Virgin Island Hopping

A Return to the Virgin Islands

Honeymoon, St Thomas, 1987 

Thirty years ago, Chris and I discovered the beautiful U.S. Virgin Islands when we honeymooned on St. Thomas. A decade later we made two more trips with some other couples on a chartered yacht that let us island-hop and explore the British Virgin Islands as well.

The Indians, BVI, 1993

Life progressed; our kids grew up and four years ago we had the pleasure of introducing them to our beloved islands on a chartered sailboat. We have just returned from a second 10-day BVI (British Virgin Islands) sailboat trip with our kids. How fitting that we were able to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary back in the Virgin Islands.

Cooper Island, June 27, 2017 - 30th Anniversary

Our trips in 1987, 1993, and 1995 were documented with old-fashioned photo albums and typed-up Captain's Logs detailing our voyages. It was fun looking through them after we returned from our most recent adventure.

The pictures from our latest trips are all digital; like I said, life progressed. It's interesting to compare the photos. In the 90's, we weren't using digital cameras so we didn't have the luxury of taking multiple shots and choosing the one where everyone looked the best. Instead we had to just wait and see how the pictures turned out once we were back home and got the film developed, resulting in several shots of awkward smiles and closed eyes.

On our 2013 trip, we were living in England and I was blogging about our experiences living abroad. Here are my blog posts from that trip:

http://russellsabroad.blogspot.com/2013/07/sail-away.html

http://russellsabroad.blogspot.com/2013/07/boat-trip_9.html

BVI Trip Version 2017

Harvey and Marley on the Ma Ha

Our sailboat this time was a 57-foot catamaran named the Ma Ha. Our captain was Harvey from England. Our First Mate / Cook was Marley from Vancouver, Canada. We enjoyed Harvey's dry British humor and hearing about all their experiences. They joked that the boat was named for them: MArley and HArvey, but actually the owner named it after a Three Stooges skit.

Being on the boat versus staying at a hotel in one spot gave us the opportunity to see and do lots of things. We spent the ten days going from island to island, anchoring in a nice cove for lunch, stopping at various good snorkeling spots, going ashore sometimes to a bar, or for a hike, or so the kids could play spike-ball on the beach.

Spike Ball on Cooper Island

The boat had toys for us like a kayak, paddle boards, water-skis. We might spend a morning hanging out on a picturesque beach or checking out a nice island resort. Those that wanted to got to go on four scuba dives. We had flexibility but it was also nice having a captain who knew the good spots to visit and would plan out our days for us. 

Paddle Boarding

Amidst all those activities we somehow squeezed in three full gourmet meals each day prepared by our cook as well as our much-anticipated daily 5:00 snack with the Captain's Cocktail of the Day.

Ready for dinner on the boat

Captain Harvey had many roles. Obviously he drove the boat, but he was also boat mechanic, dinghy chauffeur, food server, bartender, table-setter, our tour guide at The Baths National Park, even our social director, radioing in our menu selections in advance to the Wonky Dog restaurant on Anegada Island where we feasted on fresh lobster. 

The Baths

You could tell some island practices tested his patience. We sympathized with him when he called a nearby marina to check on their gas price, which they told him. Sadly they didn't tell him they were out of gas until he took the boat over there to fuel up.

Anegada Island

I don't know about that

This accounting of our adventure would not be complete without a mention of the joke of the trip. We definitely overused the phrase "I don't know about that!" but with my experiences with our Amazon Echo and the fact that Max will soon be working for Amazon... on the Echo project... it just fit.

If you haven't seen the Saturday Night Live skit for the Amazon Echo Silver, here it is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvT_gqs5ETk&ref_=MP_AUCC_MX_HV_Sub_Fri_echo_crm_05_19_watch-snl-video

Little Things Add Up

Overall, it was one of those epic vacations that we'll remember fondly. For me, it was the little things that added up: a spectacular sunset, watching the moon develop from crescent to full over the week, amazing stars lighting up the night sky, the feel of warm sun and the scent of salty air. I even found wonder in the way our captain was able to produce a different dinner table setting each night using various seashells, beads, rope, sea glass, placemats. Our anniversary dinner was made special with a black tablecloth, white cloth napkins, champagne, and jazz music. But the best "little thing" was just the opportunity to spend time together as a family.