Savannah Beach, Virgin Gorda, BVIs

Photo’s are here, or you can just click on the photo above.

Geoff is not very good at keeping secrets … he tries … but he’s fundamentally doomed to failure! I knew we were going somewhere because I saw an email from American Airlines which I shouldn’t have seen 😉. However, the destination was a secret he managed to keep quiet right up until a week or so beforehand despite my attempts to wheedle the destination out of him and various other friends who absolutely refused to spill the beans! Nobody can say I didn’t give it my best shot … after all, a girl needs to know which shoes to pack and whether she should be packing thermals for a spring skiing trip or a bikini for the Caribbean! Since I had also inadvertently discovered that our good friends, Don and Sue from Ohio, were to be joining us for my “surprise” 60th birthday trip, there was a fair chance it would be a Caribbean island rather than skiing in Colorado! 😉 I was right … we were heading to the BVI’s!

We haven’t been to Tortola in 16 years when we visited briefly before heading over to the spectacular Peter Island Resort in the British Virgin Islands with friends from Florida. Tortola has changed. A lot! Long Bay Beach Resort on Long Bay in the West End of Tortola was destroyed in Hurricane Irma. It was pretty rustic back then and needed an overhaul, if I’m honest. Now it has been totally rebuilt, redesigned and emerged like a beautiful butterfly as a far more chic, elegant resort. Our room was decorated in shades of white and cream with natural materials, there was a huge walk-in coral shower with views over the beach and an expansive terrace from which we could step straight out onto the sand and into the water. There are plush beach cabanas with palapa palm leaf roofs just feet from the sea from which you can gaze over the turquoise waters towards Jost Van Dyke Island, Sandy Spit (if your eyesight is good enough!) and Little Jost Van Dyke. Spectacular!

There are huge skies with dramatic sunrises and sunsets and we loved hearing the soothing waves breaking on the shore at night. Most of all I loved being able to grab a cup of tea, sling on our swimsuits and wander the length of the beach in the early morning light towards the conical-shaped hill at the far end of Long Bay Beach in Belmont.

It is a very relaxing place to stay (especially if you book a Ground Floor Suite beach villa or the Beach House) although there are some caveats. It is a brave man (or woman) who tackles the crashing waves rolling onto the beach for a swim. The water is warm and clear turquoise but not terribly user friendly. The views more than make up for it, however, and if you are desperate for a swim in the Belmont locality you can drive a few minutes on a dirt track to Smugglers Cove where the water is calm and the drinks are flowing at famous Nigel’s Boom Boom Beach Bar on the sand. Another question mark looms over the resort – the food in the open-air 1748 restaurant housed in an 18th century rum distillery maintains the elegant but unpretentious feel of the hotel but the food is not only eye-wateringly overpriced, it is also mixed in quality. Service fluctuated between charming to brusque and unfriendly; and from timely to utterly chaotic … and you never knew what you were going to get! 😉 The 1748 Sushi Bar upstairs above the main restaurant requires bookings and was significantly better, although the services was still a tad slow – even by Caribbean standards 😉

To be fair food on Tortola is nothing to write home about! We ate breakfast at the resort on our first morning which came with a hefty $100 bill for 2 people for a very average breakfast. Thankfully, we were lucky to find Omar’s Coffee house at Soper’s Hole Marina in the West End, a 10 minute drive from the hotel. The food was great, service came with a smile and the bill was closer to $70 for 2 for breakfast … by US standards still high but far better value in so many ways! Omar’s covered porch sits facing the marina so you can sip your morning coffee alongside the yachties while you wait for your freshly baked bagels in the bright, colourful and very cheerful marina with its vibrant pink, blue and orange-painted buildings with distant views over the surrounding hills. Omar’s was so good, we went back every day! Omar is very industrious. He also owns a Fusion restaurant in the vicinity but we didn’t have time for it which is unfortunate since we could easily have traded one of our bad meals for it! D’Coalpot Bar and Grill was entirely missable despite its accolades. Yes, the location is fabulous – right on the water at Carrot Bay. According to the connoisseur Geoff, the cocktails were awful and after the waiter narrowly missed tipping my entire dinner into my lap, the evening had already been relegated to “never to be repeated”. There is an Asian influence at D’Coalpot with dishes such as curry-crusted fish, which was very odd. Bananakeete Cafe at Heritage House was much better. It is located on a steep hill with expansive views overlooking Carrot Bay as far as Long Bay. Rustic but well-prepared food with spectacular views out to sea in one direction and over the hotel’s pool in the other direction (which was a tad unusual).

Our best meal by far was during our day trip to one of my favorite islands in the BVI’s – Virgin Gorda! Just as spectacular as we remembered from our first visit many years ago when we were spring chickens and I wasn’t just 2 days away from my 60th birthday!

We took Speedy’s 9am ferry from Road Town (the capital of Tortola – modern(ish) and charmless) to Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda. “Town” is a massive overstatement – on the entire island of Virgin Gorda there are only a small handful of businesses, hotels and restaurants and they are spread far and wide. We had booked a Jeep for the day from Speedy’s Car Rental whose representative should have met us at the ferry terminal to take payment and fill out the paperwork. We wandered aimlessly for 15 minutes or so in the heat whilst we tried to track down our car, ever more concerned that time was ebbing away and that we wouldn’t beat the cruise ship crowds to the famous Baths, after all. After a frantic phone call from a Speedy’s ferry company employee to Speedy’s affiliated car rental company we were handed the keys to a Jeep and told to drive to the main office to settle up. The main office was even more chaotic than expected with many, many irate customers trying to pick up their pre-booked rentals. Geoff wasn’t going to wait in line so he told the rep we already had a car with keys and that we would come back at the end of the day to settle up. He was happy to take our word that we’d return the car (what else could we have done with it?!) and we left it at that. At the end of the day we returned to the main office but there was no-one in sight so we dropped the car at the ferry terminal in the same parking space we’d taken it from in the morning and handed the keys over to a miscellaneous employee at Speedy’s ferry company. To this day we are still waiting for a call for our credit card number … how they stay in business at all, I have no idea 😂

Anyway, our first stop of the day was the Virgin Gorda National Park. We paid our $3 fee per person (money very well spent) and started the walk through the rocky terrain surrounded by tall, skinny cactuses with occasional glimpses towards the teal waters. It is not a long walk (maybe 15 minutes) but it was hot and the scrub was impenetrable to the sea breeze. First destination – the stunning Devil’s Bay Beach, a quiet cove surrounded by huge, smooth granite boulders with waters as calm as a mill pond and as clear as glass. It is a fabulous place for a dip to cool off before continuing another 5 minutes or so to the Baths where you can float in pools or explore the caves. We were lucky – we caught it between tour groups. The entire National Park is drop-dead gorgeous. We still had time to kill before our lunch booking so we drove another 15 minutes or so uphill along the spine of the island. As you round the bend at the top of a hill the beautiful sweep of Savannah Beach comes into view below. We continued downhill and along the dirt track to take another dip at beautiful, almost empty, but relatively breezy Savannah Beach. The water is very shallow and clear here and there is plenty of shade under the trees running along the sand. Eventually, it was time for lunch (and way too many cocktails 😉) at CocoMaya Restaurant with views over grey granite boulders and out towards to Tortola. This was our meal of the vacation! Great food and cocktails. It was a highly memorable day with our friends!

In between day trips and excursions we hung out at the beach villa terrace with Don and Sue sipping rum and cokes with the occasional puff on something dodgy Don had bought from a miscellaneous local 😂

My big day finally arrived and life at 60 seemed much the same as it had done at 59 so I didn’t worry too much about yet another milestone birthday 😉 We had breakfast at Omar’s whilst we waited to meet the crew of the Aristocat Sailing Company for our excursion upon one of their fleet of catamarans. I was forced to wear a sparkly “60” tiara and a “60 and Fabulous” sash for a couple of photos. Not my most natural look so, once we’d boarded, I was allowed to abandon them for fear of dying of embarrassment!<

It was a lovely day with a stop at Sandy Spit beach which doesn’t look anything like the photos since it was flattened in the same 2017 hurricane which took out Tortola and many of the famous Virgin Islands. Apparently it was famous for its narrow oval of sand and three iconic palm trees which were featured in Corona Beer commercials 20 odd years ago. We swam from the catamaran to the island which was a battle due to the headwind and the crashing waves. The palms were replaced after Hurricane Irma but it maintains a somewhat disheveled appearance when you reach the shore.

We were informed by our captain that the famous 17th century Dutch privateer (pirate to you and I) Joost Van Dyk (who commandeered the neighboring much larger island and called it after himself) used to sail disloyal pirates out to Sandy Spit and abandon them there. Legend has it that it was bad luck for pirates to learn how to swim so they were left to die on the sand unable to make it back to shore without drowning. Cheery! 😉

Lunch was served onboard the catamaran and then we all leapt into the bright turquoise water of White Bay on Jost Van Dyke island as the storm clouds gathered around us and threatened heavy downpours. It’s a good job we all have a sense of humour! Again, White Bay beach was not much like the photos! The beach is famed for its historic Soggy Dollar bar and for the invention of the Painkiller cocktail. Back in the day when the Caribbean wasn’t totally overrun, sailors would moor up in the bay, stuff a handful of dollars into their pockets and swim ashore. They would throw their soggy dollars into a bucket and were served a drink in exchange. Hence, the bar became known as the Soggy Dollar. As it happens, they don’t serve the best painkillers in the world and it was by far the most touristy place any of us have ever been! Jost Van Dyke is clearly a very popular island stop on the cruise ship schedule despite the fact everyone has to swim ashore quite some distance from their respective catamarans – all except for Sue who absolutely refuses to get her swimsuit wet! Instead she accepted a free ride sitting on an SUP whilst the rest of us actually earned our Painkillers by battling the tide! It was a fun if excruciatingly touristy day trip 😉

I really enjoyed my surprise birthday week chilling, hanging out with our friends, gazing at the Caribbean and day-tripping in the British Virgin Islands. Thanks for the memories guys 😊