Nature’s Little Secrets

March 1, 2023

Note: Ken is fine. He just has a few scabs on his legs.

Although the British Virgin Islands are not far from the US Virgin Islands, today’s stop in Tortola was our first visit to the British islands. None of the ship’s tours (mostly snorkeling) appealed to us, so we decided we would just walk around the town — Road Town — and maybe find a taxi tour at the pier.

Road Town was clean and neat with well-maintained properties, but it did not have a lot of tourism infrastructure once you went a block beyond the pier.

Road Town, from our balcony

We needed a few odds and ends, so we bypassed the touristy area by the pier and wandered into the town proper. We were able to find what we needed fairly quickly and there really wasn’t anything to see in the town, so we headed back to the ship.

We found all the “odds” on our list of odds and ends

Mind you, Road Town is the capital of BVI, so we were expecting more, Most of the population of about 28,000-30,000 lives on Tortola. The three other main islands are Virgin Gorda, Anegada, and Jost Van Dyke.

The branches of this tree hung over a sidewalk on our way into town. We think those are mangoes. It pays to look up.

The color of that water!

We had dinner at Le Petit Chef, one of the specialty restaurants onboard. It offers an immersive, animated dining experience. The menu is very limited. They have a main menu and an alternate menu. Each menu has four courses. You can pick one menu or mix and match. We both picked the main menu. 

There is a white plate at each seat and during the meal there are animated videos projected onto your plate and onto your table. The idea is that there is a little french chef who stands on your plate and talks to you about cooking and food. It is very cute. There is a video before each course, and as soon as the video ends, a plate of food is put on your white plate.

It was very hard to get decent still photos of the videos. We were able to record the first video, however. I have cut out a 10-second clip. This will be my first time using a video in my blog. I hope it works. On the table, you will see our actual silverware and glassware. The little jelly jars, kitchen knife, and many other items are part of the video.

Here are a few still photos that turned out okay. At this point the Little Chef was talking about presentation and relating it to various styles of art.

The much-heralded production show, Crystallize, never materialized, due to a problem with the stage equipment. Instead, we got to see tomorrow’s show, Divas 3. Three talented women sang songs from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. I think I knew all of the songs and I found the substitute show very enjoyable, but what will the show be tomorrow?

Bloodyknee Beach

February 28, 2023

The U.S. Virgin Islands are known for duty-free shopping and beautiful beaches. We chose the beautiful beaches. Our little adventure involved taking a ferry from Crown Bay cruise port, west of Charlotte Amalie on St. Thomas, the main island, to Cruz Bay on the island of St. John, to the east of St. Thomas. It was about 30 minutes on our fast-ish ferry.

The plan was to go to Virgin Islands National Park, which is right next to the dock in Cruz Bay. The National Park takes up about half of St. John. From the park HQ we would hike to Honeymoon Beach - it’s not accessible by road. 

We would have 3 hours before we had to catch our “ferry” back to Crown Bay. It wasn’t a public ferry. It was a boat hired by our ship’s tour office to take passengers directly from the ship to Cruz Bay. Most of the passengers were booked on some sort of trolley tour once we got to St. John. A handful of us were doing the “on your own” tour, which means we were only getting transportation to St. John and back. There is a public ferry, but it leaves from Red Hook, which is about 10 miles from Crown Bay.

Our ferry left a little late because some of our fellow passengers can’t tell time. When we go to Cruz Bay, the ferry captain told us he was leaving in 2 hours and 15 minutes. If we weren’t onboard by then, we could take the public ferry, said the captain, pointing to the appropriate dock. I interpreted this to mean we should try to get back in about 2 hours to allow for contingencies. And just like that, our time on St. John went from 3 hours to 2 hours.

We ducked into the National Park HQ building, grabbed a map (it wasn’t very good), and hit the trail. 

Near the start of the trail

We saw some interesting plants

It’s not a terribly difficult trail, but it is quite rocky - which I had forgotten when I decided to wear Tevas.

The trail had very minimal signage and absolutely no indication of distances. However, we set out in good faith toward Honeymoon Beach. 

We were rewarded with beautiful vistas of the sea and nearby islands.

Finally we came to a side trail (with no sign), which we thought went to Salomon Beach. We thought we might be 5 or 10 minutes from the turnoff to Honeymoon Beach so we decided to keep going.

Not long thereafter, Ken tripped on a root or a rock and down he went. I was horrified because he fell on a very rocky stretch of trail and there was no one around.

Near where it happened

Fortunately, he was able to get up by himself and he didn’t seem to have any broken bones or bad sprains, though he was scraped and bruised and bloodied.

We could see a side trail with a sign not far ahead so we decided to go there and see what the sign said. It was a second trail to Salomon Beach. At this point we had been walking about 40 minutes, so we knew we wouldn’t have time to go any farther. We took the side trail. It was a rough climb down to the beach and it took 5 or 10 minutes. At the end of the trail, we found ourselves on a concrete ledge about 3 feet above the beach. (Who would make a trail like that?) It was not easy getting down onto the beach. But worth it — it was a lovely little beach. There were 2 or 3 families there.

We got down and then Ken was able to clean himself up a bit with some antiseptic wipes he had in his backpack, but he didn’t want to go into the salty water.

This is how it looked after Ken had cleaned up his wounds. His left leg was already noticeably swollen.

I waded in just to cool off. The bottom was a bit rocky and dropped off sharply. I didn’t want to push our luck, so I stayed in the shallow part. Apparently, there is a coral reef here.

All too soon, it was time to start back to the dock. We left via the first side trail, so we didn’t have to climb up to that 3-foot high ledge. 

Gorgeous scenery and vibrant colors on the way back

Almost back

The return was slightly faster due to more downhill travel, and we got back 15 minutes early, so we had just enough time to go to Irie Pops to get some bland overpriced popsicles. (Irie, pronounced eye’-ree, is a Jamaican Patois word meaning “good” or “nice.”) I will say that the Irie Pops were so cold that they did not start to melt or drip until we were almost done eating them. I don’t know how that was achieved.

We sat on a bench eating our pops and it was so pleasant that we almost missed the ferry, but we didn’t.

And that, my friends, is the end of our adventure in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

We did not see Jessica Jane, the Magician. I just couldn’t tolerate the couple who sat down next to us at the last minute. The woman talked non-stop during the beginning of the show and I couldn’t take it. The lights were out, the show had begun, and she just didn’t get it. 😡 We have seen a lot of magicians on cruises. They are all the same. It’s not worth having to endure such rudeness.

Today’s color is olivine. Yes, it’s a type of rock. Yes, we saw a lot of it during our hike.