Now, I don’t want you all to get to upset that, after reading the headline above, you think we are heading back home early! Fear not, we’ve had some difficult times, but this family is charging onwards through the Caribbean! This week, we are experiencing a little peek back into the US culture and shopping scene as we enter the US Virgin Islands. We arrived here after a great couple of days circumnavigating the island of Tortola. After leaving Trellis Bay on the eastern end last week, we sailed on to Cane Garden Bay, to Sopers Hole, and then back to Roadtown. Cane Garden Bay was described as being picture postcard perfect, with white sandy beaches shaded by plenty of palm trees, and I must agree wholeheartedly. What do you think?
We spent most of our time here relaxing at the beach. If you ever come visit this place, be sure to look for the guy with the wheelbarrow full of coconuts and wielding an intimidating looking cutlass.
For $3, he’ll not only provide you with a coconut and a straw, but regale you on the topic of coconut varietals, how his family owns most of the land in the area and how he went to Columbia University. This was one well-heeled coconut that Karen savored!
If you are curious about what is inside these particular coconuts, they contain a liquid that looks like water, but is slightly sweet. They sell it in stores as coconut water. Then, there’s the white ‘meat’ around the inside that you can eat separately.
Along the beach of Cane Garden Bay was an endless string of beach bars and restaurants. While very tame during the day, we were warned that they all compete for the volume of their live music at night, and the tired cruising sailor may not get much rest onboard if one is anchored in the bay. These folks have good reason to celebrate, though, as there’s actually a real rum distillery in town. Arundel rum is made here, by the dutch family the Callwoods. You’ve undoubtedly never heard of it. Apparently the Callwoods bought the place many years back but don’t drink rum, so I can’t imagine they are the best at marketing it internationally either. We stopped in for a ‘tour’. Don’t come here expecting to walk the grounds like you would at your favorite Napa Valley winery. This was a no-frills experience. Step up to the makeshift bar, confirm with the proprietor that you understand he makes three different rums using the demijohns and barrels behind you, and then face the expectation that you are going to buy a bottle or two! We were lucky that he lightened up enough to pose for a picture too!
At the end of the day, instead of hitting the local beach bar scene, we shared the evening with two other boats from the rally, Braveheart and Cartharpin Blue. Neither of them had kids onboard, but the boys enjoyed a movie down below while the adults enjoyed their time with rum drinks and laughter. I had read about what often happens when men and women cruisers get together down here, and this evening was no different. The women break off into a discussion about food, shopping, and the like, while the men dive into the pros and cons of solar vs. wind power, and how best to design a refrigeration system! This evening was no different, especially since the three men were all engineers — yikes!
During the following morning, we ran into Heaven Won’t Wait pulling into Cane Garden Bay. We had left them almost a week ago at Norman Island and Devan and our boys wasted no time getting together for some fun at the beach. They joined us later for a short motor around the corner to a spot called Sopers Hole, at the western extremity of Tortola, where we took a mooring and spent the night. While it was a nice spot and we took in a great meal ashore, I must admit that this place didn’t have anything strikingly different from the many other little harbors we had visited in Tortola, so we moved on the next day back to Roadtown. We needed to be there anyway because of Zack’s follow-up appointment with the surgeon. Stopping in at Village Cay Marina to do some laundry and email, it didn’t need to be said that all of us wanted to make our stay in Roadtown as short as possible. This place had some mystical glue that kept us from getting out and enjoying our Caribbean experience. We’d be back again in early January when friends come visit, but for now, we needed to get out of there quickly!
So, that brings me back to the US Virgin Islands. If you are like me and weren’t paying good attention in history class when they discussed the 50 states vs. the other US territories, here’s a review lesson for you. The USVI’s, as a US territory, has partial self-government. The people of the islands are considered US citizens, but they do not pay US income tax. They elect their own governor and there are local senators that are selected from each of the islands — St Thomas, St John and St Croix — that establish local laws. However, the district judge is assigned by the US President. They have a delegate in the House of Representatives that can not vote but can participate in debates. Other US territories include Washington DC, American Samoa, and Guam. The US purchased these islands Virgin Islands from Denmark in 1917 to have a closer base to protect the Panama Canal and also to prevent Germany from buying up land in the area. After all, this was the World War I era.
You might be wondering about Puerto Rico and how it is politically connected to the US. Puerto Rico was a US territory as well until 1952 when it became a commonwealth of the US. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, don’t pay income taxes but instead have commonwealth taxes, must abide by most US federal laws, and they also have a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. Sure sounds like a US territory to me, but I’m sure somewhere in the fine print there’s something different between a commonwealth and a territory. If you have any insight into these differences, email us and we’ll update the website for those who want a little something else to read about than how our family is laying around yet another white sandy beach shrouded with palm trees!
OK, back to the US VI’s. We left Roadtown on Tuesday with clean clothes, a good attitude and a half working refrigerator and sailed around the island of St John to the small harbor of Caneel Bay. There’s a swank resort in Caneel Bay, but we chose this spot for it’s proximity to nearby Cruz Bay, the port of entry. A short dinghy ride the next morning brought us into the customs office at Cruz Bay and into the welcome arms of the US. What a trip it was to see US postal boxes and a Subway restaurant down the street. Nearby was the headquarters and visitor center for the Virgin Islands National Park, with all of the familiarity of any other US based National Park organization. Almost two-thirds of St John is part of the National Park, and it’s full of hiking trails and very few buildings. In fact, instead of the loud bar scene of Cane Garden Bay, at night you’d heard that same low-level hum that one finds in the woods of Yosemite, Glacier, or the White Mountains. The National Park Service requires you to pick up one of their many moorings to protect the coral from the damage of anchors. The mooring we picked up was just off of a seemingly isolated white sandy beach with palm trees. It was one of those beaches you see in brochures with the young couple strolling through the wavelets and a catchy tagline like ‘Come Experience a Piece of Paradise’, but the good part was that this was a National Park and there were no signs and no commercialism.
To fortify the reality of this nature preserve, the boys school work was interrupted on Wednesday morning by a cry from Zack that he spotted a dolphin — wait a minute, actually 3 dolphins! They were frolicking all around our boat. Both boys jumped in the water and swam up close to them for their very own ‘swim with the dolphins’ experience that so many others pay hundreds of dollars for (and yet we paid thousands of dollars to get here for!). We were so enthralled by the whole experience, that I must have taken over 50 pictures, but here’s a couple for you to see.
That afternoon, we motored around to nearby Cinnamon Bay, still on the north shore of St. John. We had been motored for about an hour and had a seemingly endless choice of quiet, undeveloped white sandy beaches to pick from to spend the evening by. Apart from a campground and set of small cottages, Cinnamon Bay was so isolated, you might think you were one of the early settlers arriving for the first time. Indeed, Columbus had stopped here on his second voyage across the Atlantic, and the resulting influx of Europeans brought both diseases and slavery to this island, decimating the native Taino Indians. The Taino had actually rowed out and welcomed Columbus upon his arrival! They were a peaceful society and among other things gave us such words as hammock, canoe, and hurricane. Later, the Danish started to settle the island, build terraces and start harvesting sugar cane. At one point, nearly the entire island was stripped of natural vegetation and built to support some 109 cane and cotton plantations. This lead to increased demand for slaves, and in 1733 they successfully revolted, being finally subdued by neighboring French troops from Martinique. St John then went through a period of population decline until the 1930’s when the island’s attraction to tourists started to form. In 1956, Roosevelt interests bought most of the island and donated it to the federal government for formation of a national park. Soon after, additional land was acquired, including 12,000 acres of submerged land offshore, all under the auspices of the Virgin Islands National Park.
We liked Cinnamon Bay so much, we decided to settle in for three days. With our new dinghy, we could more easily explore in and out of the bay, and yesterday we motored over to adjacent Trunk Bay. This beach is one of the more popular snorkeling destinations, as they have an underwater trail, complete with plaques, to describe what kind of coral and fish you are likely to see. In typical US style, the beach had a couple lifeguards and decent facilities ashore for showering, snacking and the like. After talking to the lifeguard, a young dude that could have easily come from a Southern California beach, I learned that most of the crowd was of the cruise ship variety. We hadn’t seen any cruise ships arriving in St John, so they must have been ferried over from St. Thomas. Regardless, there was plenty of sand and water to claim for your own, and the National Park Service had done a great job buoying off the swimming and snorkeling area, leaving a small red and green buoyed channel for dinghies to safely transit to and from the beach. The BVI’s could learn a thing or two from this setup!
We plan to come back to a spot right around the corner from Cinnamon Bay, called Maho Bay, for a Christmas eve raft up and celebration with other Caribbean 1500 vessels. It’s a potluck and BYOB affair, with live music from Davis Murray, one of the rally organizers — it promises to be a good time!
We hope all is well on your end. Enjoy all of the holiday parties, snowman-making days, and roaring fireplace evenings — you all are in our thoughts this holiday season!
