A little BVI nostalgia

Golden memories of old:

1- A hard-shelled dinghy with a coughing/smoking 5hp outboard engine
2- A one-hour timer on the fridge's evaporator plate with an ice ball inside ("You kids quit opening that door")
3- Calling home from the Bitter End
4- Taking a "real shower" at the Bitter End (crowd pleaser)
5- Going to see Tony at the Last Resort
6- Foxy making up a song about you when you walked into the restaurant (and my wife saying, "Who is that guy?")
7- Outdoor Airport booths at EIS (no indoor available)
8- The one lane, toll-bridge at the airport (which I never saw working)
9- Anchoring at Bellamy Cay and watching monohulls come in and grind their keels up on the reef
10- Evaporated milk in a box ($$$)
11- Cooper island having no electricity x via generator which didn't get turned on until after dark
12- Sailing that boat all the way past Mosquito rock, for the first time. Then, thinking I could do "anything".

Any more?

Excellent, thanks!!

oh, gosh, so many!

- Beatrice and Clementine, Norwell and Flawell on Salt Island - with Clementine singing her signature song for every charter guest.
- No structures or mooring balls at all in the Bight. Very lightly traveled - sometimes being completely alone.
- Antilles Airboats landing in West End.
- The original donkey, Chocolate, at the Last Resort. Jeremy and Jessica running around as little kids. Philip keeping the generator alive.
- Foxy turning to religion, and back again.
- The entrance range at White Bay, rarely attempted by any boat, redlined for all bareboats.
- Uncle Bob and Nell actually running Smugglers Cove as a 'resort'
- Free mooring, as long as you built it yourself.
- Rick Norton and Poor Richards (now Pussers)
- Stanley's - the only bar in CGB, and his famous tire swing.
- All dirt roads, except for The Queens Highway
- Latitude 18 25 charters
- The toll collector at Beef Island, with a tin cup on a stick.
- Air BVI and their awesome DC-3s
So many more....but I gotta pee!

Better now.

- No house keys. No boat keys. No locking your dinghy. No hotel keys. Always leaving your car keys in the ignition so you wouldn't lose them.
- Caroling on Christmas Eve.
- Snacks and rum punch on the Bomba Charger.
- Saying 'good morning' to everyone you pass
- Hitchhiking as a reliable method of transportation.
- Christmas on Main Street.
- Bomba's Shack - just a card table and an extension cord run across the road.
- The controversy of the ownership of Flannagan Island.
- Livestock having the right-of-way on all roadways.
- The utility pole in the middle of Joe's Hill Road.
- The first cement truck, which took a turn too fast in Sea Cow's Bay, and remained immortalized for a decade.
- The 'queens Lincoln' at Smugglers
- Being utterly alone at The Baths
- Movie Night at The Bitter End.
- Reggie's Poop Deck in Road Town
- Dr. Robin and The Purple Palace
- 'Fun Days' in Soper's Hole. Spinnaker flying, dinghy racing - the precursor to the 'Loyal West End Yacht Club'
- mushroom hunting at Sage Mountain
-...and real magic mushroom punch at Bomba's (I saw the furniture breathe for hours!)
- CSY

...and so many more!

Pop Rhymer helping you land your dinghy in CGB...and telling you where the coldest beer was to be found. And how many remember Jill's in CGB?
Lucky to find a phone booth that actually worked (or wasn't constantly occupied) to call back home with a bag of coins in your pocket. The calling cards Unable&Worthless came out with made life easier, well, coin wise. Still had to find a payphone that functioned.
Bomba cooking chicken on a car wheel. And the shack was all of 10x20.
There was a farmer who walked with his donkey through Cane Garden every day just before sunrise and he'd be headed home right around sunset. Every day.
And sleeping aboard with only windscoops. No AC.

- half a coconut on the stick at QEII bridge
- the Penn's nursery in the Old Customs area in the middle of town

And from my better half...
- landing at the old airstrip, when the first pass was to chase the cows
- sign at the airport "Customs closed, come back in the morning"
- Richard Batham hosting at Marina Cay
- a bunch of guys coming to get our old Lister generator and taking it to Foxy's, where it powered his place for many years
- buying groceries at the little shops on Main St., where they would put your purchases in a bag on the porch, and then a taxi would just appear and drive down the street picking them up
- the radio telephone at Marina Cay

Bob Dennison's honor bar at Smuggler's Cove.
Pirate's Pub on Saba Rock.
Donovan's Reef on Scrub Island

--sailing by Tortola and seeing the hills covered in a patchwork checkerboard of cultivated square plots and fenced grazing pastures for cows and goats.
--hitchhiking up to Sage Mt. to collect mushrooms from the cow pies before they built the Skyworld
--flying from STT into Roadtown on the Airboats and rolling up the ramp at Customs downtown.
--cruising with Charlie and Ginny Cary on board their succession of sailboats named "Flying Ginny"
--checking into JVD with a handshake and a bottle for Mr. Albert C.
--The Sept. Wooden Boat Race with a plethora of beautiful classic wooden boats
--having dinner ashore at Drakes Anchorage
--having friends get married standing hip deep in water inside the grotto at the Baths
--spending the night anchored in Devils Bay
--Finding out they put an old wooden cargo schooner in the Bight and made it into a bar.
--working on the old wooden yachts at West End Slipway
--sailing into Smugglers Cove and anchoring inside the reef with Bob standing on the beach guiding us in safely - then Bob and Nell driving us over the hill on a rutted road in the dark to West End for a cocktail
<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/pirate.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/pirate.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/pirate.gif" alt="" />

Thank you all so much for bringing back such precious memories. Once I was sitting at Pirate's Pub on Saba and, with Bert Kilbride's permission, playing his guitar and entertaining a group of folk's sitting at a table nearby. They kept buying me beer's to keep me playing, and then Richard Branson's Necker Island ferry boat came for them. Still wonder who they were...lol. Mad Dog's would close at 7pm, Edith would leave, but the late great Colin McCullough would give us free drinks, haul out his guitar and sing the dirty limerick song. Met a couple that turned into best friends at the beach bar on Cooper Island. Jim and Angie sat down next to us and Angie said "I want a girly drink! Make me something pink like a slurpee!" Can't do it said the bartender, no electricity or blender. Cooler full of beer though. Ah, the good old day's. Now I have a bad case of DIF and I'm still 4 months out from being back...sigh.

Mini mokes
Jack Hargass ( waterman Jack) of Virgin Gorda
Horseback riding at Little Dix

Feeling a little like a newbe after reading this thread. Awesome.
We’ve only been around the VI’s since 2001 but the one thing that pops is:
Anchoring off Diamond Key – AKA the Sand Mind and going to the Pools needed local knowledge and there were no moorings and no Taboo

JVD before electricity and Gertrude's cooler well stocked with "greenies".

Bomba sitting on an ice chest in the(then) tiny Shack. Visitor:" Have you got cold beer?"..Bomba" Have you got money?"..Visitor" Yeah"..Bomba" I got cold beer".
The steel band playing every night at Stanley's.
Tales of Jimmy Buffett and Peter Tosh entertaining at Stanley's after he wrote " Cheeseburger in Paradise" there while staying at the red roofed house at the end of the Bay. Quito serving drinks, then playing his guitar..a one man operation. James Rhymer meeting his guests, smiling from ear to ear while wearing rubber boots coated in fresh cement..Getting the locals into hockey in the first season of " Myett's" when the LA Kings played Montreal for the Stanley Cup ( One story in my "Manpot's Tales of the Tropics" book.
Zooming round Tortola in a rented Mini Moke..

-Soggy Dollar was the only establishment on White Bay and Daphne making painkillers.
-No mooring balls in anchorages and almost no catamarans

The BVI's were a much different place pre catamarans.

- Palm tree on Sandy Spit

Palm tree with tire swing in front of Stanley's

The old, now long gone, shack down beyond Long Bay that had been Nathans. Our 1st time to Tortola in 2002 we bought a plastic tub from the hardware store near West End for ice and drinks,sandwiches from Sopers Hole and set up a plastic table/chairs in the shell of the building facing the beach and had our first lunch! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/dine.gif" alt="" />

My first time was only back in winter 2002, but the things I miss the most are Donavan's Reef and Pirates at the Bight.

How about "Bananas" in Sopers Hole...

1994 first visit - A Moorings taxi driver forgot to meet us at the ferry dock. Next day he hunted us down on the dock and refunded our taxi money.

Mariner Inn same trip. Doors did not lock, no AC or TV, citrus candle and bug spray in each room, only TV was at the bar, but nobody watched it. Free rum punch.

Julian Hodge literally pushing us newbies off the dock since he thought we were going to spend the rest of our charter discussing how best to leave the dock.

And the ubiquitous repetitive music played all day at Moorings.

Great post! Brings back so many memories. Thank you all for coming again and again to the BVI. Merry Christmas and a Happy Healthy New Year!
<img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Thumbsup.gif" alt="" />

Drakes anchorage villa 2 87'. Riding bike back and forth to villa and lime tree beach. Help yourself bar in the morn. / aft.
Honeymoon beach ALONE. Victor the chef. Trips in the sound with the boatman( cant remember his name but heard he went to necker)sightseeing and my brother in law asking about if he could find any "contraband". He said yeah we have country bands at Bitter End playing once and a while.
Moskito marys.Sunkun tile tub, hanging chair in kitchen.

Lowell Wheatley

Thanks for the reminder Walker <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/duh.gif" alt="" />
Was an honor to have met him

1. On Virgin Gorda, staying at Guavaberry, jogging on the road to the Baths and dodging cows and cowpies!
2. Seeing Colin (former manager of Mad Dog until his passing) show up every day at 4PM with his dog (or dogs) at Spring Bay beach which started a "barkathon" with the Guavaberry dogs. He would leave about 4:30 to bring fresh hibiscus and his wife Suzanne to Mad Dog for happy hour.

The after-dinner open cordial and liqueur bar at the Anegada Reef Hotel

Brutus at Drake's Anchorage

Lowell and Sue after hours
Damn Walker you made me smile again
Keep going buddy

Anegada Sand Soap from Lowell's soap factory.

And - yes - after hours with Sue and Lowell. Those were great times.

The hinged floating pier at Cooper Island. Best amusement park ride ever in the BVI.

How about Rambo at Neptunes!

Bert Kilbride at the Pirates Pub!

OMG you got my three favorites. Can't forget Bert Kilbride's Mynah bird on Saba

Absolutely!

So many great memories in the BVI from days gone by! I have a hard time listing without pictures, so here are just a few of my BVI nostalgia moments



A view of Little Dix 1978 from a USCG Helicopter. Flying around the BVI on patrols or SAR missions were always filled with spectacular views.



Enjoying the Baths in 1979 with my sweetie. We were the only people there for entire afternoon. Those days are definitely gone.



Pulling into Cooper in 1988 on our first charter trip. The bar had a great painkiller and sign that answered any small talk question that you could think of, and a humongous dog… or was it two big dogs.



The queen’s car in the bar at smugglers in 1992. We made the short walk to Smugglers from Long Bay to discover we were the only ones there. There was a coffee tin with a few dollars in it and cooler of cold beer. Honor bars anywhere are good thing!



Sitting in Club Paradise in 92 drinking some of the best Rum Punches I have ever had waiting on “When” The ferry that ran from the West End to JVD, when… ever it decided to. I sure wish I had a pic of When. If I remember right it was like an old landing craft. Could be wrong on that one.

Sweet pics TomB!

Just saw this post. The BVI's when it was Gods' country!Your pics brought back so many great memories! Talking to Bob for hours (when he was there) at Smugglers Cove. That beach and the Baths are the 2 most beautiful in the Caribbean! (pre [censored]). Times have surely changed!

Thanks for the pictorial memories Tom!

Saw When abandoned over in RoadTown a couple years ago. Had gone to visit VISAR and passed it when I made a wrong turn. I expect it is still there.

Just took a look at Google Earth. I think When may actually be pushed up alongside Waterfront Drive at TMM. See if this link works... https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid...893442&z=19

Open it and switch to earth view. Left hand corner.

Could not give it a firm confirmation from the satellite view, but I am going to say it is When! Got to keep digging, I know I have a shot it of somewhere.

Here is another trip down nostalgia lane for me. 1979, and I was scared to death. My wife who was (ok "is") a wonderful skier, got pulled from Little Dix almost to the Baths before declaring I give. A long ski, and she was in 7th heaven.



Me not so much! A good skier I am not as you can see by how I am just holding on to save my life. I was so worried that that I would fall and hit a reef. I think I have posted this shot before, but it is something I never see anymore in the BVI, and that is probably a good thing.

I'll be back in January and will go back over for a look, unless someone else is around TMM sooner.

Love this thread..one of my nostalgic memories revolves around all the folks we have met through TTOL down there..way too many to mention because I'd miss some out! WE have lost a few over the years, but others seem to join the throng..got to love that..

Besides the places, what about the people who have passed or moved away?

Already mentioned were Bob Denison and his honor bar and Bert Kilbride.
Clementine Smith and Norwell Durant on Salt Island.
Tony Snell at the Last Resort
Randy at Neptune's Treasure
Is the old gentleman who lived at Great Harbor, Peter still there?

Manpot,

I am pretty sure it was you a few years ago when a post like this went around, and you posted a shot of Gertrude's when it was just a kiosk on the beach. We had a magical day on white bay when she was one of the only bars on the beach with Soggy Dollar.

She was on the honor system to and it was our first experience with the trust that we the customer would be fair. No sign to tell you how much money to leave, just leave some.

She was up on the hill visiting the lady who lived up there and the two of them were laughing at us as we were trying to figure out do we take a beer or not and how much to leave.

Just a small pink kiosk and lifetime memory.

I fondly remember the days when Deadman's bay wasn't even sick! :-)

Alex at Cow Wreck. That wound is still too fresh. Such a lovely cheerful man.

Piranha Bar at Pusser's (old location) in Soper's hole.

Buying block ice for the cold-box on the early charter boats.

Cruising for two weeks in the BVI and using only two quarts of Diesel.

Seeing the 40-foot monohull hulk on Currant Island in Currant Cut between St. Thomas and Great St. James. It was always sobering to see this at the start of our trip. A reminder to be vigilant!

Looking closely at the background of your photo, the pier should be near the old VG post office which is next to the current location of Coco Maya.

Belle at Pussers in Sopers Hole in 1990. Oops, she's still there.

Not sure where exactly I was... too busy holding on for dear life <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Clapping.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" />

My wife loves to ski - I call it trolling

Alex was a treasure. Cow Wreck was never better then when he was tending bar!
G

I think that was from Hurricane Marilyn

Glenn, if you mean Conrad Scobie Smith, He died a few years ago. We would always anchor in Great Harbour and dink over to the beach near Conrad's house where we always found him sitting on a chair in the shade. He would get up and almost single handedly pull us up onto the beach. We always brought him a cold beer and hugs and he would give us a conch shell. He was such a nice man.