JULY 11, 2017: @ oh-5 hundred hours, we left the Salt-Aire dock in a haze of dreary fog…. we are headed for calmer, brilliant blue seas, farewell to our home for the next 10 days, we will test our sea legs and welcome the salty waters of the Caribbean as we explore this charted territory.
So hoist ye duffles & all you scallywags get aboard for the trip of a lifetime!
The Crew: Left to right – Back Row: Ships Photographer & Bartender: Richie, Deckhand: Vincent,Bosun: Richard, Lead Deckhand & Tender Captain: Nat, Chief Stewardess: Mia, Purser and Head Chef: RoseAnn and CaptainKen. Front Row: 1st Mate: Dominic, Deckhand:Chris, Deckhand: Olivia
We would like to cordially thank our captian for taking us on this fantastic trip! He ordered this centerpiece for our absolutely irreplacable purser, Roseann, which has brightened up the boat and added a lot of personality to it. Thanks again!
The ship photographer and bartender has created a delicious cocktail. His homemade recipe is known as “Richie’s famous rum punch”. The Captain approves.
At ten hundred hours this morning we are officially out of water. The crew did not heed the Captain’s warnings about water usage and now we have no more freshwater on board. We are currently on a mooring at Cooper Island and must immediately travel to Virgin Gorda to take on 200 Gallons of freshwater. According to the Captain, every crew member is subject to walking the plank.
From the Captain: July 14 2017: There will be punishment. Look to a future blog of walking the plank.
I just docked this monster to a concrete dock through extremely tight conditions and wind!
North Sound, Virgin Gorda – July 15, 12:30 hours the boys went on a fishing excursion out in the deep sea off the east coast of Anegada. We were picked up by a 42 foot Tiara, the Beliga II with Captain Deadman and 1st Mate, Brad.Despite the rough waters, the crew was able to push through them and get their hands on some fish! Nat was able to catch the family a Wahoo – a colorful tropical fish which we had for dinner that night!Nice job Nat!Dominic and Vinny tirelessly worked together to catch themselves a barracuda!How exhaustingA photo together on the way out to the fishing grounds. (Taken by our Captain)
After a taxing day out to sea, the crew members of the fishing boat offered us a jug of their famous frozen drink around these parts, the “Painkiller.” Whist pouring it, they told us we were getting the “real deal.” (That stuff packs a punch!)
Yesterday we were introduced to the remote island of Anegada, an island that our captain himself had yet to visit. The island itself is harder to get to than the others, due to the extremely shallow waters around it.Our captain entered the mooring in just three feet of water! A nerve racking entrance indeed! Thankfully we have an experienced captain and excellent crew.
After our lunch, we began our expedition exploring the island!What we found was a fantastic beach, with crystal waters and a relaxing breeze.The family on the beach
We spent our night on Anegaga, with a delicious local restaurant right on the water.
The other night we spent the night on the island of Anegada, due to generator issues on our boat! Everything is all fixed now though, and we were able to have a comfortable night at the Anegada Reef Hotel.
We woke up to a humid pictureque morning on the beach just before going bone fishing, which will be continued in a later post.
Yesterday we sailed the waters of Anegada with some locals to do some Bone Fishing !
The waters were flat and filled with all different types of unknown and adventure!Our group was split in two – two groups of three.Besides the fish, we saw some very interesting sights around the shallow waters of the island.Around the waters of the island, there were piles upon piles of empty conch shells just sitting there – in the middle of the water!We cruised past the original pile – and our captain of the fishing boat noted that these piles have been growing since he was a child. Over 40 years!Locals dump their shells here after they use them – the fish industry sells a lot around here! (Conch is very delicious) The top of the piles remain sun bleached – while the bottom of the piles have begun to rot from the salt water!
While sailing the emerald waters, we encountered a flock of flamingos!Our captain sailed us as close as we could to the flock so we could get some pictures of the bubblegum pink birds, but they flew away. So we have some shots of them mid flight!
At the end of the day, only two people caught any bone fish. Lead Deckhand Nathaniel, who lost his fish, and the only person to get their bone fish in the boat was our ship’s photographer himself, Richie! 😊 Bone fish fight unlike any fish we’ve seen in waters like this, so it was quite the experience reeling it in. (Which we have video of!)First Mate Dominic was able to capture a Barracuda as well!(Special shout out to our Bosun Richard for catching a Jack fish)
After two hours of sailing from Anegada to Jost Van Dyke of nice weather and only 15 minutes from our mooring field at Little Bay we encountered this very nasty looking weather condition. Fortunately it looked worse than it was and the Captain and crew safety secured a mooring.
We started our last day in the Virgin Islands looking for a famous spot on Jost Van Dyke – the Bubbly Pool. We began to hike uphill, searching for it.This was one of the most strenuous tasks for most of us in recent memory, and we made it so high above the island we saw the entire landscape of the mooring site.We hiked for hours, and not all of us made it, and we were unable to find the Bubbly Pool by foot.We did have one of the locals’ pets accompany us on our journey, and he was so glad to be with us! Too bad we couldn’t take him home 🙁We eventually regrouped and took the zodiac over to a far better beginning location. So we stopped at Foxy’s Taboo for obligatory drinks prior to our 2nd try!
This was the restaurant’s pet, a Harry look alike.We found the entrance to our location, and due to the terrain and location, it wasn’t without any adversity from the local environment! Click the photo to read more about this tree.Poisonous Tree: The wording on the rock says “Poisonous Tree” Not just the apples are poisonous but the entire tree is. It is dangerous to stand under the tree while it is raining.
Following this, we were met with even more hiking…
This is what the surrounding area looked like, tooWhat an adventure! And this is all before lunch!
But then…We finally found the incredibly shallow non-bubbly Bubbly Pool. What a big disappointment!There weren’t any bubbles at all, and the tide was very low so there wasn’t much water, but we relaxed in the pool nonetheless.
For our final night at a restaurant we spent it at Sidney’s, a restaurant that had a self serve bar (uh-oh!)Our Ships Photographer/Bartender, Richie and 1st Mate, Dominic spent most of the night behind the bar seeing what we could craft for our crew!The food was simple and the view was nice too.
The Captain bought this very appropriate hat for the 1st Mate. It says Mooring Hooker!We left a little piece of us at the restaurant, among the dozens of other shirts hanging! ❤️
Take some time to play with the blogsite and upload test photos and text – the admin will delete the test posts for you if you want( just remember to put the word TEST in the header and then I can delete them once you get to BVI’s
Upload a video and photos also !
Have fun with it – you will be happy that you did once you get home and you have a great website with all of the wonderful memories that you experienced while on this “trip of a lifetime” with your grandparents.
