Tortola Christmas 2023 - Day 2: Smuggler's Cove

We lounged around the villa this morning and had a late breakfast outside on one of the decks. The sun rises behind the house, uphill, so it's not roasting in the sun in the morning, which is nice.

Eventually, we loaded up the car, descended the switchbacks down to the main road ("Route 1") and headed about a mile up the road to Smuggler's Cove. Almost immediately past the Long Bay Beach Resort, Route 1 runs up and over a hill, then turns into a gravel/dirt road.

There was some complaining from the back of the Pilot, but we made it to the beach eventually. The small parking area (I hesitate to call it a "lot") was full-ish, but we improvised, as appears to be the custom.

The beach is home to two separate beach bars: Nigel’s Boom Boom Beach Bar & Grill, and Patricias Beach Bar; they are beach bars in the truest interpretation of the term that I've ever seen.

The beach wasn't extremely crowded, but there were plenty of (rental) chairs and umbrellas spread out, taking up a good chunk of it. Also the surf was rough, forcing everyone up the beach toward the tree line. We set up the umbrella and chairs that we brought from the villa, and claimed a spot near some shade.

There was a solitary life guard in the middle of the beach, flying a yellow caution flag. (It later became a red flag, as the surf and current got spicier.) As I mention every time we're in the Caribbean, there are also wild chickens roaming around everywhere; this beach had a local gang of them.

After a relaxing swim, I set up between two trees for the afternoon. Pro tip: always travel with a hammock! You never know when you'll find the perfect spot for some reading, or perhaps a snooze.

The soothing white noise of the pounding waves eventually became too much to bear, and I succumbed. Someone was gracious enough to document it... using my own phone, even.

Even hidden in the trees, I had plenty of sunshine peeking through.

The chickens scratched around looking for food, but weren't aggressive or annoying about it. We had some snacks, but did not share with them.

It was around 2 PM by the time we need some hydration from Nigel's. He's providing a valuable public service, and isn't shy with the pours.

After a cocktail, I went back in the water. That's me, under the hat, in the middle.

Some people don't need a hammock to take a nap, but rather have the remarkable ability to sleep sitting up in a camp chair.

In a complete mockery of the other people on the beach having (what appeared to be) Instagram photoshoots, I took some over-the-shoulder shots of Sabrina and Lauren.

This guy randomly came by, trying to sell fresh coconuts. We didn't patronize him, but he stopped for a chat (and again on the return trip).

Apparently Lauren took my phone for a walk on the beach; I was distracted by a book.

Here I am, trying to enjoy that book.

As if an alarm had gone off, almost everyone around us packed up and left at the same time. It turns out they were cruise passengers, at the beach for the day, but had to get back to their ship. I think they were mostly from Germany.

For the next hour or so, we had the beach virtually to ourselves, until we started to get hungry and overheated. The surf had gotten quite lively, so nobody wanted to go back in the water. The lifeguard had gone out several times to bring people back to shore on his surfboard, because they were struggling with the current. None of us noticed when the flag changed to red, but we all had a sense that it had been several hours ago.

Just before 4 PM, we packed up the car and headed back toward Long Bay. Where we got back to pavement, I pulled over to admire the view and let a taxi pass us; the rough road didn't stop them from shuttling cruise passengers to and from the beach, in minivans nonetheless.

Just past the road that heads uphill to our house, we ducked into Sebastian's for an early dinner. Despite being officially called "Sebastian's On The Beach", there isn't a beach anymore. At least, there isn't a sandy beach, although it's still visible in Google Maps/Street View.

We felt bad for this poor woman, who was just trying to have a peaceful glass of wine with her book. The surf was rougher here than it had been at the beach, or maybe it just seemed that way because it was crashing on the rocks under the edge of the restaurant.

The service was a bit slow, because they weren't quite ready for dinner service yet. We mostly stuck to the bar menu, but eventually managed to satiate everyone's hunger by 6 PM or so.

We caught the last remaining light of the sunset, over the rock-and-coral beach.

It was starting to get dark as we walked back to the car and repeated the hill climb, 500+ feet up to the villa.

We spent the rest of the evening recovering from today, preparing for tomorrow, and sitting on the roof deck listening to the ocean and a chorus of tree frogs.

Other than the water being rough, it was a perfect beach day. Allegedly, Smuggler's Cove has some excellent snorkling, but nobody was testing that theory today. The weather was great all day, though; 80 to 85F, sunny with scattered clouds, and a strong ocean breeze.

Tomorrow is supposed to be about the same weather. We're taking a boat trip to a few other islands, leaving the house by 9 AM.

Tortola Christmas 2023 - Day 1: Arrival Adventures

This year's Christmas trip is to Tortola, one of the British Virgin Islands (BVI). The BVIs are a bit trickier to get to than the US islands, but they have a lot of small conveniences, like using the US dollar and US-style power outlets. Also, being harder to get to, they're apparently less crowded than the USVI. The lodging options were also much more reasonable, and there are fewer large resorts/chains.

Our journey really started last night; we all convened at Lauren's apartment for dinner, and then spent the night in Morristown; there's a two-bedroom apartment in her building that's available for rent, so we could all get an early start in the morning, not far from the airport. It's also cheaper and easier to park at car at her place than at Newark airport.

Just before 4:30 AM, in the dark, we took a car service to the airport. To get to Tortola, we first flew to St. Thomas, deplaning into the hot sun around noon AST (1 hour ahead of EST).  Sabrina, Lauren, and I had been there almost 5 years ago, so it all seemed vaguely familiar.

St. Thomas is a US territory, so there are no customs/immigration lines; we zipped through the airport after changing into lighter attire and found a taxi (van) to take us to the ferry terminal on the edge of Charlotte Amalie.

There are several options for ferry trips, depending which origin/destination ports and days/times work with one's itinerary. Thankfully, the USVI tourism site has thorough information. We opted for the 2 PM offering from Smith's Ferry. On top of the round-trip ticket price, there's also something like a $10 per-bag cost and a $10 per-person "port fee"; these seemed to be common to all of the ferry operators.

While we waited, we ate a light lunch dockside, mostly consisting of sandwiches and snacks we had brought from home; it wasn't clear in advance what the food options were at the ferry terminal, and we knew there was absolutely nothing at the St. Thomas airport.

The ferry ride is about an hour, part of which was rougher than some people would have preferred. We initially sat in a group, but were later split up when the staff asked people to shift more to the port side to balance the boat.

Along the ride, we were treated to lovely views of St. Thomas, St. John, various minor islands, and eventually Tortola. Oddly, one of the Marvel/Avengers movies was playing on a TV at the front. 

After all of the luggage (and various packages being shipped via ferry) was unloaded, we disembarked at the BVI customs and border inspection dock, around 3:20 PM. Everyone was very much operating on Island Time at this point.

The Bomba Charger certainly wasn't the nicest ferry option, nor the fastest, but it's what worked with our schedule. Overall, it was uneventful, which is exactly what I'm looking for in a ferry ride.

After having our paperwork and passports checked, and paying yet another per-person fee ($10 Environmental Tourism fee), we hoofed it about 1/4 of a mile to the car rental desk and picked up our ride for the next five days.

After tetris-ing 6 people and all our bags into a Honda Pilot, we ventured out into what qualifies as rush hour here, just down the street to the nearest grocery store. There was absolutely nowhere to park, though, so we abandoned that plan and decided to find one on the way to the Airbnb instead.

We stopped at a Riteway Food Market just down the road, to pick up some breakfast essentials and something to make for dinner tonight. We knew that the rental villa had a decent kitchen situation, wanted to admire the sunset view, were all somewhat tired, and didn't want to go back out for dinner later.

While we were shopping, the power went out twice. I have no idea if this is typical or not, but nobody else in the store seemed excited or surprised. It sounded like a backup generator fired up, outside, the first time, so the lights were only out for 10 or 15 seconds.

After some probably-power-outage-related problems with the register and/or credit card reader, we finally managed to pile some groceries into the already-crowded SUV and continue along the coast road, west, toward the Long Bay area. (I just noticed that the villa we're renting is at the top of their aerial photo. It's the left one of the four in the center/top. Edit: I'm adding it, at the bottom of this post)

Along the way, we got our first taste of Tortola sunsets.

We met the local property manager at the bottom of the hill, and followed him up the steep switchbacks to the villa. Multiple reviewers had suggested that 4WD was a requirement; I don't look forward to driving up or down here if it's wet.

The villa is absolutely stunning. The Airbnb listing always seemed to good to be true, but it really is as nice as their photos made it look.

The property manager showed us around the three separate buildings. The central one is the kitchen, dining, and living room area. It also has a bathroom and an office. The outer buildings are each two bedrooms, one above the other, and each of those has its own full bath.

On his way out, the manager took the solar cover off the pool. We enjoyed the sunset over Jost Van Dyke, cooked dinner, unpacked, and finally relaxed a bit.

I went for a swim after dinner, and we all turned in early.

Tomorrow will probably involve some sun and sand, but there are no specific plans yet.