Sail Boats, Cruise Ships and Ferries, Oh My

The boys have been obsessed with all things firefighting and rescue vehicle related since they were two.  They both would get so excited any time they heard a ‘ga-go-ma’ (fire truck) coming down the street.  I wasn’t sure if they were going to continue to be in awe of rescue vehicles and fire trucks when we got here.  Luckily, they still play firefighter and I think it will stick with them for a long time.  That said, both of them have some new interests thanks to our current location. 

Reilly on Native Son

We arrived in Tortola in early March, on a ferry from St. Thomas.  We came over on a Native Son ferry to be exact.  Why do I make this distinction?  Well, the boys, especially Reagan, have a new obsession.  Boats.  Reagan will come get me any time a boat goes by that he likes.  He will point out sail boats with colorful sails.  He will point out mega-yachts.  He will even point out the cruise ships that are arriving or leaving Road Town.  They love all boats, but especially ferries.  This is the view from their room (and yes, that is a ferry passing by):

View of Sir Francis Drake Channel

Because we face the channel and are west of Road Town, our view is of the ferry route between Road Town and all ferry destinations West of Road Town.  Starting around 6:30 am the first ferry comes by.  It is usually a Native Son ferry, we can hear the distinction as their motors seem to be so much louder than the rest.  Native Son is not the only option.  There are Road Town Fast Ferry, Tortola Fast Ferry, Smith's and Speedy’s.  Reagan is all too happy to point out each ferry as it comes by and will let you know which operator it belongs to as well. 



Road Town Fast Ferry

Native Son

Smith's to Virgin Gorda

Tortola Fast Ferry

Since ferries are the mode of transportation to get around the islands (if you are not lucky enough to have your own boat), we have had several opportunities to take ferries here and there.  One of our favorite adventures, so far, was the ferry to Jost Van Dyke.  You can see from the photos below that Reagan and Reilly love this mode of transportation, these are photos of the boys on the Mona Queen, the ferry to St. John!

Reagan on the Mona Queen

Reilly on the Mona Queen

The Mona Queen in St. John

Long Bay

Our favorite location on Tortola has to be Long Bay.  Situated on the northwestern shore of the island, Long Bay consists of a resort and mile long beach.  While on the beach, one has the perfect view of Jost Van Dyke.  Long Bay is also the home of Nature Boy, an authentic island beach bar!



View of Jost Van Dyke from Long Bay Beach



Nature Boy Beach Bar

Most weekends, and several evenings during the week, you can find us at Long Bay Beach.  There are several reasons we like Long Bay so much.  It is the closest “real” beach.  (We are closer to Nanny Cay, but the beach is man-made.)  It only takes us about 10 minutes to get there.  Most evenings, we are the only people on the beach and on the weekends it is rarely crowded.  It seems to be a different beach every time we are there.  The rocky areas change, the surf changes and the types of seashells we find on the beach change. 

Sunset at Long Bay Beach

Chris and Reagan spend a lot of time body surfing.  Reagan is just about swimming and just loves to play in the surf and “practice” swimming.  Reilly doesn’t like to get his face wet and is a bit shy about the water, but will also body surf.  He also loves to walk along the shore with me and collect seashells. 

Chris and Reagan "action" shot!



Reilly's style of "body surfing."



The resort itself also has a few nice amenities.  There are a couple of restaurants, tennis courts and a pool with a swim up bar.   A few weeks ago, the boys and I had the opportunity to have lunch at the bar and use the pool.  Lunch was just ok, but the boys loved the pool.  The pool’s biggest attraction is the slide.  The kids loved using it.  Even Reilly got into the action.  There are also basic pool floats that the boys decided to call their “boats!” 

Reilly on the Slide, Long Bay Resort

Reagan's "boat"

Reilly's "boat"

Day Sail!

Chris and I finally got a chance to get out on the water over the weekend on day sail organized by his office.  Our catamaran was the Duke of Earl.  By 9:00 am all scheduled Tortola passengers were aboard and we set sail.  The weather was perfect for being out in the channel. 

Our first stop was The Baths in Virgin Gorda.  We had two goals here, to explore The Baths and to pick up another coworker that lives on Virgin Gorda.  The Baths is an area in the southern side of Virgin Gorda that consists of unique rock formations.  There are two small beaches and between them are very large boulders that form grottos, tide pools and tunnels.  Visitors walk through these formations from one beach to the other.  The Baths are one of the BVI’s most famous and visited tourist attractions.  We took a dinghy to the left beach and took the “hike” through the boulders to the right beach.  Unfortunately, I left my camera on the boat and was not able to photograph the tunnels. 

Our next destination was Cooper Island.  We had reservations for lunch at the Cooper Island Beach Club. A few of the women in our group had met the chef at a cookbook release party the week prior to our trip, so they were excited to sit down for a meal.  The menu choices ranged from burgers to fish and chips, conch fritters and classic roti.  I had a cheeseburger that was pretty good.  I also had a lime daiquiri and was not disappointed.  I definitely have a new “island” drink!

Before getting back on the boat, the girls in our group did a little rowing courtesy of Sail Caribbean Divers.  I took the opportunity to take a few more photos and do a little shopping and picked up a cute Hiho rash guard.  

After returning to the cat, it was decided that we did not have time to go to the Willy T, which a few of our passengers were looking forward to!   Instead we sailed over to Peter Island to swim.  We dropped anchor outside of the swim area and a small group of us swam to the beach.  It was a nice swim and great way to work off the big lunch we had.  

Peter Island is the 5^th largest island in the BVI and the largest private one.  The beauty of all of the beaches in the BVI is that up to the “high water mark” they are considered owned by the Crown and thus open to the public.  If you can get to the beach, you are allowed to use it.  This includes the beaches on Necker Island (Sir Richard Branson’s island), but people are discouraged from using them and when high profile guests are on island, security makes it next to impossible to access them.  The spa on Peter Island is supposed to be one of the better ones around and I’m looking forward to going back for a spa day soon!

Finally, Captain Steve turned back toward Road Town.  The men enjoyed Cuban cigars (they are legal here) while the rest of us took in the wonderful scenery traveling through the Sir Francis Drake Channel. 

We did not take the boys out on this trip.  They were in very capable hands and even had a swim outing of their own.  I’m looking forward to the next time we can get out on the water.  It was a great day and perhaps we will take the dynamic duo next time. 

58 Months!

Today the boys are 58 months old!  One thing that I have done religiously since the boys were born is to take their photographs on the day of their birth every month.  I did not do traditional baby books and unfortunately lost a lot of the journaling I did when they were babies when our hard drive crashed.  Luckily, I have backed up all of the photos I have taken, with the exception of a set of Thanksgiving photos that was "accidentally" erased on the camera before I could confirm they were backed up. 
I love this way of tracking their growth.  When they were babies, I posed the boys in our glider with their first stuffed animals, Mr. Doggy (now called Sparkey) and Mr. Puppy.  And although we no longer have the glider, I try to pose them monthly with their dogs.  Unfortunately, we left Sparkey at my mom's before we came down, so Mr. Puppy has been shared by both boys.
I have to admit that some months the photos have not turned out so well.  Today, though, I think I got some cute shots.  I really cannot believe that in two months they will be 5!

Week in the Life - 2012

Most of my family and friends know that I am a scrapbooker.  I made scrapbooks long before scrapbooking became a multi-million dollar industry.  Of course, once it "took off" I was already hooked and was happy that my long-time hobby had a new approach.  It did not hurt that there were so many great products introduced as well!  Along with a lucrative product industry, came magazines that created several scrapbooking "celebrities." 


One such celebrity is Ali Edwards.  (aliedwards.com)  Every year she facilitates a challenge to her followers (and herself) to document a week of your life, in photos and in words. The week of April 23 to April 29 was her 2012 challenge week.  In all, I have completed 4 of these challenges and decided it was a great time to participate again.  Our time here in the BVI has just begun.  I think it will be great to do this challenge again next year and see just how much our routines will have changed when we are completely settled.
 

I am not quite sure, yet, how I am going to design my pages for this year's challenge.  In all I took about 300 photos and then narrowed the collection down to 126.  There are not a lot of options for photo processing here and at 60 cents a print, I do not intend on printing over a hundred photos.  I did create daily collages of my photos to share.  Perhaps I may end up having 8x10 sizes of the collages printed on my first visit home and create pages with the collages and the intense journalling I did that week.  Here are Monday, Wednesday, Saturday and Reilly & Reagan collages. Happy Friday!

Monday



Wednesday



Saturday



Reilly & Reagan







St. John - (not quite) a Bust!

On Sunday, Chris and I thought it would be fun to head to St. John again to explore a little more of the island.  Last time we stayed in Cruz Bay.  We were looking forward to heading to one of the beaches or to check out the Westin, which is supposed to be pretty cool.  Once again, we took the ferry from West End.

View of Soper’s Hole Marina from the platform:

Reagan enjoying the splashing waves on our ferry:

Reilly just posing for the camera:

We got to St. John just before 10:30 and thought brunch would be a great idea before heading out to explore.  On our earlier trip, we saw the menu for JJ’s Texas Coast Café and decided to give it a try this time.  While waiting for our food, this mama hen and the most chicks I’ve seen with one hen walked by (I did not get all of the chicks in the photo):

I was very excited to see huevos rancheros on the menu.  I had been craving Mexican food for a few days, so I was set.  The portion sizes for the pancakes that we ordered for the boys and the biscuits and gravy were a little lean.  I was happy though!  Though not “traditional” by any means this hit the spot:

Unfortunately, it started to pour during our lunch and we made the decision to head back to Tortola on the 11:30 ferry.  We just did not want to be stuck in the rain for up to 5 hours (the next ferry back is at 4:30 on Sunday.)  Despite walking to the ferry in the rain, these boys were very happy:

So St. John was a bit of a bust this time.  (With the exception of the huevos I had and confirmation from one of the cooks that the chimichunga is really good, so I have something to look forward to next time!)  And although it rained for pretty much the rest of the morning and early afternoon, we did make it over to Long Bay for some beach time late in the day. 

Singing the Internet Blues

We have been in our apartment here for 50 days and finally we have internet.  This was due to a series of mishaps as well as the philosophy that most things are done on “island time” here!  Suffices to say, we are finally connected!!

Our first months here were all about exploring and getting our bearings.  We have already found “our beach” and have favorite hangouts, bars and restaurants.  There are still a lot of things we are looking forward to doing, but have not gotten around to for one reason or another.  I will be writing about these in future posts, but really wanted to share some photos from our adventure so-far. 

I also want to thank our families, friends and colleagues that have supported this life-changing move.  It has not been easy and without your support, it would have been that much harder! 

Welcome sign at the Dolphin Discovery round-about:

“Toll” booth and Beef Island Bridge, (a long way from the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges and their toll plazas!):

Traffic Jam.  There was an accident about ½ mile in front of this shot.  One small accident will jam up traffic in and out of Road Town.  However, as far as traffic jams are concerned…….

A few beaches:

Long Bay (Tortola)

Long Bay (Beef Island)

Smugglers Cove

Brewer’s Bay

A few world famous bars:

Bomba’s Shack

Soggy Dollar Bar (Jost Van Dyke)

The view from our deck, Norman Island and Peter Island, Salt Island:

Hello from Reilly & Reagan: