This Woman Was Here

A Do-It-Yourselfer's Life Journey

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Virgin Gorda

The generator isn’t working but Dave made an appointment with a Moorings technician to meet us at the Bitter End in Gorda Sound tomorrow morning after we do the baths today.

The sail from Norman Island to Virgin Gorda was maybe three hours of exciting tacking back and forth into the wind.

The Baths

The Baths

The Baths at Virgin Gorda is a huge boulder field of above and below water smooth, rounded boulders and sandy beaches. The boys did some rock climbing but at midday the boulders were too hot to climb. The snorkeling was the best we’ve had yet. At first all we saw were schools of shinners glinting blue and emerald in the water, but when we rounded the larger boulders and started swimming up the underwater canyons between them, the fish and coral and sea fans were everywhere. Swimming through vertical cliff faces covered with coral and tropicals was magical—like being on a deepwater dive on a cliff wall. Dave and Robin walked the inland path between beaches—through a steep boulder field, but we spent the entire time, over an hour, swimming from one beach to the other through underwater canyons.

Then we sailed another couple of hours to the harbor at the Bitter End Yacht club.

IMG_5749I had to make a menu adjustment because the canned crab I brought wasn’t suitable for the crab cakes I had planned, so I went with crab risotto to which I added chive cream cheese and green onions, very rich and delicious. Dessert was a flourless chocolate torte I had made at home with whipped cream and strawberries.

It takes a few days to adjust tot he rhythm of sailing—wind and sun and the sound of waves, the horizon dotted with hazy blue islands. The boys have gotten good at raising and lowering the sails and picking up and releasing moorings.

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The Dogs and Trellis Bay

Jordan motored Steve and I ashore to buy more provisions (2 dozen eggs and two green peppers for $15). The shore is a high-end landscaped strip of shops and bars along the water with hotel cottages sprinkled on the mountain face above at the end of long flights of stairs. The view would be lovely but I wouldn’t want to have to climb those stairs after a night of rum punches. The boys rented a sunfish sailboat for an hour while we waited on the mechanic and had to be ingloriously towed in from the mouth of the harbor because the interior plug hadn’t been put in, and their hull filled with water, which made it hard for them to get out of irons. The boat mechanic didn’t arrive until a little before nine, so we won’t have time to make Anegada today. Instead, we’ll sail to Trellis Bay and try for Anegada tomorrow morning. Since Anegada is surrounded by reefs, it’s best to arrive early in the day to have the best visibility in the water to spot the brown of reefs.

Adastra

Adastra

We sailed to the Dogs and anchored off of George Dog beside what has to be a boat out of a James Bond movie, the Adastra out of Hong Kong, a silver spaceship with flying buttresses. It looks like it could as easily submerge as take flight. The cabin steward was setting the table for lunch as we launched the dingy to take us to the end of the island on advice from a departing ship that the current was strong and hard to fight. Dave and JP stayed aboard.

The snorkeling was quite good with more varieties of coral than we’ve seen anywhere else, thin, straw-like branching coral (stag horn?) and rounded globule coral. We were drift snorkeling back towards the boat when I noticed our dinghy floating away carried by wind and current, and JP launched himself into the water in pursuit. Luckily he caught it and we sailed to Trellis Bay, arriving in mid-afternoon. We celebrated with rum punch and headed in to explore Aragorn’s metal sculptures and pottery studio. Huge globe sculptures cut from old mooring balls decorated the beach. They are filled with wood and lit for the full moon party. We didn’t come over on Saturday, figuring it might be hard to pick up a mooring, and indeed we were right, the moorings were filled two days in advance. The boys all got Aragon T-shirts and I got a pair of bamboo dolphin earnings. We also restocked beer and rum and then dinghied out to the Last Resort, an island bar/restaurant with a cage full of parachutes and an iguana. The sun filled the sky behind the mountains with gold, silhouetting the fifteen-foot cactus. The boys played spirited corn-hole and then we watched JP and Jordan split big jenga games.It was dark by the time we left, motoring around the invisible sand bar beside the island and back to the Paradox for chicken fajitas (surprisingly good with canned chicken) and chocolate torte for dessert. After dinner the boys motored over to the Abracadabra and took the girls they had been talking to at the Bitter End (all from Russia and Ukraine by way of San Diego and LA) out to the Last Resort. It turned out that the flipper Dave had recovered at the caves was one of theirs. At the Last Resort, they met a group of young people from all over the world (Australia, Paris, US) working and living on Tortola.

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Snorkeling Anegada and Cane Garden Bay

Kelly showed up a little after eight and we headed north into a stiff wind for a twenty-five minute sail towards horseshoe reef. On the way he pointed out conch island and the the pink flock of flamingoes feeding on shrimp and krill on a shallow reef, both of which we would get closer to on the way back). The snorkeling was the best I’ve seen anywhere, with the most fish and the healthiest coral. We circled two small reefs, with Kelly diving down to look for lobster and keeping his eye on all of us. The reef was between five and fifteen feet deep, with schools of blue tang, Barbados grunts, yellowtail and countless neon blue and yellow tropicals.

We didn’t see any dead or bleached coral, perhaps because the population of Anegada is 250 and the only other boat we saw was a bone fishing charter near the mangroves behind conch island. Kelly suggested that we swim up-curent and then drift back to the boat and do as much of the second reef behind the boat as we felt we could We are all strong swimmers and we stayed together because the current was strong, We were in the water for perhaps an hour and were glad to have rash guards, which keep you moderately warmer. In spite of his efforts, Kelly didn’t come up with a lobster on the first dive but we each found a prize queen conch and Steve found a helmet conch that Kelly promised to show us how to clean at conch island.The conchs were all over the sand bottom. The hardest part was getting back into the boat, but we managed it and went in for a second snorkel at a second reef. Kelley went up to a further reef and came up what must be a four to five pound lobster. We sailed back to conch island, a one hundred by ten foot high island of gorgeous conch shells. Kelly demonstrated how to clean the conch with a hammer and a butter knife and then showed us how to clean the animal. A helicopter went over, startling the flock of flamingoes but the settled into their pink island again and we approached slowly and quietly. When we were perhaps thirty feet from the flock, they took off in a cloud of pink and black, one of the most astounding sights I’ve ever seen. We got to see them do a low circle and settle again onto their feeding reef. Back at our boat, Kelly cleaned the rest of the conch meat and cut our gigantic lobster in two so we could cook it on the grill. He told us to soak both in water with a little vinegar before cooking and also gave us his recipe for conch ceviche, basically lime, onion and manage or orange and green pepper. We will also attempt a coconut cracked conch. All in all the best excursion ever and worth every bit of the sixty dollar a head cost.

We sailed for Cane Garden Bay around one after a lunch of pasta salad with crab, tomatoes, olives, celery, feta, peas, and slaw. The MIT crew, 300 MBA graduates, were just arriving in port, and the moorings were going to be full. Lots of flying fish as we approached Tortola. When we arrived in Cane Garden Bay a little after five, we were greeted by a large green turtle surfacing for air and eyeing us. We celebrated the amazing day with rum punch. By the time we got ourselves together to head into town, it was past six, but luckily Bobby’s Market was still open because we needed more bread, sunscreen, bleach for the conch shells and mango, orange and lime for the ceviche.

Cane Garden Bay

Cane Garden Bay

The town of Cane Garden Bay is charming—one palm tree lined street beside the water with a school, aboveground graveyard, lovely ship-like Baptist church with windows shaped like the prows of ships. Myett’s has a lovely tree covered courtyard and palm lined beach. The sun was setting on a picture post card palm lined beach with Jost Van Dyke silhouetted against the setting sun on the horizon.IMG_5822

I set to work on the ceviche—lime juice and orange and salsa. The dark part of the conch foot covering (the operculum) had to be cut off and the conch chopped and marinated for fifteen minutes. It was delicious served with corn chips. The lobster was done one at a time on the grill (which would accommodate twelve pieces of chicken but only one lobster half).IMG_5805 A little garlic butter and it was heaven, enough for all six of us with sides of coleslaw and pasta salad.Tart key lime pie for dessert. The stars came out and we could see the light sprinkled island of St.Thomas twenty miles away on the western horizon.IMG_5816

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Big Island, Hawaii, dolphin training, snorkeling, whale watching cruise

We went out early in the morning (7:30) to watch the staff feed, check, work with the dolphins. Seeing dolphins up close is amazing. Eight of the twelve dolphins have been born in captivity.

The trainers check the dolphins as they work with them in the morning. Although I have mixed feelings about seeing dolphins in captivity, both trainers and dolphins are quite fond of each other.

Steve and I ventured out to get breakfast (food is outrageously expensive in the resort) and we bought snorkeling gear for less than it would cost to rent it for 4 hours at the resort. We headed up to Hapuna Beach State Park (15 min north of the resort), where we head the snorkeling was good. It’s a huge white sand beach, but has little shade, and the waves were a bit rough for snorkeling on the rocks on both sides of the beach. We found a group of rocks in the middle, and even though the sand was churned up by the waves, we saw quite a few fish and a turtle munching on coral. Next, we tried Anaeho’omalu Bay (5 min from the resort) for snorkeling, but the water was even more turbid than at the first beach. There were fish, but visibility was only a couple of feet, and twice I came head on to large turtles (something of a shock). Our last attempt was in the lagoon at the resort, but again no luck. The bay has ancient Hawaiian fish ponds, used by rulers to keep fish for when they traveled the coast by canoe. The beach also has quite a few cats (cared for by volunteers), and surprisingly, we saw several weasels, which were introduced to the islands in the 1890s to control the rats (pests to the newly popular sugar cane crops). Unfortunately, rats are nocturnal and weasels are not, so they did nothing to the rat population but decimated the native birds.

That afternoon, we went out on a whale watching tour with Hawaiian Nautical. They picked us up at the hotel and drove us back to Anaeho’omalu Bay. There were only 5 of us but they took us out in a 54 catamaran because it was rough, and we would have gotten wet in the smaller zodiac. We felt like we had a private cruise (that included drinks). The captain, Josh, and his crew were informative about the humpback whales that are moving down from Maui at this time of year, at the end of their several month migration from Alaska.

We were extremely fortunate to have six or seven sightings of two whales (more than likely mother and baby). We saw their spouts, their backs rolling, and their flukes when they dove. When we were heading back in, we were treated to a grand finale of male whales breaching farther out. Amazing to see 40 ton animals rising straight up out of the water. It was too far away to get pictures, but luckily, we had binoculars and could get a closer look. The whales are tiny in the video, but it was thrilling to see so many sightings of these huge animals.

The Hilton Waikoloa Village is the most beautiful resort we have ever stayed in. The art collection (over 1800 pieces) is museum quality and lines the walkways between the buildings.

Quite a collection.