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Thursday, 12/9/04 - Road Town, Tortola - 7:00am-4:00pm
Virgin Gorda and the Baths
Thursday found us docking in Road Town, Tortola - one of the British Virgin Islands. We had booked an early morning excursion to Virgin Gorda and the Baths, necessitating a wake-up call from the front desk. After a quick breakfast at the buffet, we boarded a charter boat shipside for a 45-minute ride to another island, where the Baths are located.
After disembarking our charter boat, we boarded open-air safari buses for the journey to Virgin Gorda. Once there, a short path led down through tropical fauna to the beaches below. We were told that there were two beaches, but one was not as accessible and could only be reached by making your way through the 'caves'. We wandered the main beach before realizing that it was going to be much more crowded than we would have liked, so we ventured off to make our way to the other side via the caves.
These appeared to have been created by a volcanic blast as there were huge boulders seemly tossed by a giant to land where they may. We found that 'through the caves' meant, in some spots, it paid handsomely to be thin and limber (of which the first I'm a lot closer than the second). After a couple of wrong turns and roughly 20 minutes, we made it to the second beach. It was spectacular and well worth the scraped knees.
We spent the morning taking in the sunshine and I did a little fish-watching by attempting to keep my place on an underwater boulder and looking down into the water which was about 5 feet deep from my vantage point. This is not an easy task with waves present. Next time it's snorkel gear! I got quite the workout just trying to stay in one spot. We dried off and headed back up the hill to take in the views and do a little souvenir shopping, not to mention the cup of tasty rum punch!
We enjoyed the scenery of the islands as we were ferried back to the ms Oosterdam.
Road Town, Tortola
Once back on board, Bob and I grabbed a quick lunch and decided to go into Road Town, Tortola, to see the sights and maybe do a little shopping. The people were not near as friendly as they were in Philipsburg, St. Maarten. It was a bit of a disappointment, but just solidified our desire to return to St. Maarten someday. It was a bit of a walk into town, and on our way, we passed the Central Administration Complex and one of Her Majesty, the Queen's, paddy wagons.
At right is a view of a typical street in downtown Road Town - very narrow and congested. So far on our trip, we'd been very thankful there hadn't been a need to drive. Traffic on the islands is unbelievable! It looks like the Bay Area at peak commute hours with less organization.
After leaving a few tourist dollars behind, we headed back onboard.
I got a shot of some Blue Tangs that were schooling between the ship and the pier. The picture really doesn't do it justice as there were dozens of them and such an electric blue - very Caribbean.
We enjoyed another wonderful dinner with our tablemates, Bill and Charla, in the Vista Dining Room and called it a day. The ms Oosterdam was to be at sea all day Friday and arriving at our next port on Saturday - Half Moon Cay (pronounced 'key'), Holland America's private Caribbean island where we planned to take in some Caribbean snorkeling.
