Friday, May 21, 2010:

We have a mascot from Marina Cay, Joe the Barracuda. He lurks around the boats—I think he’s waiting for scraps. I got in the water and took his picture—a little creepy but wait until you see the photo. My own pet barracuda!

Picked up a day mooring (on the first try) at Monkey Pt. on Guana Island, and took pictures of all the fish I could. As you can see, I figured out how to download…..


Cane Garden Bay is just like the pictures, a palm-fringed beach of white sand.There’s a town, mostly lots of vacation places and a few stores. Restaurants along the beach. It’s Friday night and music floats across the water.

A sample of local art and architecture in Cane Garden Bay.

An almond tree and a breadfruit tree in Cane Garden Bay.

Houses are strung up the hills along the switchbacks, like strings of Christmas lights.

In the dark after dinner we can see St. Thomas in the distance, completely webbed with lights. It makes BVI look like primitive camping.

Jonathan showed me a black lump on the sea floor that looked like a rock and said he’d seen others. The fish book calls it, (wait for it) Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber. I am not making this up.

We were swarmed by Sargeant Major fish by the boat as we boarded after snorkeling.

Oh, and did I say I picked up the mooring here on the first try….

Thursday May 20, 2010 Goodbye to the BVI from Catherine and Jeanne

Jeanne and Catherine bid farewell to the islands, taking the ferry from Marina Cay to Trellis Bay at 9:15 am.

Where else in the world can you roll your suitcase from a ferry landing to an international airport? We stayed on at Marina Cay and waved to mom and Catherine flying overhead at 11:05 am.

Bye mom, Bye Catherine.

Tropical adventures continued. We got a service call from our charter company and picked up two technicians (aka boat guys) in the dinghy. They brought more gas for the dinghy, longer boat hook and fixed the anchor light. We took them back and strolled tropical Trellis Bay community, stopping at Aragorn Studios. Truly local crafts, we were ready to load up on stained glass, pottery and iron work, but settled for the most creative T shirt designs we’ve seen.

We’ll miss the monthly Full Moon party where bonfires are lit in sculptural iron balls set on posts over the shallows. What a sight that must be!

Snorkeling with Jonathan’s camera we discovered that IT IS WATERPROOF. You’ll have to wait for the many many photos of tiny fish because though we found the charger, we didn’t find the download cable.

There may not be internet tonight but I will keep blogging!!

Catherine will never be replaced by a telescoping boat hook! Never!

More Baths

Today is a day without photos as we took them on Jonathan's camera and we can not download them. Wink & CB walked to a neighboring white sand beach, found Norma's Garden and resort where she welcomed us to her beach. Alone, as its off season, we luxuriated under thatched cabanas and perfected the art of swimming with panama hats and sunglasses. Nosing about for interesting natural artifacts, we spent the morning reading and relaxing. The afternoon was The Baths again today as they were much too beautiful to not see yet again. After traversing the caves a few times, we met Lily, a true flower, who sold us his beautiful textiles. Wink finally manned the dinghy and after a lesson from CB really showed her "inner captain". Now hanging with dark and stormy. See you all soon! (Get ready as Gma is coming home with CB)

Virgin Gorda

• After CB took Mom for a swim, she skulked off into these caves exploring the rock formations and tidal pools. Sneaking off the track and into a few tidal pools that had not had visitors for a long time, she hoped the morey ells were friendly. Which they were! The caves and beaches of The Baths at Virgin Gorda were spectacular, pristine white with the aqua water loaded with fish and coral. We raced back in front of the lightening and thunder to the safety of Rhona via dinghy. The Baths are a series of huge rocks toppling over one another creating eddies, natural pools and caves to be explored on foot and by sea in snorkeling in and out of the labyrinth of stone and sand. Back on the boat and showered, we enjoyed Dark and Stormy (dark rum, ginger beer and lime) followed by a wonderful meal cooked by Jonathan of fajitas.
  

One thing of note here is the amazing beauty of the raw land. The volcanic masses pushed up and out now what is under water covered with coral and formations of all kinds. Wild jasmine is in bloom and as CB scours the beaches early in the mornings, it smells like Italy, luxurious and heady. Its that wafting smell of toast onto the shore which tells her everyone is up and breakfast is ready.

Vroom, vroom! The sailing crew is about to depart from the dock at Nanny Cay, in the British Virgin Islands. Our boat is the Rhona, 44 ft long, with room for 7 people.

We loaded up with supplies and took off for other islands.