Hi

This is an honest effort to keep our trip log as brief and compact as possible, i.e. the usual geezer activities - reading, Yahtzee, etc - are omitted. Because we were unable to reserve our favorite cottage (#10) at Cinnamon Bay - and we tried to do it on our last day at the campground last year! - St. John was not part of the trip this May. This covers just the Tortola portion of the trip.

Because the flight from Buffalo to Charlotte Amalie arrived too late for a ferry connection to Tortola, we stayed on St. Thomas the first night and left for Road Town the next day. We took a taxi to the Island Beachcomber ($16 for about a ½ mile ride, but there was no way we could have walked there). We signed into Room 110 (not a beach-front room, but we were too tired to care). No one was available to show us a menu at the hotel’s restaurant, so we strolled down the beach to Emerald Beach, got a couple of drinks and looked over the menu. We went back to the bar at Island Beachcomber, where the bushwhackers, made with chocolate syrup, were not nearly as good as the ones down the beach. We had a wonderful dinner at Emerald Beach - Chris had a dish with shrimp, mushrooms and a wonderful reduction sauce, while I had a risotto with shrimp and broccoli. This was followed by Galliano on the rocks. This is really a beautiful place, but of course we didn’t see the rooms. Guess we’ll have to take Saildoggie’s word for it.

We went back to our room to crash, but couldn’t get to sleep because of a very noisy TV in the room next door. A call to the office got Vicky to come and knock on the door (with a Do Not Disturb sign on it!), but got no response. She was kind enough to let us use Room 116 instead. We were already awake the next morning before receiving two automated 7:30 AM wake up calls, cleaned up the campsite, and went to the office to return the key cards (both sets). We took a taxi (that was right there next to the office door) and made our way to the ferry dock in rush hour traffic, chatting with our very chatty driver. We gave him $16 + $3 for a much longer trap than the one from the airport terminal to Island Beachcomber.

The ferry ride was fairly rough after passing Red Hook, with lots of chop in the Drake. Even though they had new pay phones at the ferry dock, neither of them worked correctly with either coins or a credit card. I used the phone at the BVI Help Desk again, giving the lady many thanks. A driver from ITGO picked us up and we got a little white Daihatsu, with a little more get up and go than the usual Suzuki Samurai. We got the usual “Hello William” from the staff at Rhymers, and the lady at the desk horsed both suitcases up the stairs. Not our usual room at the rooftop end of the hall, but close. It was time to go to Bobby’s for eggs, rum and coke.

We hadn’t had breakfast at the Petite Pump Room, so we went hunting for a meal. We went to Sebastian’s at Little Carrot Bay (just past Bomba’s). My hopes of getting a conch salad were dashed (they didn’t want to use their conch), so I settled for a “Caribbean Salad” while Chris had conch fritters with very little conch. This was a quite disappointing breakfast. The menu we saw at Coco Plums, just up Zion Hill, was very encouraging though (although they were closed). We also turned the corner to take a peek at the menu at the Jolly Roger at Soper’s before driving into Road Town. I got my glasses straightened in town, we stopped at Sunny Caribbee to get some hot sauce for our grandson and headed for the Loose Mongoose. The wind is still blowing quite strong - it’s probably a single reef and 80% genoa day for the sailors today. The kids from the Lehman Alternative Community School in Ithaca are back at Rhymers, just as in past years. Chairs are being set up for a cruise ship coming in on Friday.

Friday was cruise ship day, and the taxis started coming in with their cargo but, since there was only one ship, the beach was much less crowded than it has been on peak cruise ship days in the past. Things didn’t bode well for the cruise ship passengers, as the earlier occasional shower turned into a set of very substantial downpours. The cruise ship passengers didn’t escape getting wet in those large open-sided taxis. Earlier, a young man was pacing up and down the beach (in front of the cruise ship passengers) raving about “Kill the Rapers” and “Kill the Bloods”. They must have found that entertaining. The Ithaca kids had a sand castle competition, with photos taken by a counselor, followed by each team of sculptors telling a back story about their castles. Prizes will be awarded at the Sunset Meeting on Rhymers’ balcony. I wandered down to watch the whole thing.

We had the first of two fantastic meals at Bananakeet - no real sunset though, although Jost van Dyke was at least visible on both days. The first time, we had a long chat with a nearby couple from Missouri who were on a charter boat and near the end of their charter - he was an occasional “lurker” on TTOL who occasionally posts as “pedalpusher”. We both had Ahi with a wasabi drizzle, rice and veggies. I later went over to join Chris in the smoking area. One young couple were the advance guard for a group that had attended a wedding at Long Bay. The other person we chilled with was Chris, the wife of the owner. The second visit (on Sunday), we got a table away from the outer deck, with bats flying nearby in the dusk. We had the same lovely waitress as last night, and got a big dose of Kenny Chesney over the sound system. Chris had ahi again, but I got a dish of delicious jerked pork. The real treat of the evening was listening to Reuben - he played “Midnight Special” for us, for all those folks old enough to remember Leadbelly.

The Ithaca kids were playing a variation of “capture the flag” until they retired (a little later than their usual 9"30 PM curfew). Chris retired, and I went down the beach to listen on the porch to the reggae band that was playing at Quito’s. (This avoids paying the cover charge after 9 PM.) In addition to the great music, I was enjoying a spectacular young lady, who was constantly going in and out of Quito’s. In addition, there were plenty of very subtly executed drug trades.

On Saturday, we drove into town and past Brandywine Bay and its artificial beach, wondering how this beach was going to accommodate cruise ship passengers. We made a bee line to Trellis Bay Cyber Café and forgot to give our order at the front desk - oops! Instead, the maitre d’ came out to take our order. In my case, it was the usual - curried goat and their fabulous Dark and Stormy. Chris ended up getting the goat curry as well, with a Bushwhacker. We got the chance to look at historical photos of the café being put up in the late 70's, plus a great set of oil paintings, many of Cowes and of classic sailing boats. The oils were painted on board, and were beautifully transparent - rather in the style of water colors. (The artist was his sister.)

I thought it was very likely that the sloop anchored immediately offshore, “Sophisticated Lady”, was Captain Rick’s boat, as it very often returns to Trellis Bay. Indeed it was, as he was having problems with his anchor windlass and getting it replaced locally. Likely, he’ll have to get a replacement in the states or in Puerto Rico. We saw Captain Rick and Kim taking a ride on their dinghy to a nearby dock. I did get a chance to talk to him briefly. The sounds that I had heard coming from Sophisticated Lady’s direction obviously came from Lucky, the gray parrot. Some of the sounds appeared to be imitations of bird songs. We wandered through Aragorn’s studio, but didn’t buy anything this time. Sophisticated Lady weighed anchor (done manually, hauling in an all chain rode, ugh!) and sailed off for Peter Island.

There were a tremendous number of cars and people milling around at 4:15 AM that night. They were drifting up and down the street, with Rhymer’s parking lot completely full and lots of noise and music from Quito’s. (Dotsie said that it was a ‘Black and White Party’???) On Monday, we drove to the Jolly Roger for lunch, where I had an enormous plate of nachos while Chris had a cheeseburger and fries. We had a long chat with a couple who were cruising the islands, the man originally from Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. They had her parents on board their catamaran (gotten on two weeks notice!). We wandered down to Myett’s for happy hour, where a single musician was playing a guitar (very inventively) with the help of synthesizer tracks in the background. He did a version of ‘Night Nurse’ that was quite good. Curiously, he did his own version of ‘Caribbean Home Companion’ with every tune either Country/Western, Rock, or Pops - you name it! The volume got to be too much for Chris again, so we retired to the back ‘smoking section’ before leaving to go back to Rhymer’s. In the middle of the night, I had to go outdoors in my PJ’s to re-park the car to keep it from being boxed in by a second truck unloading material for the BVI Music Festival.

On Tuesday, we got up at 7AM to finish packing and move out in order to get the car back to ITGO before 9 AM. The BVI Music Festival stage crew had already arrived, but last night’s truck was gone (too late to help the parking though!). We went up the east road out of CGB, missing our last chance to look at Carrie’s or Stanley’s apartments. We finished the Daihatsu paper work in Road Town, and Benjamin took us to West End through the morning rush hour traffic. (No problem for us, as we were going up the down staircase.) I went across the street to get coffee at Zozie’s. The trip to Jost was uneventful (but $25 seems a little steep). We paid for the fare on board - should have found out where to get round trip tickets though!

I’ll finish later with the Jost and Virgin Gorda part.

Peace
Dugg & Chris
The 2009 pics are now up at http://picasaweb.google.com/papadugg/