Last week I traveled to the island of Tortola.
Tortola is part of the British Virgin Islands (BVI) or the British West Indies as it used to be called.

The BVI are located in the Caribbean Sea about 1,000 miles south of Miami, Florida. We visited the BVI for a week, starting March 10, 2007.

Here’s a summary of our trip

Aircraft Transportation
American Airlines got us to and from Tortola. We flew from St. Louis to Dallas (MD-80 aircraft), Dallas to San Juan (B-757 aircraft) and San Juan to Tortola (ATR-72 aircraft). Our flights TO Tortola were on schedule and uneventful and we arrived at the Beef Island Airport on schedule about 5:30 pm.

Our flights home was delayed several hours by a mechanical concern on the ATR aircraft at the Tortola airport. An aircraft technician was flown in from Puerto Rico to repair the concern and we left about 5 hours late. This caused us to miss all our connections, but the empathetic and efficient gate agent “Miss Matthews” arranged to get us back to St. Louis by midnight, so even allowing for the 2.5 hour drive from the airport, we were able to get home by about 3:00 AM.

I’d heard several reports about pilferage at San Juan but we experienced no problems. Both my wife and I packed in carry-on luggage. I have a Jansport combination rolling suitcase/backpack and my wife has a somewhat larger conventional rolling suitcase. I carried my suitcase on my back, and was able to carry it on to the smaller ATR plane at San Juan while my wife had to gate-check her carry-on.

Cost for 2 round-trip tickets was approximately $1200.

Car rental
We reserved a car from National Car Rental at the airport because we needed to pick up the rental vehicle and drop it off outside of many of the independent rental companies’ regular business hours. The National Car Rental counter is conveniently located just outside the Customs and Immigration Area .The counter agent politely greeted us and asked how she could help. I told her that I had a reservation and from the surprised look on her face I knew we had a problem. Fortunately I’d printed and brought with me hard copies of email correspondence that I had. Being in the car rental business, it was apparent that the main National location in Road Town had neglected to inform the satellite location at the airport of our reservation. The counter agent was very polite and helpful and even though she didn’t have the vehicle we’d reserved, she found another vehicle for us (an almost brand-new Chevy Aveo), at a less-expensive price, provided us a map and excellent driving directions, explained how to drop a car off after hours, and got us on our way. Sometimes the “name brand” car rental operations get slammed for poor customer service but this was not the case here. The counter agent took a challenging “lost reservation” situation and handled it in an outstanding manner.

Cost for the rental car was approximately $425, including gas, insurance, and a tire.

More about the adventure of the tire later in this report.

Accommodations

We had reservations at the Cane Garden Bay Cottages, located in about the middle of Cane Garden Bay. The “check-in” location was at Myett’s, and we were greeted in a friendly manner but had the same kind of “check-in surprise” that we’d had at National Car Rental. The desk clerk couldn’t find our reservation. Fortunately I had copies of that correspondence, too, and after the clerk telephoned a superior, the “misplaced” reservation was located. The desk clerk didn’t get flustered and handled the situation in a cheerful and friendly manner. He provided us with directions on how to get to our cottage, gave us the key and we were on our way.

The “cottages” are actually duplexes. The location consists of two houses set in an attractive walled enclosure in about the middle of the small community of Cane Garden Bay.

Each house is divided into two separate apartments, and each apartment consists of a bedroom, a small living area furnished with a chair, loveseat and coffee table, a small bathroom that has a shower, a small kitchen with a stove, oven, coffee maker, blender, toaster, full-size refrigerator and all the necessary pots, pans, plates, cups, utensils, etc, a covered and screened dining area and a covered front porch. The bedroom was air-conditioned but we turned it off. The dining and living areas had ceiling fans.

When we arrived we discovered that someone had thoughtfully pre-stocked the refrigerator with bottled water and Coke, and left us a bottle of Myett’s rum.

I’d guess that at one time the cottages were really nice but right now are in need of major maintenance. The screens in the dining room were torn, the toilet paper holder in the bathroom was broken, the medicine cabinet door in the bathroom was broken, the hot water in the shower wouldn’t provide more than a trickle, all the water quit one night (when my wife had a head full of shampoo) the metal fittings that support the porch railings were corroded, some of the wooden railings themselves were rotted, the dining-room table top wasn’t attached to the table legs, and 2 of the wicker dining-room chairs were broken. There were probably other minor concerns but these were the ones I noticed and remembered.

The main attraction of the cottages was their close proximity to the beach but there wasn’t an “ocean view”. The cottages were less than 30 feet from the main coast road, and so there was a fair amount of traffic during the day, and a somewhat lesser amount at night. Directly across the street from the cottages was a local cemetery. To get to the beach I walked 30 feet to the road, turned left, walked 50 feet to “Mongoose Lane”, turned right and walked 50 feet to the beach.

It couldn’t be much more convenient than that!

I’m a wilderness backpacker and canoeist, my wife is a former Girl Scout leader and we’re both capable of making ourselves comfortable under far worse conditions than the general state of disrepair I observed at the CGB cottages, so we didn’t complain. On the other hand, we didn’t feel as if the $210 per night (including tax & service charge) was a very good value. The cottages were cleaned on a regular basis, and were spotless. The young ladies that did the cleaning were friendly and even washed the dishes.

I understand the property is for sale, and that may have some bearing on why the current owner is deferring the maintenance the property urgently needs.

Eating-places and Food
There are people who live to eat, and there are people who eat to live. My wife and I fall mostly into the latter category. Breakfast is usually coffee and cereal or toast, lunch frequently consists of a piece of fruit and a package of peanut-butter crackers, but we do enjoy a good meal out from time to time.
We patronized three restaurants during our stay:

Stanley’s Welcome Bar is located right on the beach at Cane Garden Bay.

I’d been told that this was the very place where Jimmy Buffet had written the song “Cheeseburger in Paradise”, so I ordered a cheeseburger, and it came with fries and coleslaw. My wife ordered snapper and I think it came with rice and veggies. As far as I was concerned, the cheeseburger was just an ordinary cheeseburger but the atmosphere was awesome! My wife’s snapper wasn’t anything to brag about, either. Our server was efficient but not overwhelmingly personable. All in all, just good bar food in an outstanding environment. Cost, including 3 Carib beers was $45 including tip.






Myett’s

Myett’s is also located on the beach at Cane Garden Bay. Myett’s is more upscale than Stanley’s. We apparently committed a faux pas by entering the restaurant from the beach side. We didn’t see the hostess, so we just selected a table and sat down, and so our reception was somewhat frosty. Once we got over that hurdle, we were taken on a “tour” of the food available on the “grill” menu. The selections included tuna, snapper, mahi, veggies, ribs, and steaks. I’d never had a “food tour” before but I thought it was a cool idea. We were seated by the stage. I ordered the ribs and my wife ordered mahi. Our server was efficient but again, not exceptionally personable. The food was served in a timely manner and was delicious!

During our meal we were entertained by a steel-band duet and they were very good. The cost with a couple Carib was about $65 including tip.

The Bananakeet Cafe

The Bananakeet Cafe was truly the highlight of our limited dining experience. The restaurant is located just a couple of miles from Cane Garden bay, but it seems that couple miles is straight up. The view from the terrace is phenomenal. I’d made reservations earlier that day, and Gary had our table ready as promised. Our server was “Ninja” and he was the best. Helpful, friendly and personable. We arrived at 6:00 to watch the sunset, and enjoyed a couple cold Caribs. We were pleasantly surprised when the server offered us a complementary shot of (I think) mango rum when the sun set at 6:30. I ordered pork tenderloin and my wife ordered snapper and the food was outstanding. Reuben, a blues guitarist, provided entertainment. Reuben played for 3 hours non-stop. Cost for food and booze (including tips for Ninja and Reuben) was about $100, which I considered a great value.
Except for what happened afterward, it was an awesome time!

Day #1 (Monday)

We dragged our dead asses out of bed at 1:30 am so that we could drive from Carbondale to the St. Louis airport, park the car, get a ride, go through airport security and be at the gate an hour before our flight left at 6:00 am. Flights were uneventful and on time. We arrived on Tortola about 5:30 pm, collected our rental car, and set off to Cane Garden Bay. We had excellent directions so we only took a couple wrong turns due to a missing street sign. We had to travel up and down “Joe’s Hill Road”, and let me tell you, ‘ole Joe had one HELL of a hill! I’ve driven in the mountains of Colorado and Joe’s Hill has grades that are every bit as steep! It’s about a 45 minute drive from the airport to Cane Garden Bay and my wife was “white-knuckling” it most of the way. We checked in at Myett’s and got the key to our cottage, unpacked, and walked down to Bobby’s supermarket for some basics, including a block of Cracker Barrel sharp cheddar cheese, a package of pepperoni, some crackers, Planter’s peanuts and a six-pack of Red Stripe beer. We were tired from traveling, so we decided not to go out, but just snacked and then hit the sack.

Day #2 (Tuesday)

I’m an early bird, so I woke up about 5:30. I closed the door to the bedroom and tiptoed to the kitchen to make coffee. After that was done I grabbed a cup and headed for the front porch to enjoy a cup while the sun came up. I walked out the door and met my next-door neighbor who was also enjoying a cup of coffee on his front porch. Talk about a fortuitous meeting! My next-door neighbor turned out to be “Bobby” who’s apparently been vacationing on Tortola for the past zillion years, and knows everything and everybody. I introduced myself and we soon were chatting like old friends. My wife awoke and joined me for coffee and after that we went exploring, walked up and down the main street, just to see what we could see. After an hour of exploring we changed into swimsuits and hit the beach. I got two chairs from the back yard and we carted them down to the beach and parked them in a strategic spot, slathered on some sunscreen and proceeded to roast myself. The weather was perfect, not too hot, and not too cold, and after I’d had enough sun I moved my chair into the shade of a nearby palm tree.
The beach was beautiful and nearly deserted. We spent much of the day at the beach, only leaving about 3:00 so we could go to “Kapye Happy Hour” at Myett’s.

Or so we’d planned. My wife was showering (after a fashion, with only a trickle of warm water) when the faucet burped, spit, and then quit dispensing water entirely. My wife, with a head full of shampoo, was not pleased. She headed back to the ocean to rinse her hair while I walked down to the office to advise the staff of the concern. The manager on duty told me that Kareem would look at it, so I went back to the cottage, put on shorts, took my wife by the hand and led her down to Myett’s where a couple cold Caribs and some conch fritters soon had us in a better mood. We enjoyed the music and met “Manpot” and “GregR, both frequent contributors to the TTOL online bulletin board.

We’d planned to dine at Myett’s that night based on recommendations from our neighbor “Bobby”, but Myett’s entire dining room was reserved for a special occasion so we walked down the beach to Stanley’s, had dinner, walked on the beach and headed back to our cottage.

Day # 3 (Wednesday)

I was up early again (goes with the territory) and after starting the coffee, I walked uptown to the Tasty Kakes Bakery where I purchased a couple of cinnamon rolls and a loaf of bread still warm from the oven, and headed back to my cottage. The freshly baked bread made excellent toast when spread with strawberry preserves from England. After breakfast we headed over to the beach to get some sun early, as we’d been told that TWO cruise ships were in port and that meant that droves of cruise ship passengers that are literally herded from place to place in flocks would be arriving about 10:00 am.

We got to the beach shortly after 9 am and in an hour the “taxi-busses” started disgorging hundreds of tourists. Shortly after that, the skies darkened and opened up and the rain poured down. I felt sorry for the cruise ship tourists. Someone told them about a tropical paradise and here they found themselves stranded away from their ship, in a tropical rainstorm, with no place to shelter.

I retreated to my covered front porch and read until the rain stopped, and then drove over to the Mt. Sage National Park (the highest point in the BVI). Mt. Sage was a cool place. There were three main hiking trails connected by several smaller trails, so a hiker could spend as much or as little time there as they wished. Many of the trails were rugged. There weren’t many people there, we might have seen 15. I saw a few people hiking in sandals, and I felt sorry for them. I was wearing New Balance athletic shoes and there were several times that I wished I was wearing my Vibram-soled hiking boots with ankle support. About halfway up the mountain there’s a trail shelter with a totally awesome scenic overlook. We spent between 3-4 hours there and it was fun to get out and get some strenuous exercise. We headed back to Cane Garden Bay and arrived as many of the cruise ship people were departing, so we had much of the beach to ourselves the rest of the afternoon. I rented a kayak from Bobby and paddled around the bay while my wife was sunning. I saw about 15 pelicans diving near a reef so I paddled over to see what was happening, and discovered there was hundreds of small fish near the surface, which indicates (to me, anyway) that there was a larger fish underneath. I thought I saw a small barracuda but I’m no marine zoologist so it might have been just any larger fish swimming around.

By this time is about 5:00 so we headed back to the cottage. Our water problem had been more-or-less resolved (we had a trickle of warm water and appreciably more cold water) so showers were taken and we walked up the beach to Myett’s for dinner, and then over to Quito’s to after-dinner drinks and music.
Quito is the local “island music” performer, and I can see why he’s popular. I enjoyed his music. We stayed at Quito’s for an hour or so, and then headed back to our cottage where we read for a bit and then hit the sack. (In real life, my wife is a RN in the surgical unit at the local hospital and has to leave the house at 5:30 am. I leave the house to go to work at 6:30 am. We’ve been doing this for many years, so the term “early to bed and early to rise” certainly applies to us! Later on our neighbor returning home from his 69th birthday party at Bananakeet awakened us. From the laughter it was apparent that he’d enjoyed himself!

Day # 4 (Thursday)

I was up early and I wasn’t surprised to see that my neighbor, Bobby, wasn’t. He’d had a birthday party the previous evening and it was likely that he was sleeping in. It was Bobby’s custom to get up early, pick up the accumulated litter and trash on a portion of the beach, and then rake it afterwards. As it seemed likely that Bobby wouldn’t be getting up any time soon, I thought I’d handle the beach for him. I walked down to the beach and was looking for a rake when a large man approached me. I’d seen him on the beach before and assumed he was the owner of one of the beach concessions. I told the gentleman that I suspected Bobby might be delayed so if he could tell me where I could find a rake, I’d clean up a portion of the beach. Well, the gentleman suspected that “delayed” probably meant “hung over” and he laughed and handed me a rake, and we cleaned up the beach together.

This was how I met James, who’s a pretty cool guy.

James’ family has lived on Tortola for about a zillion years and he’s apparently part of the local “power structure”. He not only has one of the beach concessions, but he’s a Customs and Immigration agent as well. His wife is the postmaster and his son is an elementary school teacher.

After an hour or so, James and I had “his” portion of the beach shipshape and he thanked me and I headed back to my cottage for breakfast. Much of the rest of the day was spent on the beach, even though there was another invasion of “cruise ship people”. I guess I was lucky that the cruise ship guests get dropped off on the other side of the beach, closer to the bars, so very few managed to make the perilous journey to where I hung out. Again, I felt sorry for the cruise ship people. I’ve never gone on a cruise, but I remember the old TV show “The Love Boat”. Is it possible that some of the passengers had a ‘reality check” when a majority of the elderly, overweight, and sunburned tourists found themselves dumped off on some hot tropical beach with limited facilities, destined to wander the hot sands and complain?

Nevertheless, I enjoyed MY beach and kayak time.

Later in the afternoon as I was leaving I ran into James, who told me that he was having a small birthday celebration for my neighbor Bobby and invited me to attend. I went back to my cottage, showered and an hour later, headed back to the beach where James had prepared Caribbean grilled chicken, fried plantain, potato salad, corn on the cob, and even had champagne in honor of Bobby’s 69th birthday. It was a small gathering and I was glad I’d been invited!

After dinner and socializing we went back to our cottage, but spent the next several hours talking with Bobby and his wife. At one point the discussion turned to theatre, and when Bobby discovered that I’m an amateur actor and he put on one of his favorite CD’s, the musical score from “Les Miserables”. Of course, musicals rock, and soon I was singing along to Thernadier’s “Master of the House”.

We finally bid our neighbors goodnight at midnight or so and retired for the evening.
Day # 5 (Friday)

Up, coffee, and spent another hour or so raking the beach. I’m constantly amazed at how many people are slobs and believe that the entire world is their ashtray or garbage can. On the other hand, it appeared that Cane Garden Bay could use another trash can or two. I had a plastic grocery bag at the beach and I carried my trash (and other people’s trash that I happened upon and picked up) back to my cottage, but it seems that many of the people on the beach are so lazy that if there’s not a trash can within arm’s length, trash is just left on the beach. Now that’s pretty sad!

Friday’s activities were similar to Thursday’s. Lots of sun and san, swimming and kayaking, reading and beach walking. On one of my trips down the beach I noticed someone waving at me from Stanley’s and it was “Manpot”, so I stopped and chatted for a few minutes. He’s a cool individual!

I wonder if women can tell if they are being stared at? If they have some kind of “radar”?

I love to read, and had brought two lengthy books with me to read on the beach, one W.E.B. Griffin and one Wilbur Smith. I also wore my favorite large-brimmed Tilley hat and an oversized pair of Bolle sunglasses with a flash coating on the lenses. Although a vast majority of the beach-going girls were overweight and elderly, every once in a while an attractive young lady or two might wander by.

About midmorning two young ladies meandered past my beach chair, and they were both attractive enough to merit an admiring gaze from me. I don’t think I even moved my head, and my eyes were hidden by my sunglasses and my hat partially hid my sunglasses and it appeared I was totally engrossed in reading my novel but they both turned towards me and smiled. Busted!

After a full day on the beach we headed back to the cottage, cleaned up and went to the Bananakeet Cafe for dinner, and had an awesome time. Rueben played until 9:00 and we left soon after, having a busy day of traveling ahead of us. The Bananakeet is located on top of a mountain, and the roads leading there have some pretty impressive grades. We were driving downhill in low gear slowly and safely when we turned the last turn into town, and SURPRISE...there’s a huge truck going uphill, taking his half of the road out of the middle! I didn’t have much room or time to maneuver but I got as far to the left as I could without driving off the side of the mountain. I was able to avoid a collision with the truck, but in the process of taking evasive action, I hit something that punctured the left front tire, and I could hear it deflating as I drove off. We were close to our cottage and I was able to make it back before the tire was entirely flat.

Thank goodness for compact LED flashlights! I parked in a level area and assessed the situation. Whatever I’d run over or into had dented the rim and punctured the tire. Fortunately the rental car had a spare and the spare had air in it! With my wife holding the flashlight I removed the old wheel and tire assembly, installed the spare and put the flat tire back in the trunk. I cleaned the grease off my hands, set my alarm to 4 am, and went to bed but not to sleep. Apparently Friday night is party night at Cane Garden Bay and we could hear the music from the bars even as far down the beach as we were.

Day # 6 (Saturday)

My alarm clock blasted us out of bed and we quickly packed up our few remaining belongings, loaded the car, and headed back over the mountain towards the airport. Our flight was scheduled to leave at 7:19 and we’d been advised to be at the airport at least 1.5 hours before the flight, so we did, only to find out that the aircraft had “mechanical difficulties”, and wasn’t going anywhere. Well, “stuff happens”, so I found a nice place outside with a functioning intercom speaker where I could wait until either the aircraft was fixed or other plans were made. I didn’t stress...if I had to be stranded, I couldn’t think of a better place to be stranded than Tortola! It was sunny, 83 degrees, nice breeze, and I had a good book in my backpack, and money in my pocket, credit cards in the wallet and the coffee shop had cold Presidente beer!

What more did I need?

Unfortunately, not all the departing passengers were quite as relaxed.

One of the passengers was a man that appeared to be about my age (55) and his female companion appeared to be about half his age. I suspect he was attempting to impress his lady friend with his macho-ness by mouthing off in no uncertain terms to anyone he thought might be an appreciative audience. I mentioned in a polite manner that if an aircraft had to have a problem, I’d FAR prefer that problem to be discovered when the aircraft was on the taxiway and I was in the terminal with a cold beer, rather than when I was ON the aircraft and it was 7,000 feet in the air!

Well, all good things have to come to an end, and American Eagle flew in a technician who repaired the aircraft and we departed about 12:30 to San Juan, Puerto Rico. I think US Customs was at least a 10-mile hike from where we got off the plane. (Just kidding, but it was a long walk and those who obviously don’t do a lot of walking were less than pleased, including Mr. Loudmouth and his crumpet)

Thanks to the diligence of “Miss Matthews” at the Tortola Airport, we managed to make the rest of my connections, and our flight arrived in St. Louis around midnight. Our home is about a 2.5-hour drive from the airport, and I was getting sleepy, so I stopped at a convenience store and got some killer black coffee and a chocolate bar to keep me awake. The coffee worked well, and so when we arrived at home I was WIDE-awake...at about 3 am. My wife went to bed but I wasn’t sleepy so I checked the email that had accumulated over the time we were gone. The temperature in Carbondale was about 38 degrees and it was hard to believe that just a few hours previously the temperature had been some 50 degrees warmer.

.... And I thought about Tortola, Stanley’s, and Jimmy Buffet singing....


........“I like mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes,Big kosher pickle and a cold draft beer, Well good God almighty which way do I steer?