A Guide to the BVIs... for cheapskates

Hal, Brad and I were eager to leave Soper's hole, British Virgin Islands after spending the night in the crowded anchorage for $25. We headed up to Jost Van Dyke planning to eat dinner at a well known restaurant there, Foxy's Taboo. We dinghied in and sat down. The waiter brought us a menu with a blatant absence of prices. We weren't falling for that. We called him back and asked him to list the prices. After a good laugh, we excused ourselves to the bar. A good look around revealed that we were by far the cheapest people in the bar. An eight person party behind us was happily ordering drink after drink on top of their $40 entrees and $20 appetizers. Meanwhile, Hal, Brad and I sat at the bar nursing cheap beers in dirty shirts and gym shorts. We were probably barefoot and I doubt any of us could remember the last time we showered. After a few drinks we dinghied past the charter boats paying $25/night to moor, back to our free anchoring where we made ourselves pasta. Total Cost: $0.50 per person.

The next morning we sailed to Tortola, where we met up with Rosario. Aurora showed up the next day and hosted a cocktail hour on the boat. Once again, Kaleidoscope embarrassed themselves by providing the crappiest dish. We stayed past sunset to watch the lunar eclipse rise over the Tortola hills. It was spectacular. I'd include a picture, but, well, we didn't bother to take any. Instead, I'll include an ellipses so that you can all take a moment to imagine it... There, wasn't that cool.

That night was the much anticipated "Full Moon Party" at the Bombashack. It's a big event on Tortola, which occurs, not surprisingly, every full moon. People of all ages gather and are served free mushroom tea. There's rumors that the tea contains hallucinogenic mushrooms, but I suspect they meant porto bello. The night was disappointing, though. It rained most of the time and given our cheapness (see above), we didn't buy enough drinks to enjoy ourselves.

With our current blank schedule, we tend to do less. I don't really remember what happened the next day, but it probably included some sailing, anchoring, snorkeling, and Red Stripes.

The following day we made a less than legal move back into US territory, followed by another sub-legal return to the BVIs. But now we're here and our passports and sailing permits agree that we should be here. See, two wrongs DO make a right.

The last couple days have been spent exploring the touristy sites of the BVIs. We snorkeled the "Indians". These are rock formations that provided for incredible marine life and underwater topography. Moving on, we checked out the wreck of the Rhone. This is a Scuba site, but being the overconfident free-divers we are, we enjoyed it from the surface and occassionally (and briefly) close up. The wreck is in 30-80 feet of water.

Looking forward, our plan is to show Jen and Casey around the BVIs when they get here this weekend until March 18th. At that point we'll be free for a good deal of time and Brad and I will head down the Antilles island chain towards Venezuela.