Tortola Trip with my daughter, Laura.
Land Based and …. Sober! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/toast.gif" alt="" />
March 14 - 21 2006

Photo Gallery can be found at: http://elrae.smugmug.com/

I swore I was going to turn 50 at some place with palm trees, and I sure picked the right spot! My hubby couldn't take off time from teaching to take a trip, so I went with my daughter, who turns 21 in a couple of weeks. Here's a report that shows that even recovering alcoholics, like myself, can have fun a blast drinking virgin (gasp!!!!!) painkillers while in this heaven on earth. I loved loved loved Tortola.

DAY ONE

The car arrived at 4:00 am to take us to airport. Had uneventful and on time flights via American/American Eagle from Baltimore to Beef Island. Only had 40 minutes between flights in San Juan, but we had all carry-on luggage and it went fine. A quiet cabbie delivered us to the Sugar Mill at about 2:30 am.

Had a low-key check in at the Sugar Mill's bar. Their lunch place had closed at 2:00, and we were hungry, so Concierge Christie said that when the dinner staff arrived they could probably make us a "ham and cheese sandwich." Our room isn't ready so she gives us beach towels. We look at the pool and oooh and ahhh and to their little beach and oooh and ahhh. About an hour later we are driven up the hill to our room. We're on the lower level, the furthest room up the hill. Palms and plants pretty much block the water views, but we like it, like the privacy. Room is really nice, and the whole place feels comfortable and homey. Unpack, get on our swimsuits, and the phone rings … our sandwiches are ready. So we head back down to the restaurant - check-in - bar - gazebo area. They've given us a big tray with two plates, each plate has an enormous ham and cheese club sandwich, pretty sliced melon and fruit, and a slice of pie. Key Lime on one and coconut on the other. A nice surprise; we were expecting bare-bones ham and cheese.

We head to the little beach there and play in the water, until it's time for our dinner reservation there at the Sugar Mill. We're on a package - the adventure package - that includes a jeep rental and a day sail and scuba lessons and an anegada plane trip and four dinners.

Restaurant is really neat, cool stone walls, cool art, cool lighting, great vibe. They give us menus, then come back and say, oops, we gave you the wrong menus. The "right" menus have "Happy 50th Birthday Christina" printed on them. Pretty sweet. I have pumpkin soup (yum) and we both have a big filet on potatoes surrounded by perfectly cooked vegetables. It's good. And we end it with another piece of that terrific key lime pie, which they bring out with a candle while the staff sings a lovely melodic "happy birthday." Nice.

I'm turning 50 on a full moon night, so we walk up to Bomba's. We've been reading web stuff about this place for weeks …

We go up early, around 9:00 pm. Lots of people milling about. I get a coke, Laura gets a Bomba's punch, which she likes a lot. The music is neat. There are folks of all ages. I buy us some mugs, and she visits The Tea Man in the back for a cup of tea. She says it tastes like "dirt." The men like Laura ... it's like that all week. A single young gal without a boyfriend or husband in tow seems to be a real novelty. We mill about, chat with folks, enjoy the DJ music inside and the band outside, read the hilarious signs. Meet lots of nice people and one jerky drunk old man who wants to give us surfing lessons. Laura gets another Bomba's punch but doesn't finish it; she says she's feeling a little wobbly so we head back down the street to the Sugar Mill. We've left just before midnight, and nothing crazy has happened at Bomba Shack.

The bed's a tad hard. But I sleep like a rock in it, as I do all week.

DAY TWO

When Laura wakes up she says she had a restless nights sleep. And her pupils are dilated to the point where she can't read. So we figure that Bomba's punch packs all the after effects of a hallucinogenic drug … without providing any actual hallucinations! Laura thinks the 9:00 pm Tea doesn't pack the wallop of the midnight tea!

After a fruit and yogurt breakfast and a visit to the little Sugar Mill Beach, our rental car arrives and we head off to find Smugglers Cove. I figure that's a good introductory drive for me to take while I adjust to driving on the left. It's a good first drive. Easy to find. Long dirt road. Of course I have my big grin on; it's so exciting to visit the places I've been reading about for years. Smugglers is beautiful. It's not empty by a long shot - there were about 75 people there. Still, it's relaxing, and gorgeous. I could stare at the colors of the water forever. We hang out there most of the day, then come back and get frozen drinks at Sugar Mill (a nice virgin daiquiri fer me) and take a dip in the pool. Laura sees chicks following a chicken. I don't know how my husband would react to the steady [censored]-a-doodle-dooing that starts at about 2:30 in the morning. We get used to it. I even kind of like it. If I can handle the 20-year cicadas, I can handle the roosters.

We're having big fun. I'm sunburned and happy. We head out to Bananakeet for sunset and dinner, and I get to drive up real hills for the first time. Kinda scary, kinda fun. Pleasant dinner. Head back to the Sugar Mill. Have coffee and dessert in the gazebos. Chocolate Crepes filled with The Best Vanilla Ice Cream I've Ever Had. Then we crash.


DAY THREE

We head out early to Nanny Cay for our scuba lessons with Blue Water Divers. There's a place that had yummy looking breakfasts, but we didn't have enough time to eat. Blue Water Diver people nice. I nag Laura to buy a t-shirt to cover up with - we are both sunburned. We get on the boat and motor to Norman Island, where the experienced group has a dive and we have the on-board lesson. I'm not going to dive. I have too many risk factors. All goes okay, but Laura is worried about her ears, which have been sensitive in the past. The boat motors to a dock at Norman where Laura has her in-the-water lesson with the gear on. It goes good; but she looks a mite nervous. Then we head out to Rainbow Canyon (I think that's what he called it) for the real dive. Poor thing goes down, sees cool things, then has to come up immediately. Couldn't get her ears equalized and it's killing her, she gets completely dizzy. She's so disappointed! But the boat ride is fun. So much for scuba!

Back on land we shop a bit at Nanny Cay (that cheers her up) and have a pretty crappy lunch (but there are nice people there and of course, how bad can it be sitting outside at Nanny Cay?) Laura had ordered the quiche special, and it was cooked to the point where it was actually hard. I mean hard, like beef jerky. She says it tastes good!

Back at the Sugar Mill we go to the Beach, where Laura snorkels, sees schools of fish, not colorful but lots of em. That cheers her up more, and her ears finally stop hurting. She has fun.

Great dinner at the Sugar Mill. Yummy wahoo and risotto and more good vegies. Laura has pork loin in a black bean puree; she loves it. And I have more key lime pie. The staff is sooo nice at the Sugar Mill. I really like the hotel.

After dinner we crash once again. Laura sleeps for 11 hours straight.

DAY FOUR

Our Anegada trip, scheduled for today, was cancelled yesterday. Liz from the Sugar Mill actually dashed into the surf to give me the news. So it's rescheduled for Monday, and we decide to head to Cane Garden Bay.

First we head to Sebastian's for breakfast. Good rum french toast with strawberry sauce. Place is empty. What a view!

Cool drive to Cane Garden Bay. Clueless, I ask a guy where to park. Come on in here, he says, and we pull into a little lot. He even backed our car into the spot for me. At first CGB is swarming with cruise ship people. LOTS of mature gentlemen in speedos. I watch a group of cruise ship women change into their swimsuits … under their beach dresses. In about a half hour all the cruise folks have left. For the rest of the (glorious) day the place is pretty empty. Half the people who were at Smugglers Cove.

Laura attracts the Rasta Guys. One takes to calling me Moms. They are all nice. Later, they offer to rent us floating chairs, which weren't out on display. Cool. I like floating chairs. The water is perfectly calm. We float. We play. We buy matching cheap rings at Myett's gift shop. Our rental chairs are in the shade next to Lydia's in front of the Elm. We talk to the Bulls Watersport guys. We listen to the music. A two minute shower comes and we have a drink at Elms and sit in a hammock. We throw a frisbee to the black poodle-like beach dog. We have an early dinner at Big Banana. Laura has pasta and I have The Best Cheeseburger Of My Life. Laura pets Cleo the cat. Two nice young men who spoke to us (Laura, really, but Moms is always there ha-ha!) at the Full Moon Party show up. Oh, right, it's St. Patrick's Day. The one guy is shamrock-tattooed and he's pretty lit already. They are nice guys from the Philly/Jersey shore area, and they sit at our table and talk and eat chicken wings. We watch the prettiest sunset of our trip. We head back.

I love Cane Garden Bay.

I love Tortola.

DAY FIVE

We wake up early and head to Frenchman's Cay for our day sail with Captain Paul. Only we don't know where to look for Captain Paul. So we eat a good breakfast at Pisces. A big breakfast, very good. Laura likes the funky pink look of the place. The folks are nice. They say Captain Paul comes by there, so they will keep an eye out for him. They don't see him, so we end up wandering about Sopher's Hole asking people until we find him. Then we go off looking for the other couple coming from the Sugar Mill, who are no doubt lost as well. We find them, and we are off.

Captain Paul is very laid back and very cool and we all agree to head for Jost Van Dyke. Seeing White Bay Beach has been a big dream of mine. I'm doing the permo-grin thing again. My only problem in the BVI's was getting face fatigue from smiling.

At White Bay we load up the dingy and head ashore. I'm dingy on the dingy. Never been on an inflatable dingy before. We get some chairs at Soggy Dollar, we walk around, we swim, Laura finds a cute skirt that is cheap and we buy it. I order a virgin painkiller which is really good. It's so damn good that I know if I were still drinking I would be pounding those bad boys down like a crazy woman. Laura and Dan, one of the guests from the Sugar Mill, head off to snorkel. And I lounge about, enjoying the virgin painkiller. Laura says the water was a bit murky, but still she saw cool stuff.

We get the lunch buffet at the Soggy Dollar, good food. Good burgers, potato salad, cole slaw, it all tastes like good homemade. The Soggy Dollar is filled with a crowd of very very loud drunk folks (they drowned out the regular-toned drinking folks). They are pretty obnoxious, actually. White Bay fills up with boats. It's lovely, but it's too crowded and too loud and too alcohol-oriented for me. Laura doesn't want to wade through was she calls the crowd of "30 year old drunk people." (geezers already to her).
So … White Bay was somewhat of a let down after all my dreaming of it. But of course, how bad can it be? It's all good.

Captain Paul then takes us to dreamy Green Cay. What a speck of a place! Like something out of a movie! OUCH, I have another smile sprain! Laura and Dan snorkel and I move around the island, planting myself in the surf here and there and taking it all it.

On the way back, Laura goes up to the front of the boat, stretches out and goes to sleep while the geezers chat. And then we are back at Sophers Hole, where we look through shops. Laura finds about 200 things she thinks are really cute at Latitude 18, and I find about 50 pieces of jewelry I think are really cute at another shop. We vow to go back with credit cards.

Back at the Hotel, we discover that Green Cay sand is challenging to remove with low water pressure. We both take long showers!

Laura is already sleepy, and I'm pretty yawny myself. We eat at the Sugar Mill, Lobster and Shrimp for Laura, for me an appetizer of lobster with a basil sauce and homemade black pasta, another good filet with good mashed potatoes in a port wine sauce, and chocolate meringue pie. Then we sleepily trudge up the hill to our room and go to sleep.

DAY SIX

We have breakfast at the Sugar Mill, and after Laura sends an e-mail to her boyfriend we head back over to Sophers Hole to hit those shops and buy cute stuff. It's fun. We take a break at Pussers and I have another virgin pain killer, good but not nearly as yummy as Soggy Dollar. Then we head back over to Cane Garden Bay, where we had such a good time.

We hang out. We eat more cheeseburgers at Big Banana. It's Sunday and local kids are playing in the water, throwing sand-balls at each other, pushing each other into the sand, having a great time. Liz from the sugar mill is there with her little daughter and a friend's son, and we chat. She knows the chair rental folks. It all feels so friendly and warm and we are greeted so nicely by the people we met a couple of days ago. Laura plays with little girls in the water. I'm thinking about how much I love this beach, and how I want to rent a place near Cane Garden Bay and come back with husband, and daughter, and stepson, and his girlfriend, and Laura's boyfriend. We'd have such a great time. I want to come back next month.

After cleaning up at the Sugar Mill we head to Coco Plums for dinner. Yep, the skillet mushrooms are really really good. I thought I'd just nibble a few. I knocked off a plate of them.

Back to the room to crash again. We have entered into a state of complete relaxation. It's too good.

DAY SEVEN

It's our Fly BVI trip day!

After Laura eats Sugar Mill Corn Flakes and I have a muffin and a smoothie, our cab driver shows up. Yes, I have a rental car, but I arranged for a cab so I don't have to sweat the drive to the airport. Our drivers name is Wilbur and he takes us to the airport via Ridge Road. He's terrific. Stops and shows us things …. "See that building over there … that's the prison." He stops the van and invites us to get out to take pictures. He told us his sister owns Palms Delight. (which we never got to. Next time!)

At the airport we meet up with our fellow passengers. Little plane, little flight, 10 minutes maybe. Beautiful and fun fun fun. The young pilot hits on Laura as he helps her out of the plane. These guys can really get the invitations in quickly when "Moms" steps away for 10 seconds!

After a short wait, Tony shows up for our bumpy ride to Loblolly Bay. We place our lunch orders at Big Bamboo. Big Bamboo is cool with its bright blue painted concrete floor. We get a glimpse of the glorious beach ahead of us. We order our lunch, walk a few feet and there is Loblolly Bay!!!!!!!!!

Anegada Is Awesome.

We pick our spot and Laura heads right out to snorkel … she meets up with a clump of folks and buddies up with them. Out she goes, for I don't know how long. She finally comes back giddy with the beauty of what she saw! We eat our lobster lunch. Fantastic. Laura has never eaten lobster and she loves it. After lunch she talks me into going in for a snorkel, and finally I get the hang of it and it's great. On the beach, we start throwing little beach shells and wood bits at each other and laughing like goofs. We talk with friendly ladies … one is the owner of Bear Cat Charters, on the beach. They are really fun. The Pilot, who was due back at 5:00 pm, has finished a run to St. Thomas and shows up on the beach, and asks Laura out. No can do, she says, I have a boyfriend, and besides Mom won't let me go out. He gets some lunch, and borrows swim trunks. He's got it in his head he's going to hang out with Laura, the first single girl he's seen in months (he says). Laura friendly, but she ain't biting. She wants to look for shells and snorkel and play. We go for a long snorkel. I'm glad I invested in good snorkel stuff and took it down with us. Even got meself prescription goggles. It's something we will always enjoy.

The day, which I thought might drag (duh) at a quiet beach with one little restaurant on it, flies by. It's time to leave, so we take the bumpy cab drive back to the plane, The Pilot puts his Pilot Outfit back on, and we head back to Tortola. Wilbur meets us and offers to take us to Skyworld for pictures. He points out stuff to us. It's good. We see livestock blocking the road for the first time.

I Loved Anegada.

We were sooooooo relaxed there; we had such a fantastic time. What a magical place! I want to go back! Now!

Laura has the snorkeling sunburn so we get aloe cooler and slather her up and she lies under the ceiling fan and relaxes. She's too tired to eat anything, but I force another Sugar Mill filet into myself, and get a piece of Key Lime Pie to eat in our room.

Really really fun fun fun last day.

This has been a wonderful vacation.

DAY EIGHT

Another perfect morning. Have my coffee, and we have breakfast at Sugar Mill. We pack up. We handle the check out stuff and then hang around on the beach. Laura teaches me Speed and "Egyptian Rat Screw," and we play cards. The last goodie on our package is due for pick-up at noon, Sugar Mill's "castaway picnic." They give us a big blue cooler, filled with quiche, salad, fruit, dessert, sodas, everything. Really nice. Would be great to haul to Smugglers or somewhere else. But it's great to eat it at the Sugar Mill Beach. At 1:45 our cab shows up, and we head off on Ridge Road to the airport. Lots and lots and lots of jitneys on the way, looks like there are two cruise ships in the Harbor. The trip home is easy. American Eagle flight on time. Extraordinarily friendly customs guy in San Juan (Laura again, perhaps?) Time enough to buy magazines and pan pizzas in the airport for the flight. A good in-flight movie, and an empty plane, so we can both stretch out over three seats and sleep for an hour and a half.
It's 32 degrees in Baltimore when we land.


LESSON LEARNED

A clean place with a comfortable bed would be all I would need to be happy in Tortola. A couple of years ago my husband and I spent five glorious nights at Peter Island. It was great. And the Sugar Mill was great. But since I'm outside all day, the room is sort of beside the point. And I could eat Big Banana Cheeseburgers everyday.

I love Tortola. I loved the people. The friendlier and more relaxed I felt, the friendlier everyone was. They were great.

I love Anegada. I want to return and day a few days, and see more of it. It was out of this world.

I only had carry-on and I still overpacked. Comfortable swimsuits, t-shirts, a pair of shorts, a couple of pairs of light capris, and a couple of sundresses could do it. My denim jacket came in handy.

I need to remember how good it is to be chilled out. I've been back for three days and I'm still on Island Time, and it's fantastic. I want to keep some of that feeling with me at home and at work. It's a tonic.

Life is Good.