In October, I went to the British Virgin Islands. :-) I had SO MUCH FUN! It rained for 4 days, but it was still fun...kinda like camping. I finally got a couple days of sun near the end...enough to get a little sunburnt on my shoulders. ;-)
Anyway, here is a day-by-day account of my trip:
3 airplanes and 2 cabs. Whee. All that anticipation about the trip for a month or so...and then an entire day of travelling! Hehe...not that I'm complaining. ;-)
Ryan and I kept ourselves entertained in the airports and on the plane by playing crosswords and gin rummy (soon to become the official card game of the trip). I had planned on finishing both Contact and Stranger in a Strange Land during the trip, but Ryan was a little hyper, so I ended up entertaining him the majority of the time. ;-)
We finally arrived at the hotel around 11 at night, had some late dinner, and slept in the last real bed we'd see for a week.
Time to pick up the boat! We woke up, had breakfast, and waited. And waited. And waited some more. Maybe we shouldn't have woken up so early. ;-) We finally got into the briefing room, where Julian (a local dude) told us all about our boats. At first, I was thrown off by Julian's accent, but I came to realize that his accent was mild for locals. As Julian put it, "I challenge you to understand two locals talking to each other. I guarantee you...you will not understand a word." Hehe...
From there, we went to the docks to pick up our boat, seen here to the right.
The boat was dubbed Trouble, as you can make out in the picture. Keep that name in mind while you're reading the rest of this page. Trust me.
Now we had to wait while the Moorings employee did a run-down of the boat for Cap'n Mike (Ryan's dad). More waiting. The anticipation was killing me by now. Okay, maybe not killing me. That's me to the left waiting with the luggage to get on the boat.
We finally got on the boat, threw our luggage in our berths, and started sailing. Yay! :-)
But 5 minutes out of the harbor, it started raining. And raining. Ugh. Perfect, eh? Well, it wasn't too bad...it was still an incredible feeling to be sailing down the Francis Drake Channel. :-)
We made our way over to Soper's Hole on Tortola, where we grabbed a mooring and took our dinghy to shore for dinner at Pusser's. Ah, Pusser's. Home of the famous painkiller. If you ever get a chance to stop by a Pusser's restaurant, you must order a painkiller. Or, you can make your own: Bar-None recipe. They're great, and I'm not one for drinking even. They have cream of coconut, pineapple juice, orange juice, and, the most important ingredient: Pusser's rum. Oh, and fresh nutmeg sprinkled on top. Yummy. :-)
Here we are at the first Pusser's of our trip; we ended up going to three. :-) We found out that, if you went to three Pusser's and ordered a painkiller at each one, you'd receive a special Pusser's Triangle pennant. Ryan has his hanging in his cubicle at work now. But imagine our dismay when we discovered we'd have to order painkillers in order to win the pennant. Oh, no...not an excuse to drink painkillers! Hehe...
More rain. We sailed over to Sandy Cay, a beautiful little island with great snorkelling. The weather was kind of rough, so we couldn't take the dinghy in once we anchored. Ryan and his mom swam to shore, while his dad and I stayed with the boat. If you look closely at the picture to the left, you can see two little orange dots. That's Ryan and his mom. ;-)
After they were done snorkelling, we decided to head over to Great Harbour. When we got there, we anchored. But it didn't hold. So we anchored again. Nope. We even had Ryan dive down on the anchor a few times. But it just wouldn't hold. The bottom was too rocky.
So we headed over to Little Harbour and grabbed a mooring, where we made dinner reservations at Abe's by the Sea. The dinner was great and about halfway through, I decided to get my hair braided. It only took 45 minutes to get my whole head done, but Ryan and his parents got a little bored. Hehe...here's a picture of his parents.
Guess what? More rain! Hehe...but again, it was still a beautiful sail over to Trellis Bay. We grabbed a mooring there and went to the store to re-stock our supplies. Ya know...bread, orange juice, and Oreos. ;-)
Then we got bored. So we decided to head over to Marina Cay in the dinghy. Bad idea. Very bad idea. It was windy as hell and there were 3 foot seas. Imagine...in a dinghy. *shudder*
But we made it there and went to Pusser's. (Anything for a painkiller!) By the time we were done eating and shopping, it had gotten worse outside. And of course, it was raining. There was no way we were going to dinghy all the way back to Trellis Bay. So we took the ferry back and the ferry driver let us tow our dinghy behind his boat. For free. Nice, huh? :-)
When we got back to the boat, Ryan and I commenced another gin rummy tournament. Here I am, concentrating on my cards.
We had left Trellis Bay, on our way to Leverick Bay, where it was rumored we could have hot showers on shore. Yay! We had gotten the sails up and were making good time. Ryan noticed that we had left the swim ladder and captain's seat at the back of the boat down (from when we swam, etc. in the morning). So he went to the back of the boat to fix it. He put the captain's seat up, but didn't lock it in to place. And, holding the captain's seat, he bent down to pull up the swim ladder (which was practically under the boat). And the seat not being locked into place, flipped back and dumped him right in the water. So there he is, in the middle of the ocean...no life jacket, no life preserver...and our boat is heading away from him.
We managed to sail into the wind and get back around to him to give him the life preserver, but he was in the ocean (in 4-5 foot seas) for a good 5 minutes without one. And, to compound matters, he cut his leg when he fell off...the dinghy prop ran over him.
But of course, we didn't know this yet. We were still trying to get the sails down so we could motor over to him and pick him up. But, the wind was so strong that it pulled the jib lines out of their rigging and they were dragging in the water. So, of course, they got stuck in our motor. We still couldn't get the sails down. And now, we couldn't even motor over to him to pick him up once we did get them down. So we called VISAR (Virgin Island Search and Rescue). They told us to anchor, so we didn't lose sight of him. We did.
Then Ryan started drifting/swimming over to the boat, but he was still a half mile off. Two charter captains had heard our distress signal on the radio and took their dinghy (they were much more experienced in that weather) out to help us. By the time they got to our boat, Ryan had drifted back 
and was just getting on. But they dove down and cut the jib lines out of our motor for us, seeing as how we were all a little wary of the water by then. Ryan, especially.
Whew. So after all that, we got our sails down, pulled the anchor up (a tremendous task in itself considering how hastily we let it out), and motored to Leverick Bay. And now came time to deal with the 2-inch gash on Ryan's leg. It definitely needed stitches; it was gaping open. We took the dinghy to shore and got off. There was this woman standing there...Kathy...she ran the parasailing place. We asked her about a doctor, but she shook her head and said, "you don't want to see that doctor." We mentioned that Ryan's mom is a surgical technician, and that, if we could just find the right materials, she could stitch him up. And it just so happens that Kathy is a cat lover; she neuters cats on the island. So she had suture and novocaine. She drove us up to her house and his mom stitched him up in a complete stranger's living room. And she did a great job.
Okay. Now it all began to sink in. That whole near-death experience and all. So, we all went to Pusser's, ate lunch, and stared into space for a good hour or so, complete with occassional shudders and tears. We got back to the boat and did the same. Enough about this day. Here's a picture of Overboard Boy.
Ah, sweet Leverick Bay. Sweet, protected, calm Leverick Bay. We stayed here again for the night. (You can imagine our tentativeness at sailing again right away.) Besides, the weather was awful...raining every hour on the hour. There was even talk of a gale warning later on that night.
There was a beautiful schooner anchored in Leverick Bay while we were there. We took tons of pictures, but here's just one to whet your appetite. It's name: The Flying Cloud.
So we did some laundry, ate and drank at Pusser's, and sorted out the previous day's events.
It was still sprinkling every now and then, but sun was promised later in the day. So we stayed in Leverick Bay and took a taxi in to Spanish Town and the Baths for some snorkelling. To the left is a picture from the cab on the way to the Baths. On the right is a picture from the main beach at the Baths.
This was a nice relaxing day; I highly recommend stopping by the Baths if you're down in the BVI. There was an awesome trail through and under and over humongous rocks to a beautiful beach.
I also got one of my braids fixed here (for a $1). I had tried to fix it myself, but that didn't quite work out. It's a lot harder than it looks. ;-)
We finally decided to leave Leverick Bay; we were nicely recovered from "the incident." ;-) We headed over to the Bitter End, a ritzy little yacht club. Not my thing at all. But we did 
get an awesome dinner there. Everything you could want: champagne, steak, baked potato, salad, mahi-mahi, shrimp-ka-bob, desserts, and great coffee.
And we also got some awesome sunset pictures there. Yes, I know...cliched, but still beautiful. ;-)
We sailed over to the Bight at Norman Island, an uninhabited harbor, but rumored to have awesome cave snorkelling. But, alas, the weather was too choppy to attempt the caves. So we hung out on the rocky beach for most of the day.
We took the dinghy over to the William Thornton, a floating restaurant, for dinner that night. Our last night in BVI. *sigh* At first, it seemed we'd have just another quiet night reading and playing gin rummy on the boat. But then a big sailboat with about 25 people docked. :-) I got a little toasty; it was tons of fun...dancing, singing, shots, body shots. Hehe...
Ryan's dad was drunk. I mean drunk. ;-) When we were driving the dinghy back to the boat, he ran right over a mooring. Heh...and Ryan wasn't too coherent either. He passed out on the deck. That's okay...I had more room in the berth. ;-)
Time to sail back to the Moorings. I slept most of the sail, but we got back to Road Harbour by 10:30 in the morning. We turned in our boat and ate some lunch and waited for our cab to the airport.
Another 3 planes and 2 more cabs. Oh joy. And more gin rummy and crosswords. I did finish Contact while in the Puerto Rican airport, though. Great book, by the way; I highly recommend it.
We got back into Austin around 11:30 at night. And you'll never believe this: our luggage was left in Dallas. Ugh. Figures, eh? ;-) Oh, and we got back to Ryan's parents house around 12:30 and our cars wouldn't start. Ack! It had been getting warm, then cold, all week while we were gone and the condensation accumulated. The cars did, eventually start, though. And we got our luggage at 10 the next morning. :-)
Even though we did have a bit of bad luck, the trip was still amazing...and I can't wait til my next vacation. ;-)
Last updated 30 September 1998