Episode 7: Caribbean Time!

Hi Everyone!

“You are not dreaming…You are in paradise!” I found this written on the side of a boat here in the Virgin Islands…and how true it is!

Where do we begin? Perhaps with our first experience of entering a Caribbean port after 24 days at sea? To begin with, port and starboard navigation buoys are all back to front here, but we’d read about it so no problem. Because we had to clear Customs and Emigration through a clearing port, we decided that the first landfall would be Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour on the island of Virgin Gorda, in the northern region of the Caribbean.

Marmax- Safe in Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbour

Kind of nerve racking really, after being out at sea with never ending horizons of blue for so long. We entered a shallow channel in around 20 knots of wind, turning 90 degrees to starboard as we entered through a narrow rock wall (real narrow!). The water and sight of coral on the sea floor was clear as a bell, just a couple of hairy inches under the keel. We made the tight turn just a few metres from waves frothing over a small reef and popped out safely into a compact 100 berth, full service marina. Another tight turn to starboard and there appeared a sharp and shiny, uniformed marina attendant looking rather dashing and standing by on the marina to catch our lines. These moorings are not floating affairs. They are built for hurricanes and made of concrete and steel. We were instructed to reverse in on the end of the first arm…did I mention the wind strength?

Up we nose to the wind, sideways we got swept. Thank God for mighty bow thrusters! As we have mentioned before, all this stuff happens very quickly. As usual, I was on stern lines, Glenys on the central springer, Les on the bow. The guy is standing there, very casually, VHF in hand, me yelling (aka: speaking very loudly above the wind) if he could please grab the springer first. “No panic lady” he says in his low Rastafarian voice and hands splayed out, “We’re on Caribbean time” You know, in our minds we are screaming, “Catch the damn rope man, or our yacht will be smashed into your fancy concrete marina!” Having researched island etiquette before arriving, we were politely silent. “Springer Mam”, he breathed with one hand held out. Glenys threw it. The line gets swiftly wound around the marina cleat, the wind had us, yet miraculously we slipped very quickly alongside with a very gentle thud. Seriously - 5 centimetres to spare on the stern and I heard Bruce’s lungs whoosh a great sigh of relief. A perfect landing.

In the next few days, we discovered the handling of boats here is really quite an art, really cool to watch and very classy. Even the women and children are seemingly unflappable. All manoeuvre's are carried out at high speed, mainly because the Trade winds seem to be prevalent here. The deckhands stand above the marina cleats with the lines, flick, flick, flick…it’s all in the wrist work. When I think of how freaked out some people get when going into marinas back home, it’s really quite funny! Welcome to the world of charter boats, or should we say, the Kingdom of Catamarans! Easily 80% of the boats are cats here, the balance, yachts. All shapes and sizes, not many small ones and probably mainly between 40 foot and 80 foot. There certainly is some magnificent, mind boggling eye candy floating around here! Money is clearly no object for most; everyone is here for a good time. Its another world I tell you!

The Virgin Gorda marina bar...gone

Some homes survived

Supermarket...gone

As we got our salty swagger happening, the first thing that struck us ashore was the devastation; it looked like a war zone! For those who are not aware, the Caribbean was hit by two Category 5 hurricanes within a week of each other in September 2017, Hurricane Irma, then Hurricane Maria. The people were absolutely annihilated, poor things. Twisted steel, trees ripped out, empty facades on their homes and businesses, dozens of wrecked yachts and catamarans scattered in the boat yards. Some businesses have managed to carry on with the help of painted marine ply and creative landscaping, still a few pop-up shops and restaurant’s set up under makeshift tarps. You do have to admire their resilience. The boat yard manager was telling me that the winds got up to 302 kmph, catamarans started spinning when the high winds lifted them and they were actually flying around in the sky, some landing 4 deep on top of each other. Remember, these are huge 40 to 80 foot long, luxury catamarans here; it must have been dreadful. Rumour has it that there were approximately 65,000 vessels in total destroyed in those two cyclones and in the coming days we were to see hundreds of boat wrecks, scattered and smashed upon the rocks and hills as we travelled around. It must have ripped their hearts out…

Smashed up boats everywhere!

                           

The shared Marina bathroom facilities

Second major thing…the beautiful black, friendly Caribbean’s with teeth like piano keys beaming out at you. Smiling, kind, wonderful, warm, softly spoken people. Why can’t the whole world be like this? I guess it has something to do with being on “Caribbean time”.

For the uninitiated, this tradition is so very frustrating! If you catch a taxi, for example, you may be waiting in the sun for another 20 minutes in the taxi you just jumped into until another paying customer turns up. They charge by the head. The taxis are various sized little trucks or utes, seating between 6 and 20 people obviously, depending on the size. We had one particular taxi man recommended to us, “Andy”. He also happened to have a nice bunch of colourful bougainvillaeas tucked in the back tail-gate and nice soft seats so that was good enough for us. It turns out that Andy also owns one of the local beach restaurants, “Fischers Cove”. I guess this taxi business is his cash business!

Andy's Money Making Machine - The taxi!

When you ask a Caribbean taxi driver, “Where is the laundry or supermarket please?”, the answer will always be “Awww…15-20 minutes that way”, with a toss of a banana sized thumb. Invariably, that laundry or supermarket will be less than 4 minutes away and they just managed to score a US$20 note from you to get there. This has happened a few times to us now. We got to the first laundry to find 9 washing machines and 5 dryers inside, what we assume used to be, a small shopping centre but now resembled a bombed out ablution block. “Sorry lady, only one machine working” said this gentle mannered man with a smile on his face, as he stared at all 5 of the Marmax crew lugging huge heavy bags of laundry about. He then lifted his gaze to the other men waiting for that one machine. We were out of luck here; nice smile though, thanks mate. Dammit, lug laundry back out to the big grinning Andy. “You go somewhere else? He says with his hand on his heart, “I take you!” Stuff it, lets lug the laundry to the supermarket with us and grab some stores for Marmax. In we all clamber. Another 5 minutes around rickety narrow roads with chickens scattering, past a dump full of broken houses, boats and cars, hand out another US$20 note. “I wait for you; you leave your washing in my car” Grin, grin 😊 We’re up to these tricks. Would this cost us another US$20?  More than likely. Would we ever see 80% of our clothing and bedding ever again? So, to keep it safe, we offload the laundry and after a quick wander around the battered and bruised two horse town, we blew off a few hundred dollars at the supermarket in the next hour, hauled it all out to the street, piled it alongside the laundry bags in the sun and called our mate Andy back.  Andy was having a great day! Our ever-growing load prompted us to head back to the marina. We’d had enough of this. We were not used to walking for a start, and certainly not used to the beating heat radiating out of the stone roads.

Another lovely fellow yachtie we had met earlier on, Canadian Vanessa, saw us arriving back at the marina with Andy, she got stuck into him and told him to take us to some laundry she seemed to think he should have taken us to in the first place. You know…Andy was smart, he probably knew this all the time. I bet he was having a good giggle inside. Glenys and Bruce jumped back into Andy's money making machine and off they went while Les, Janelle and I loaded groceries back into Marmax. 

Daddy's Girls

This ended up a very long story! In summary, a few hours later, a very weary Glenys and Bruce returned with half the laundry washed but not dried. The other half stayed the night at the laundry. The laundry lady had put the detergent at the bottom of each load so all the clothing, sheets, etc smelt like cigarettes, not nice, fresh frangrances! Back to pick up the second half the next day and the same deal. Everything reeked! We ended up hanging up all of our laundry on Marmax to port so that we did not look like a bunch of loser hippies from New Zealand in amongst all this class. All the girls “little bits” carefully “hidden” on the lower life lines so as not to draw attention. Just our luck! A big tourist boat pulls in alongside our port side with around 40 Americans on board. Kind of embarrassing, though a few of them were a curious sight too. Brown voluptuous girls in skin coloured bikinis strolling down the marina will always make your jaw drop!

Glenys and Bruce putting a dent in a few
 Rum Punches during communication time

In our three fun days in Virgin Gorda, we managed to clear Customs, catch up on communications outside the ice shed, put a dent in Bruce’s credit card to get an American adapter for our English and Spanish power outlets for shore power. Partook in the most decadent Pina Coladas and Bush Wacker cocktails you could ever imagine. The Bath and Turtle Restaurant, Fischer Cove and the stunning CoCo Maya Restaurant and Bar on the beach in Spanish Town were all superbly “Caribbean”. All beaten up, boarded up, no windows but full of fun, laughter, colour, music and deliciousness!

CoCo Maya - Spanish Town 

One afternoon, an official looking, uniformed lady was on the marina at our stern taking notes on Marmax. “Hello, I am your security guard for the night.”  Big smile. That’s interesting. Why did we need security? Ahhh….Easter weekend, 3.00pm and the Puerto Ricans started arriving in their magnificent luxury launches and catamarans. The Party People have arrived!!!! 

8 daughters = 4 x 350 hp outboards

We worked out that for every 8 children you have, one must have 4 x 350 horse power outboards on the stern of your muscle boat. Also loved the names on the boats! Puerto Ricans appear to breed a lot of daughters and oh boy, do they LOVE their music! Tanned 40 - 60 year old men with single gold chains around their necks instead of T-shirts, gorgeous wives in itsy-bitsy bikinis and see through beach tops, boats adorned with various official, branding and drinking flags and a kaleidoscope of colours under the waterlines in the clear blue water at night. What a fabulous atmosphere! The music went on until the wee hours and a gentle tropical breeze blowing through our open hatches, we enjoyed a cocktail induced sleep with smiles on our faces. I think we are going to love the Caribbean!

A little background information for you all... the very short version! The British Virgin Islands are an archipelago of around 60 stunning islands, coral cays, islets and rocks with endless white sand beaches, usually fringed with green mountains (currently look like they have been hit with a flame thrower). Each island is amazingly unique. The BVI’s sit around the centre of the chain of islands which makes up the Caribbean. As I sit here in Cane Garden Bay, Tortola, typing this up, the US Virgin Islands are only a few kilometres away, but we require Visas to get over there so we will give it a miss.

Christopher Columbus claimed the islands for the Spanish in 1493 and named them “The Virgins”. The Spanish found copper on Virgin Gorda in the 1500’s, remained virtually unsettled and home to many buccaneers and pirates until the Dutch, with buccaneer protection, established a permanent settlement in Tortola in 1648. The French captured the islands in 1668 and the British took them away in 1672 and started colonizing. They were given separate colony status in 1872. Today the British Islands are a Crown Colony with its own government. Don’t ask us why they use US dollars here though! The pirates were apparently very happy with all the hiding places the islands offered to hide their loot from the ships they knocked off from the main shipping routes. It really is a wonderful experience to sail quietly past these beautiful islands imagining the sins and adventures of a time long past…rather like a dream.

The beautiful colours of Leverick Bay

Back to our adventure. Next stop, North Sound, obviously in the northern end of Virgin Gorda. “There are numerous world class restaurants and marina complexes here to suit everyone” said the cruising guide. Hmm…was!. Blasted raw by the hurricanes, only Leverick Bay Hotel really remains totally operational. The others are all in the very early processes of being totally rebuilt, some of them are huge establishments. So sad but, in that being said, even with the coral being tossed, turned and heaved up on beaches, the whole environment is still so very beautiful. The water is constantly that deep sapphire blue, crystal clear for at less 20 metres or so deep, while brilliant white sands fringed by sea grass attract the turtles which are constantly bobbing up beside us in the water.  The highlight for me, as we headed towards North Sound, was going past Necker Island, private home of Sir Richard Branson. You can stay there if you are keen. Prices start at a cool US$80,000 per night. It too was wiped out by the hurricanes, but clearly, Sir Richard has a head start on his renovations.

This is as close as we could get to Necker Island...Hi Sir Richard!

Another interesting experience was the sight of this monstrous private yacht called “A”. It could be called many descriptive words, but the nice ones escape us. It is worth US$450M, the largest and tallest private sail assisted motor yacht in the world and owned by a Russian billionaire. It has 54 crew, is 143 metres long, 25 metres wide, 8 decks high with a private submarine and an underwater conservatory. Google it; it’s fascinating! 

"A"

Fill in the gaps; it is _ _ _ _! Its tenders look like flying saucers running around the bays; shaped like cigars. These fancy zoom-zoom tenders are zapping everywhere, we constantly have our eyes on them when swimming or snorkelling. There do not appear to be any speed limits or rules here, even in the middle of commercial harbours.

One of "A's" tenders

Leverick Bay was picture perfectly divine. Plenty of money poured in here to get it all up and running. Only complaint was that the cocktail glasses at the bar were plastic and holey moley, its expensive! Truly a millionaire’s paradise! Les, ever the fashionista aboard Marmax, indulged in buying his BVI cruising attire while he was here. Like a kid in a candy shop, his daughters would laugh their heads off, I swear he is half girl!

Les in his BVI cruising attire

A funny place for a British telephone box...recycled and now a wharf shower for the yachties in Leverick Bay

Les teaching Janelle how to walk on water

It is now nearly time to start heading off, but we are in dire need of a rigger as we still have two of our main reefing lines to be replaced before the long journey ahead. Simple you yachties may say…not so simple. It’s a Seldon system and it seems that the boom may have to come off, so we headed to the main island of Tortola, named by Columbus in 1493, meaning “Turtle Dove” in Spanish. Also, the only place you can find a rigger! We anchored off a little place called “Buck Island” for the night, then headed around to Nanny Cay to go find the cousin of Carolyn, a kiwi friend. Her cousin, Jane, another fellow Kiwi, managers the hotel there. Sometimes its not what you know but who you know. We tracked the delightful Jane down and asked lots of questions. What a wonderful find she was in the short time we had with her. Thanks Carolyn and Jane!

Nanny Cay- What a spot!

A perfect Nanny Cay home for retirement? 

The local riggers could not start another job for at least a week, so we headed to Road Town, the capital city of the BVI’s, the centre for commerce, shipping and shopping. We anchored in the harbour for a couple of nights and went off to explore the town. They sure must have been some hurricanes! Wow, what a mess! Complete destruction alongside businesses trying to get up and running. How strong must a wind be to punch holes in solid concrete buildings?

The colourful markets for the cruise ships tended by beautiful Barbados and Jamaican ladies with their beaming smiles, elaborate, glossy braided hair and gleaming velvety chocolate skin; their manners so soft and sincere. Behind them, the shopping centre facades simply pounded to pieces, empty windows with gentle breezes wafting through them. The uneven pathways are still full of gaping holes, the sewerage still obviously not working properly. Broken trees, hardly any birds or animals, just chickens. But still, the people are happy, the traffic is crazy and half the cars look like a coconut tree has fallen on top of them. Gaffer tape is clearly a necessity here.

We took a walk through the back streets which revealed all sorts of architectural delights (spot the real estate agent here). Beautiful old West Indian homes with new, bright red and blue roofs. Lots of Victorian dado work all around the porches. Red and white churches, Her Majesty’s Prison and commercial buildings in such brilliant colours; they always put a smile on your face. I still haven’t found the paint shop, I want to hear the sales spiel when picking colours. Buildings perched on huge boulders on a hillside, all rather wonderful!

The Road Town riggers also said they could work on the rigging “next week”, so come back. Bearing in mind we are on “Caribbean time”, I am personally dubious about this “next week” business. We cannot afford to waste time on marinas just waiting for these guys. No phones appear to work too well, or do they not answer? So, you physically do have to chase them, and in this heat? It is not fun!

What is fun is the famous Pusser’s Pub, famous for their “Pusser Painkiller” cocktails! Got to love it when you order one. “Would you like 2 shots, 3 shots or 4 shots honey?” Oooooo…! Wouldn’t I love a 4????? But common sense prevails and we had a long way to walk home with heavy loads. Let me tell you, they are B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!! 

Try it, you'll love it!

Inside Pussers Pub - Road Town

The other Pub we tied our dingy to :)

Our tender was tied up to another pub, called “The Pub” and otherwise known to us as the pub with excellent wi-fi! Time to catch up with communications while we waited for a man to deliver 3 LPG gas bottles which will hopefully last us until we get back to NZ in September.

With a few days to kill until the riggers would hopefully materialise, we continued our extensive exploration of the BVI’s. Jane had mentioned her favourite spot was in Little Harbour, Peter Island where you can swim with the turtles, and indeed we did! What a thrill for young Janelle! 

Next day, snorkelling around the caves of Treasure Point at Norman Island. The water is so unbelievably clear, it hardly seems there. This is the island of legends about pirate treasures. A letter written in 1750 stated, “The recovery of treasure from the Nuestra Senora, buried at Norman Island, comprising $450,000, plate, cochineal, indigo and tobacco; much dug up by the Tortolians.”

The friendly fish of Treasure Point, Norman Island

Janelle in her element

The tropical fish swam all around us for hours. You seriously just do not want to get out of the water, but it is hungry and thirsty work playing “fish” on a hot day with masks and fins on. We now have the recipe for those “Painkillers”, we also have the ingredients. What better way to end a day in paradise? Cheers!

Anyway, plenty more magical bays and islands…we either explored or circumnavigated almost all of them. A few amazing stand-outs. Dead Chest Island. Allegedly, this is where Blackbeard marooned 15 of his crew with nothing but their sea chests and a bottle of rum, hence the line from that old favourite, “Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest, Yo,Ho,Ho and a bottle of rum!” Neat hey!

The Baths and Devils Bay National Park on the southwestern tip of Virgin Gorda. The place resembles a scene from a sci-fi movie. Massive granite boulders strewn up and down the beaches, piled on top of each other. They apparently date back to some 70 million years ago. The interesting thing is that many geologists believe they were formed by lava flowing through cracks in the ocean floor. Over millions of years, the sea floor rose, and the exposed boulders were sculpted by wind and sea until they formed their current shapes. 

Another lot of geologists argue that that may have been brought down the Caribbean within glaciers of the last Ice Age. When the ice receded, they left the granite boulders behind. None of this explains why this is the only place, in all of the Caribbean, where these formations are found. They are one of the Wonders of the World in my eyes! The huge round rocks form a labryrinth of caves and passages, the sunlight filters through the cracks revealing shimmering, clear salt water grottos and warm pools, just fabulous to lay around in and incredibly, not at all ruined by tourists and their many feet!

We had an absolute ball in here, it’s too hard to describe how special it was...

Bruce and Janelle took the tender back to the boat while Glenys, Les and I took the road around 3 bays to check out the houses built on top of boulders, hugging the coastline. We chatted to a few people along the way, but I do wonder what the 3 American business people thought of the 3 of us as we popped out of a rock formation and spilled out onto a private beach where they were sunning themselves. A quick chat with one of them. This was trip number 20 for him. He asked us where the heck we had appeared from. “Um, out of the rock?’ said Glenys! “Isn’t it dangerous?” “Nope”, replied Glenys. In our elegant “resort wear”, Glenys in a sarong, me in a short dress and Les in his usual T-shirt and shorts, we walked into the water and swam out into the ocean to Marmax, which was on the pick some distance away and well out of sight of the Americans. Kind of felt like we were in a 007 movie, though Glenys and I not quite looking like Bo Derek! They must have thought we were quite mad.

The 6 acre - Marina Cay. All buildings destroyed by the latest hurricanes

Marina Cay. We simply could not go past this little damaged gem without supporting them. A tiny Cay with a quite a lovely story behind it. In 1937, a Robb and Rodie White bought the 6 acre island  for US$60. It was a lonely little bit of land called “Diddledoe Island”. Robb was a writer, and with his beloved wife Rodie, they ran off for peace and inspiration. They built a cottage on the hill and left in 1940 as Robb had to go to war and Rodie had to recover from an attack of appendicitis. While they were gone, they sadly lost title to the island and never returned. Robb wrote a book about their 3 years on the island entitled, “Two On The Isle”, which for those of you who are movie buffs, later became a movie in 1958 starring Sydney Poiter and John Cassavettes. We took a photo of this lovely old dingy called “Diddle Doe”, we romantically imagined, is one of the few relics which has survived the tale.

The little old  custom built "Diddle Doe" 

We anchored one night in an appropriately named, “Lee Bay”. A fascinating, in-the-middle-of-nowhere-place where we came upon a lovely Kiwi guy, David, who was on a 2- year cruise with his son Zack. That night we enjoyed drinks aboard Marmax and a good ol’ Kiwi pikelet morning tea (compliments of Janelle) aboard their gorgeous 54-footer. What a spot! Fish leaping everywhere along the shore, big clumsy, grey Pelicans smashing into the water eating them and these black headed gulls jumping on the Pelicans backs trying to steal the fish they had just caught. This was a constant performance that went on all day long…just awesome to watch. I took a video or two but its too hard to download onto this blog...sorry!

Black Headed Gulls - really quite beautiful

Then finally, Cane Garden Bay. Known as one of the prettiest and best known of all the BVI anchorages, some say Jimmy Buffet's songs, “Mahana” and “Tire Swing” helped in its popularity. This place is so much greener and lush than the other sides of the island. Though clearly suffering damage, much of the beautiful West Indian architecture has remained intact. Two Painkillers for the price of one at the Paradise Bar? Well, it was there we wiled away the night as the sun set over the boats in the bay and the grooving sounds of Caribbean reggae helped the drinks go down smoothly. What a heavenly life!

For some broken homes, there is often a flash boat parked outside!

The Paradise Bar - Cane Garden Bay 

Time to get back to Road Town, find these riggers, stock up the boat and post this blog. Next planned route is up to Anegada, The Drowned Island. Then to the island of Jost Van Dyke. We then head south down the chain of Caribbean islands, enroute to the Panama Canal with an estimated time of arrival over there around the 30^th of May.

Thanks again to all of you who are following our route and Googling our anchorages before we even get into the tender to get ashore! It is great to see such interest and we do hope some of you are able to get to this neck of the woods some time.

“We are not Dreaming…We Are in Paradise!”

 

Cheers for now from the Marmax Crew

Glenys, Bruce, Janelle, Les and Debbie

P.S. The riggers arrived, smack on time!