Cristobal's Virgin Gorda

Now I cannot claim to know much about Virgin Gorda, apart from something that rings in my mind about it meaning "fat Virgin" due to Columbus -  I am not even sure why everyone calls him Christopher Columbus as from all travel guide and historical accounts that I am ploughing through, (that is meant to be sarcasm or irony, but that is another debate that I am not sure I will ever be able to explain, it happened at the dinner table last night with a philosophical, yet much liked by me, friend of the family who in my mind managed to convey irony perfectly without certain people coining on to the fact that he was doing so, it involved mommy and pretentiousness, Charlie Chapman and Rowan Atkinson (somehow!?), Internet searches, attempts to educate kids on things that are way above them and it seems us too and pretence at understanding what a long winded dictionary definition means and the fact that irony and sarcasm are "totally different meanings" although Wiki leads me to believe that "Sarcasm  is usually conveyed through the use of irony." yet they are unrelated?  I find that ironic that mommy does not get irony when used in speech, but claims to know the theoretical constructs behind it...) I feel like i have lost the track here.  

Chritsopher was known as Cristobal Colon and was quite a nasty piece of work!  But this is all speculation and mostly stuff that I am probably making up from memory recall.

SO the fat Virgin is the third largest island in the BVI, after the great Tortola and Anegada (which I WILL visit, although I suspect it is like most of the other islands around here and has beaches, beaches and more beaches, however I heard it was flat and had "good riding", but in comparison to Norman Island's "GREAT Riding" I am not going to get my hopes up.  Anyway it is good to know I am in the hub of things, the largest island in the BIV, Tortolla, it doesn't get bigger than this, makes me feel that my travelling constraints make me miss out on a bit less.  Looks like day trips and ferries for me.

The plan was to go to VG with a new found SAFFA friend accountant, but she like all my accountant friends it seems had to work on the weekend! GASP.  So trip was cancelled, but being the great solo explorer that I am I decided to go anyway, after another solo ride.  (I did what turns out to be the Tour de la Tortola on Saturday morning, got up at 5.30 to be on the bike to be able to get back for duty which involved sitting around for most of the day), but my tour was awesome, took the road up from Carrot bay onto the Ridge Road which runs across the top of Tortola and gives a great view of all the bays on either side.  I came out at the East End (Carrot bay is West End) and rode down to the Airport on Beef Island and then back along the coastal road, up Steel Point (the best piece of riding, even if it is jeep track, on the island so far that none of the mountain bikers like because it is too technical) and home.  Sunday was pretty much the same, met the riders in town at 7am for our Sunday ride, I am not sure if it was my imagination, but I was the only Sunday Rider, although I did catch up to the Ballies on the way doing their own Sunday ride and they took it in turns to keep me entertained and tag team ride with me.  Mike ended up taking me up the East End to the Prison, which overlooks Guana Island, an amazing looking reserve off the North East Coast (might involve a bit of paddle board exploration soon).  I think that, like the Shanty Towns in SA the Prison is prime real estate, it looks over some of the biggest villas that I have seen on the island - is it ironic that the prisoners are held captive in one of the best places on the island overlooking some of the best places to "acquire" things on the island? hehe hehe hehe ;p

I made friends with Bolo at Speedy's Ferry and he quickly convinced me to do the touristy thing and book with Speedy's to get a round trip to the Baths, where everyone and their kitchen sink go to on Sunday, but it was 38 dollars well spent to be able to get on a Ferry, be ferried over and hop on a taxi and be taken to the baths.

Taxi!

Met a great couple on the Taxi from New York, both retired teachers, both part of a set of twins!  Amazing.  So we had much to talk about on the quick taxi trip to Devil's Bay and the Baths which are only two of the some 20 secluded beaches on the island and yet they were so amazing I did not feel that I needed to explore further.  I do feel that I need to go back and see Virgin Gorda again though!  Maybe camp on the beach.  I took a stroll along the top path in the Nature reserve to come out at Stone Beach or something which lead me through some amazing Tropical Desert Scrub, I think they call it.  Got a bit carried away photography cacti and fat blue sluggish lizards that by the time I got to the caves (big granite boulders forming tunnels through echoy watery pathways) and the baths I had very little battery left, but then also there were so many people about it was like walking up Plattekilp on a good day, takes a bit of the novelty away.

I got a picture or two of the most photographed rocks in the world (with local included), saw some of the most amazing coral formations on the boulders, a sting ray, a jellyfish, a tarpon(?) and numerous other indescribable fish (mental note, get under water camera for next time!), swam through cracks between rocks, felt like a fish, forgot to breath (you get so absorbed in the underwater world), perved over the guy from St Johns Ferry Tour Company who seemed to be holding out a Triton at the bow of his boat looking like the male version of a figure head intent of impressing his tourists (I wonder if that is part of the package, must say he did an awful good job of it!), made friends with some middle aged (shh don't tell that is how I described them) American lads who allowed me on board their boat where said perving over St John's boy went on much to their dismay and crude jokes where made about his spear... after which they showed me pictures of the little league football playing kids, bitched about child maintenance, fed me "Zings" and educated me on the likes of country music :) the advantages of dating "granny" the air hostess, drunk fishing, drunk sailing, drunk domino's, drunk.... what an experience!   

SaiLIiNG, SaLT iSLAND, GeTTiNG hoRizontaL ANd CoCONUT ANTicS

Wednesday and Thursday were spent at sea.  Julia advised me to sail with the boys' and Omari to Salt Island as it has one of the best dive sites in the Caribbean, the wreck of the Rhone, the royal Mail ship which ran ashore in 1867 taking 125 persons with her.  Quite a tragic story about how the Rhone sank in a storm after taking on board passengers from another ship, The RMS Conway, as she was a much larger sturdier ship and the Captains agreed it would be safer for the passengers to make the journey from Great Harbour (Peter Island) to Road Harbour (Tortola) as the weather was worsening, however they decided it was too late in the season for Hurricanes (it being October).  The aftermath of the hurricane which turned out to be one of the worst in the history of the West Indies, resulted in only three houses in the entire BVI standing and the death of an additional 36 people.  http://www.saildivebvi.com/rhone.php  Turned out we took an IC23 to Norman Island on Wednesday so I had to brave another sea voyage on Thursday. (I have had a bit too much slat and sea I think and really felt I needed a rest from being salty hot and wet, but succumbed to promises of the best snorkeling in the BVI).  Salt Island and the wreck of the Rhone were well worth more Salt and Sea.  The island itself is not very big, but has an incredible salt pan spanning a large portion of it and fascinating deserted houses.  No one lives on the island any longer, but it seems to be a quick stop for tourists to come and "see what they can sea",  most people while we were there docked up, strolled the 200m took a picture and left.  

The intrepid (why do I always want to call explorers intrepid) explorers set off to "sea what they could see" or visa versa.  Found the salt pan, without having to ask for directions (like some of the tourists!) and went galavanting to the top of one of the hills on the island, not that there was much more to see!  A good view of where the Rhone wreck occured and some nice pictures sports and opportunity for George to exercise his diagonal flare at photo taking, us trapsing around goat paths and exercising our skill at stomping in hot black slaty mud and burning our toes!

  All of this while the less intrepid explorers decided to get horiZontal...

  

And More Horizontal...

 

Master of Horizontal... (and speed boat antics, Caribbean style dancing and Madagascar immitations.)

Now Hayley told me that I do not qualify as a true islander until I have picked my own coconut (I am guessing that picking one UP does not count as picking one, but I plead handi cap as I battle to climb a horizontal tree as is!)

After a long walk on the beach (read intrepid explorers glopping through sallt pans) I did come across someone who struck me as wantom of making a good coconuty companion (admitedly  I would have resorted to canibalism had Omari not told me said coconutty companion would not taste very nice), so was "BOB" born.

"BOB"

BOB and I we bonded, there is quite a lack of decent single men on the island, not sure if those stories aree blog worthy though!  Some might take offence, but the onslaught of somewhat rather forward locals has been interesting.  Maybe it was my fault after all, apparently if you make eye contact it means that your are game or in love or something, not a good quality I guess considering the thing I do best is make eye contact - oops!

BOB Bondage

Not BOB

 To end the day off I shall let the pictures speak louder than words.  I still maintain NOT MY FAULT!!

 Okay Pictures and sound effects, "gaduf gaduf gaduf vvvvrrrrr (car slows down, we check it out, can't see what source of Gaduff is, we take off again noise gets worse, stop at garage, phone dad tell him not sure what is happening but back wheel making noise, go check it our again all of a sudden it explodes! in George's eye!  Thank goodness not too bad.)

Let it be noted the other one blew three days later.  Coincidence?  Apparently I am a terrible driver.  Maybe why I would rather be on a bike.

Awaiting our rescue crew

The WeeKeNd thaT waS aNd perhaps Some of The weeK thaT be

"Sailing Camp" to the rescue!  The boys were "shipped" off (hehehe...) for the week so mine was reasonably free!  Although I ended up spending most of it with them anyway as it was a great opportunity to get out and see some of the other islands.

Enter Rico:

My "Friend" from St Thomas, I say "Friend" because I had only met him once on my flight over from San Juan to St Thomas when I  was first making my way to the island.  He now lives on St Thomas working at a restaurant / bar.  A bit awkward trying to explain to "mommy" that I'm meeting up with "a friend" from St Thomas when in reality I don't really know the guy - I like to think I have good judgement!  Turns out I am not far off, Rico being a well travelled Maths teacher, how perfect with similar interests and keen for adventure over sipping or glugging rather, rums on beaches!  But due to dismay with the system took up travelling and bar tending (at the moment) on St Thomas.  Met up at Road Town Ferry and showed him the Botanical Gardens - my first time too.  Not all that impressive, but interesting to see a selection of different tropical plants.

 





We also explored Road Town and Old Main Road which used to be on the water's edge before land was reclaimed.  Amazing old houses, such a mixture of dilapidation and old colonial styles:

Old Main Road Contrasting Houses

The GReaT TradeShiP to be

here's the plan - we gather an elite group of utopian hippies (have you read aldous huxley's brave new world, i haven't but stumbled across it in a quaint - aren't all bookshops quaint - little bookshop today, who shows a traveler a bookshop anyway? alas huxley was trumped by "the little prince" and a novelish about the caribbean, i am hoping to gather insights that are hopefully, but unlikely to be, accurate about island life, wonder if much has changed?  i signed up for my loyalty card too now this, the unspoken rule of never giving a traveler a book is defeated by the fact that i get 50% off a book if i buy ten!  so going to have to do that, it's logical isn't it. i have already earmarked one on Taoism and rastafarianism, because they go together...

and here i got distracted again.  SO, we find hippies,  a few elite hippies, to join us in disparaging (i guess if i am going to use this word in ablog i should know what it means? i'm torn between appearing intellectual and disregarding punctuation and spelling because i probably will get most of that wrong anyway)  so the hippies purge their lifes' belongings (disparage works if you consider someone mocking his or her life possessions, i have visions of a hippy throwing monty python insults at his or her cat? he would not have any issue with discarding them eh?) apart from their yoga mats, climbing shoes, mountain bikes and cats of course.  Hippies on board we sail off into the sunset with our fish catching cats and knot tying skills and other indispensable tantric abilities, we head around the world, that's what you do when you get on "Myot" or "Ouryot" depending on co founders influence on names, personally i wouldn't go for ninjayot, it would probably get vito'ed so don't even try.    We travel to various countries (not sure which ones yet, we can spin a globe and go where ever the donkey's tail lands, providing it's not an inflatable globe, after all we're on a boat with allknowingallpowerful queen legend, ruler of all apart from benoni an dsome parts of new zealand's south island, since we're on a baot if destiny would have us  hit the middle of the pacific we can do that too (i hear they have nice islands there).  we shall stop off at countries that take our fancy and every now and then impart some knowledge and trade skills (i will cover massage therapy and yoga, we can leave the reiki to the REAL weird hippies, providing we have not chucked them off the side of the boat together with the vegans)

we might have to trade skills for money - it is idealistic to believe everyone will contribute fairly if we don't have a minor donation for the "kitty" and besides we need a job for Luke.  to appear to have an ultruistic motive we can pop by the poor schools on our travels and provide some sort of education, be green, save the planet, global warming is a good one these days? or we can tell the kids about how cool it is living on a solar power running boat full of vegetarians who only eat vegetables and drink soy cappachino's to ensure all natural excretory byproducts to provide good growth hormones for fish yacht (depending on whose name gets pulled out of the cycling helmet).  if we're short on cash we can drop our morals a bit and exploit the rich international schools, but then we might have to make a powerpoint presentation and so far i am finding this blog thing to be challenging enough!

Treasure Hunt, Scrub Island, Peg Legs, Race Face and hallowed COFFEE!!!

23. Jul, 2012

I was coming to terms with leaving the island, but it it is like a treasure hunt and the longer I stay the more I discover. Each day gathering bits of information and meeting new people. I was thinking, “it’s not so bad that I have to leave, there aren’t really that many young active people on this island, and social life seems to revolve around bars and rum punches, which can get a bit much when it happens EVERY evening and your “elite athlete” body can only take one Mojito at a time because rum is cheaper than mix (on the island I feel like I could qualify for an Olympic Medal, when the MTB club races have a total of 13 people racing and just about everyone in the race comprises a different category so you are bound to walk away with some sort of medal! But that was meant to be written about last week.)

So like I said, I had come to terms with a departure, I mean, no young sporty people, no coffee, that is barely survival! But then this weekend rocked that boat! The treasure hunt started at 6.35am (well 6.30, but you always get to account for Caribbean time, good thing it ties in well with Cape Town time!) on Beef Island, in the East End, think furthest away from Carrot Bay that one can Travel. Diligently I surfaced at 5.05am (I knew I had the extra 5min of course and took to my adventure along Ridge Road, needless to say being my first time, I got lost. Fortunately not to horribly and my reversing skills have shaped up pretty well since I have been here, admittedly a 4×4 does help.

Upon arrival competition was sussed out – usual eye balling the competition etc – it happens here too! Although it seems the running club is slightly more competitive than the MTB club, but then perhaps like I said earlier that ties in with the distinction among classes for the MTB club where everyone comprises his or her own category, the running club to my delight seemed to comprise a single class – young expats between the ages of 20 – 35 or there abouts YES PLEASE! Amazing scenes, I found a trove of people who were willing to get up at 5am to run ten kms on a hot humid rock knowing that pre race jitters would not be appeased by a toilet visit (there are never any toilets at the start of races, something I think I need to rectify, when I asked one of my fellow “elite” athletes where the toilet was he just laughed at me and said, “this is racing on Tortola, there are never any toliets at the start of the race, you get used to it.” My race guts aren’t steel, I found a bush, thank goodness for my eco friendly biodegradable (i am not joking) wet wipes and Adventure Racing “noshame” training.

Race tactics were to try stick with Kat, Katrina? Kate? who was leading the series and had done her last race in 50min (no I am not competitive at ALL and never went online to see what time the winning ladies ran in…) I figured I could I SHOULD make a 50min 10km (forget 6months out and not much running training, hopefully the yoga paid off!) Turns out it did, also turns out Kate Kat K? Runs a slightly faster pace when she has a South African Rabbit on her tail. She did her PB 46min (I believe the 50min was her last PB) and I did a 47min to take 3rd, we won’t talk about Elana Meyer (Kat’s training partner who slashed most of the men to take first, did I mention that they train ;p) it would be arrogant of me to say I was saving energy because of the battle of the classes GREAT TORTOLA MTB race of ’012 hey? Best part of it all though, swimming in the ocean and it feeling slightly cooler than usual, much needed and meeting a whole bunch of expats, the fact that most of them are Lawyers shall be struck from this post.

After the race the hunt continued, obviously I had SO much energy left over I had to go exploring, unfortunately I seemed to tire the competition out and they all went home for a plunge pool and a nap. SIGH. I was told Trellis Bay, a little touristy market type place and low key marina area on Beef Island, near the airport slash landing strip on the only flat area on the island, had good coffee. It does not. Ended up taking a free ferry to Scrub Island (about 2km by 2km with grand hotel resort on it), Ferry was free, however we arrived and I looked and thought, mm okay now what. Not much going on, but I did get to abuse the facilities, meet the manager (blush) and walk the island flat before hopping back on the ferry, stalking new found Lawyer friends, sliding the car (the roads were wet from afternoon shower and I have no tread as it turns out on the rear wheels, mental note taken for future wet weather conditions, it was fun, shh don’t tell mom) discovering that the REAL big houses are on the East End of the island and if I thought my driveway was steep I had something coming when I took a detour to find new friends at their place on top of the hill at the East End above Lamberts bay. We ended up at Peg Legs (Nanny Quey, if I had to have a local I guess I would have to admit to frequenting Peg Legs, it’s a beach bar and quite kiddy friendly, maybe why I know my way to it so well), it also has a pool (pools are covetted things on this Island, one gets so over being salty and wet all the time that pools provide much relief). Think bachelor bachelorettes beach cocktail pool party, not too conducive to mountain bike race the next day!

THE BEAST

Thank goodness for my upgrade though, alas THE BEAST had to be disgarded for the STEED, a Trek with average components, but at least it gets up the hills! Actually I think it was one of two bikes to make it up the hill, can’t remember its’ name, on Sunday. If they had a medal for queen of the mountains I am sure I would have got that one on Sunday (so Modest, this island is JUST what my ego needed ;p). So I managed to keep up with the boys on the way out, stoked, they left me at Steel Point, (West End, about the best bit of offroad on the island) and directions got a bit hazy from there, but after getting a bit lost and having to wait for Alistar for directions on a few occasions we teamed up for the Roady Part of the race (headwind on the flats home) and managed a 4th. The Medal Ceremony went something like this – Grand Masters – Tom First, Masters – Tim First, Vets – Alister First, Sub Vets – Spencer First, if there is another Masterscumgrandmasterscumvets class – soandso Firts, New Comers Award – Nico First, Ladies – Kat First, Men – (can’t remember his name) First, etc etc…

The Medal Ceremony was followed by Tour de France viewing at Mulligans (another pub that we went to for breakfast, I am hoping that their rum punches are better than their baked beans on toast!) and… heaven in a cup from another new discovery in Nanny Queys backyard! A great little coffee shop, ROOTS, my soon to be new favourite hang out.

HOW will I ever leave the island now knowing that there are in fact people between the ages of 20-34 and COFFEE

Scrub Island Scrub

The Other Side of Scrub

Scrub Island Coral

Scrub Island Legend Scrub