Sorry about the length, but writing it helped me relive the moments.

My wife and I spent a week on Virgin Gorda at Mango Bay Resort from April 12th through April 19th celebrating our 10 year wedding anniversary. The trip was absolutely wonderful and lived up to every expectation we had and then some. It was fun, relaxing, and it provided us a chance to fall in love all over again. Leading a busy life with young children often makes couples forget that being happy and content in life ultimately is based on a healthy and loving relationship. The simplicity and relaxing atmosphere of Virgin Gorda helped us realize this.

Getting There
We left Raleigh-Durham airport early in the morning and flew to St. Thomas via Philadelphia with one checked bag each. The flights were uneventful, and we arrived in St. Thomas along with all of our luggage just before noon. We took a taxi to the ferry dock and killed about three hours at the Petite Pump Room watching harbor traffic and seaplanes taking off and landing. Sure wish I could have convinced the wife to take the 15-minute Air Sunshine flight to Virgin Gorda instead of waiting so long for the one hour, 45-minute ferry ride to Spanish Town. “Oh, it will be wonderful and romantic. We’ll get to see a lot of the islands on our way.” What does she do 20 minutes into the trip? She falls asleep. Maybe next time I’ll be able to convince her that those four plus hours would be better spent on Virgin Gorda instead of St. Thomas and a ferry.

Mango Bay Resort
While I can understand that it is not right for everyone, Mango Bay Resort on Mahoe Bay was delightfully basic. The villa was clean, maid service was excellent, water pressure fine, the grounds were nicely landscaped and well-kept, and the air conditioning worked well. It wasn’t anything elaborate, but who spends that much time indoors when the beautiful Caribbean Sea is right outside? Gino, the property owner/manager of Mango Bay Resort, was most helpful answering questions before we arrived and giving recommendations during our stay. We were informed when we arrived that the one-bedroom ocean view villa we had reserved had a problem and we were being upgraded to a two-bedroom ocean front villa. What a great way to start the week! At Mango Bay, ocean front means 30 feet to the water’s edge from the veranda. Many hours were spent on the veranda listening to the gentle waves, drinking coffee in the mornings and Caribes the rest of the time, reading, and watching the sun set behind The Dogs and Beef Island. I would recommend Mango Bay to anyone who doesn’t have to have luxurious accommodations.

Eats
Except for breakfast on most mornings, we ate our meals out. We dined at:
• Chez Bamboo – nice atmosphere even without an ocean view
• Top of the Baths – awesome view, good food, and nice mural behind/above the bar
• Bath and Turtle – good casual food and atmosphere, Marcus the bartender is a delight
• Sugar Cane at Nail Bay – had the best alfredo sauce I’ve ever tasted here
• Fishers Cove – nice setting on the water watching the boats
• Fat Virgin in the North Sound – decent burger, outstanding conch fritters
• The Rock – most romantic dinning experience either one of us has ever had, request a table among the boulders
• Barracuda – excellent food and service, a table by the pool is nice
• Flying Iguana – nothing to write home about but maybe it was because we had a late lunch (around 2:00pm)
• Beach barbeque at Leverick Bay – great value and lots of entertainment

We also ate at Corsairs on Jost Van Dyke during our day trip there. It was an expensive and long trip to get there and back from Virgin Gorda, but I would do it again in a heartbeat just for the chicken wings and fries at Corsairs. Everyone says Foxy’s and the Soggy Dollar Bar are two places not to be missed on Jost Van Dyke (and rightfully so), but I suggest Corsairs should be added to that list.

Highlights
Every single moment from the time we stepped off the plane in St. Thomas until we returned to the airport in St. Thomas was a highlight, but some won’t fade from memory over time.

When we arrived on Virgin Gorda there were several couples picking up jeep rentals from L & S Jeep Rentals, and there was only one guy (sorry, I can’t remember his name) helping all of us. Even so, he went above and beyond what should have been expected. He took us to a store to pick up a SIM card for our cell phone before letting us follow him to Mango Bay Resort (as it was our first time visiting the island).

We very much enjoyed snorkeling from shore at Mahoe Bay. We saw all the usual fish plus lobsters and a couple of squid. I never did see that elusive turtle, but another guest at the resort had seen one. The barracudas that always seemed to be shadowing me while I snorkeled were a little unnerving the first couple of times, but I got used to it. The best snorkeling in Mahoe Bay is along the rocks at the northern end. The moon was just about full while we were there, and its reflection on the water at night along with the ocean breeze and waves is what I’ve dreamt about numerous times since we’ve been back.

Pond Bay and Savannah Bay are truly magnificent settings. Pristine beaches, beautiful views, no development right on the beach, and mostly empty. Grab a book, a towel, and a cooler full of your favorite beverage and camp out underneath one of the palm branch huts for the afternoon. Don’t forget the snorkel gear. We saw some nurse sharks swimming in the surf at the northern end of Pond Bay while we were there. Very cool.

We rented a dingy from Leverick Bay Watersports one day and explored some of the North Sound. We found some nice empty conch shells washed up on a beach on Moskito Island. Exploring Saba Rock was fun (we tried to go back there for dinner our last night, but the shuttle never came for us at the dock in Gun Creek – and we waited for more than an hour). Lunch at the Fat Virgin was okay, drinks under the Caribbean sky were better. We didn’t stay long, but the Bitter End Yacht Club seemed nice. We even met a couple from nearby Greensboro, NC there. There was a flock of [censored] at the Sand Box on Prickly Pear, so we spent a grand total of 15 minutes there. When we go back, we will again rent a boat to explore the North Sound, but the next time I hope to get a faster/bigger boat and get to the beaches on the east side of Prickly Pear and maybe out towards Oil Nut Bay for some snorkeling. Getting from Moskito Island to Saba Rock in a dinghy with a 15hp motor left us and everything we had with us very wet.

Our day trip to Jost Van Dyke was definitely a highlight. Before we even left for Virgin Gorda, I convinced my wife that the time and expense of getting to JVD from VG would be worth it. I had read so much about it from Travel Talk, I knew it couldn’t be missed. White Bay is gorgeous with all of the boats anchored just offshore. We spent a good amount of the afternoon lounging in front of the Soggy Dollar Bar drinking painkillers and people watching. My new favorite t-shirt came from Ivan’s Stress Free Bar.

We saved a trip to the Baths until the morning of our last day. We got there early (before 8), explored, and checked out Devils Bay. We pretty much had the place to ourselves. Afterwards, we ate breakfast at Top of the Baths. The surf was up and the water quite a bit rougher than it had been earlier in the week, so we weren’t able to get in the water to snorkel.

My wife likes to shop, and one of her worries about going to VG was that there wouldn’t be enough places to get her fix of shopping in. I would say she was pleasantly surprised. Between the shops at the yacht harbor, Top of the Baths, Leverick Bay, and the gift shops on JVD and in the North Sound, she did her fair share of shopping.

Aside from not being able to get to Saba Rock for dinner our last night, our only other disappointment was with our camera. It broke early in the week, and we had to resort to disposable cameras for the rest of the time. A massage at Little Dix Bay spa for the wife and a husband with nothing to do during a rainy afternoon but kill time at the bar did not bode well for our digital camera. In her relaxed state and me in a “different” state the camera did not make it from her hands to mine before it crashed to the ground.

What pictures we did take are posted at:
4Olivers at Flickr