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?