The final leg of our BVI tripwas wonderful. After 6 days of island hopping and bare boating, we were ready for land activities. First we enjoyed a little more luxury time lounging in the comfy robes provided by Myetts. Then down to the restaurant for breakfast – Myetts does not begin serving breakfast till 10:00 a.m. ; that allows just enough time for a pre-breakfast swim, then a delicious meal of Eggs Benedict. There were many other scrumptious choices on the breakfast menu to choose from.

We reluctantly took our final swim on the beautiful beach at Cane Garden, and then loaded our luggage into Sandman’s taxi. Next followed a very special 3-hour tour of the island as Sandman took us to see all his “favorite” spots. He included a stop at the top of Sage Mountain, and showed us where the hiking trail begins. This looked like something too good to miss, and I was sorry that we had not allocated enough time to spend part of a day hiking here. Along the way we passed many beautiful villas, and once you are high on the hillsides of Tortola the temperatures are much cooler and breezier than on board. I hope on our return visit we can arrange a land based stay at one of these lovely places.
Sandman also pointed out the thoroughbred racing track, and gave us a very hasty tour of Road Town, again, wish I had allowed more shore time to enjoy.

We checked back into Tamarind Club in time for an afternoon swim and nap. Were greeted by the entourage of pampered pooches who had just returned from a beach outing, and each had a shampoo before joining the guests in the “lobby”. Boat mates Jan and Terri joined us and we shoehorned into a double room for our last night’s stay.

We donned our “elegant attire” for our final night at Brandywine – we had been looking forward to this for months.! Our reservations were made for 6:30 in order to experience the sunset on the terrace. Oh my! What a thrill as we were escorted to terrace tables and watched the sun go down with several boats in full sail as a backdrop. Davide came to our table, propped the menu board on the blue wooden chair and spent about 30 minutes explaining his creations, and life story. Ladies, he is just as handsome as his website photo! The meal and experience (although a warm one) will definitely be the highlight of my trip memories for years to come, including a parting shot of one “elegant” lady vigorously fanning herself with a salad plate!

In the morning it was just a short cab ride to the airport. Kathy put our breakfast out early, making the Tamarind Club very high on our list of “must stay” spots for a return visit. Lack of air conditioning in airport led us to seek out alternate waiting spot at Trellis Bay – big mistake. It was sweltering, we just headed back to airport to wait it out.
Uneventful flight home, where we immediately unpacked our real estate magazines and began dreaming of a return vacation – maybe even a purchase.

Couple of lessons learned: Bareboating is not for sissies, and I learned that I am a BIG SISSY. It’s hot and buggy and difficult to sleep at night if you come from a part of the world (Houston ,Texas) where air conditioning is taken for granted.

Don’t overprovision the boat – we had so much waste!. Everyplace you go there are delicious spots to eat on shore. No one really wanted to be on board cooking in the heat when there were shore options with breezes and ceiling fans.

If you don’t get off the boat, you will miss a whole lot. On shore we met the people who live here, and got a much better picture of island life. Think up unusual on shore activities – we ran into one group of 16 bareboaters who had pre-planned to attend a shore side church service in Virgin Gorda. We wished we had planned to do the same. One of our group commented “all we have seen of the BVI’s is the beach bars” When we go back we will know to include more variety, and more time to explore on island.