Thursday, November 5, 2009

DAY 4 - Tortola, Virgin Gorda


Ok...sorry for the delay! I am back to report a bit more on the cruise. I hope I can still remember some stuff. We woke up that morning and like any other morning I was chomping at the bit to eat my feast and get into town. We docked that morning so you could get off the boat at your leisure. My leisure was as early as I could drag the husband out of bed. We had decided that we wanted to go to the Baths. All we knew was that it was some neat beach with huge rocks and good snorkeling. We thought we would just take a taxi to that beach. We walked a short distance into town via some instructions to the guides when you get off the boat. Tortola is a really cute town with virtually no unemployment so it had a cleaner, safer feeling than some of the other islands we visited.

When we got to the place that the man told us to get to we realized we would need to purchase $40 ferry tickets to go to Virgin Gorda. We really had no idea where this place was, or that it was another island. The ferry ride was a little over 30 minutes. Once on the island we took an open-air cab ride to The Baths. This island felt different than the other lush islands we had been on the past few days. It was still very tropical but had more of a desert feel with cactus and lizards. The walk down to the beach reminded me of hiking in Tucson. Down big boulders with geckos scattering about. At the bottom of the trail was a little snack bar and some little things for sale.

The site was spectacular. You have to hike over, under and through mammoth size boulders, through little pools and up ladders. It was an amazing experience. Then we got to the beach area which I affectionately named "Jellyfish Bay" about 10 minutes after entering the water. Nick and I snorkeled around for a bit. I thought this had the best snorkeling that we had seen due to the boulders. It made for much more interesting terrain to swim through and explore. Then came the itching. And the ever so slight stinging. Nothing like a bee but it was noticeable. Suddenly I look up and smack dab in the middle of Nick and I is a HUGE jellyfish. The next thing I knew I was on the beach. I can only assume I teleported or ran on top of the water like the big Je-sus. I was outa there. And my homeboy Nick was by my side, if not a little faster.

We scaled a few more boulders to another beach just a bit further to an overcrowded beach. We snorkeled out a bit more, eyes peeled. The thing is that there are some MINI jellyfish about the size of a tablespoon that you don't see and they are EVERYWHERE. After a bigger one wrapped around my ankle causing me to kick Nick in the face we decided to just wade on the beach. Did I tell you this beach was totally crowded with people from our boat so we just kind of kicked it and watched people swim where we swam waiting for the freak out when they realized that they were in jellyfish city, and they were the mayor.

We went back to the little snack bar and had some local beer while waiting for our ferry back to the main island. I don't think anything crazy happened the rest of the day. Shoot my memory. I mean...you can be sure I ate 3 dinners, watched a show and fell asleep too early for our age.

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