Caribbean Cruise...Day 4

Day 4 – April 7, 2008
Location: Tortola, British Virgin Islands
Weather: partly cloudy, 79 degrees, rough seas
Excursion: Tortola Tour and Cane Bay Beach
Distance sailed from Miami: 1200 nautical miles

Today we are going to Tortola, an island in the British Virgin Islands. When I woke up, after sleeping through the wake-up alarm, we were in a beautiful bay surrounded by lush covered hills. There were a ton of sailboats in the bay. The water was amazing. We didn’t have an excursion planned today, just going to wing it, so we took our time getting up and getting ready to go.

We docked in this port, so going ashore was much easier. Swipe out through the security gate and down the gangway and away we went. It was a nice sunny day, with a little breeze, so it wasn’t too hot. We headed toward the town area. Our plan was try and find a taxi that could take us to Brewer’s Bay, a place I had heard was a great beach to hang out on. Yesterday, Kerry’s sunglasses broke, so we ventured to the row of vendors selling their items to see if we could find him a new pair. No such luck. They were either all women’s glasses or straight from the 70’s! So we walked a little farther into town to see if we could find a taxi. Well, we were propositioned with several offers from different people trying to take us on a tour of the island. We did find a taxi stand, but they wanted $20 each to take us to the beach, unless we could find four other people, then it would only be $6 each. Whatever. We told them never mind.

I was starting to feel a little bad about not having planned something more official or structured for this port, because the ship excursions can get pricey, and it was evident we weren’t having luck finding anyone to take us to the beach. After a mini-melt down by some jewelry store, we decided to head back to the ship to see if Kerry could find some sunglasses on the ship. Turns out it was evacuation drill day (I guess they do it once a week!) and everything was closed. Figures. So I said fine, let’s stay on the ship and was ready to go hang out by the pool for the day. Kerry said we should go out to the main area after getting off the ship and see if we can still get on one of the ship’s excursions. So we did. We ended up going on the Tortola Highlights tour, which also included an hour beach trip to Cane Bay Beach. So we signed up and headed to the tour bus (or rather the covered benches on the back of a heavy duty pickup!).

Turns out the tour wasn’t so bad after all. We drove all around the island, going up some of the twistiest and steepest roads I’ve ever seen. The tour driver, Joe, was a great guide. He pointed out all sorts of things of interest and was very knowledgeable. It’s hard to describe the sights we saw, so pictures will tell the story. A funny thing about this island, all chickens are wild and just roam freely. As well as a lot of goats. Weird. We also saw a lost horse trying to find its way down one of the canyons.

After about an hour or so driving around the island, we stopped at Cane Bay. It was an amazingly blue bay with a very nice sandy beach. We staked out two loungers under an umbrella and I headed in the water for a swim. Amazing!! It was a bit chilly at first but then it warmed up. There were gentle waves and almost no rocks. Perfect. Apparently it was a topless beach, or so one lone sunbather thought. It was funny to sit out in the water and watch as people discovered this one woman was topless. Their reactions were priceless!! Also, too many old men in Speedos were spotted. Ick!

An hour on the beach was plenty and it was time to head back to the ship. We saw some more sights along the way. It’s funny to see other cultures and what things are called, like supermarkets. They really don’t have them here. Instead they are little stores called superettes. I wanted to go in and check them out, but we didn’t have time.

Finally made it back to the ship. Once back on board, we decided to do a little laundry in the on board launderette. We managed to have quite the amount of dirty laundry for being here for such a short time, so we took a few hours to tackle it.

Dinner tonight was at Mambos, a Tex-Mex restaurant. It was pretty good. I had chicken and shrimp fajitas. For dessert we had churros (not like the ones you might think of that you get at a baseball game or at Disneyland). These were little fried things with a little honey glazed on them, served with a side of chocolate mousse. Very good.

With turn down service tonight, we got another towel animal. It was hard to tell if it was a sheep or a dog with log ears. Either way, we took a Kodak moment. We had missed both shows, since dinner was so late, so it was off to the casino again for more wasting of hard earned cash (or part of last night’s winnings!). I lasted all of about 10 minutes tonight with my $30, so I said goodnight to Kerry to go up to the room and write about today’s events.

Tomorrow we are going to be in St. John’s, Antigua and have a catamaran sail and snorkel trip planned!! More rough seas, but by now we are used to it. Everyone is saying this is one of the roughest cruises they have been on. I don’t mind. As long as I’m not sea sick and can still sleep through it and walk without tipping over!!!

Good night...more adventures tomorrow!