More to Love About the BVI
Since our trip aboard the Roseway was not going to be the trip we purchased and we cancelled it, we decided to head to St. Thomas to visit with friends and take a couple of days in the British Virgin Islands.
I visited Virgin Gorda in October with my daughter, and wanted to share time with Michael at Guavaberry Spring Bay. We also wanted to look for a boat, so Tortola was the preferred destination for that.
So sunday, we took the seaplane to STT. Debbie picked us up at 9 am and took us immediately to a deli where we met Melissa. They all had breakfasty type foods while I drank V-8. I wasn’t hungry yet. Ed arrived on his bike just before we were going to leave. After that, we went to another restaurant so I could have a bloody mary and Ed could have breakfast. I had a croissant, too, and Buel, another massage therapist came to see Michael and meet me. We were a raucous crowd by then laughing and catching up on things.
After that, Debbie took us to see the new spa she’s working at – Nice! We stopped to pick up some food, then headed to a fabulous villa that Melissa manages overlooking Magen’s Bay. We had a spectacular afternoon there, then went to Deb’s for a second before heading to a pizza place before it was time to catch our late ferry to Tortola.
We got to Tortola around 10pm and spent the night at Nanny Cay Hotel. There are a lot of boats at Nanny Cay Marina, so we figured we’d find a broker and look at what was for sale. Well, it was Whit Monday in the BVI, a holiday, and all of the brokerage firms were closed. Ha!
Okay, we walked around and talked to a couple of charter company people who helped us quite a bit. We only had two small bags, but one was very heavy, so before we went to look at a very interesting boat, we stopped at the ferry dock to ask if we could leave it there. One of the nice ferry comapny employees told us that we could certainly leave our bag in the loading dock area under cover and “nobody gonna mess wit’ it”. So we did.
We walked around some more and found the boat of our dreams in a charter fleet. We spoke to an owner of another model from the same maker who LOVES his boat, and then we walked back to Road Town to catch the ferry to Virgin Gorda. I was really thirsty and talked Michael into going to Pusser’s for a beer. It was happy hour and they made us drink two. We got to the ferry dock two minutes before it was time to board, but our bag was gone!
Michael frantically tried to find someone who could help us while I tried to stall the ferry. I spoke to one of the attendants who said that the bag may have gone to Anegada on the ferry that left 20 minutes after we left it there. Unfortunately, by the time our ferry people contacted the anegada ferry people, the ferry back had already left. The bag had no external or internal identification. And the ferries only go to Anegada 3 times each week, so the next ferry back wouldn’t be until Wednesday.
In one of the communications between the ferry services, it was determined that a bag fitting the description of our bag was indeed on Anegada and had gone unclaimed. As we approached Virgin Gorda, our ferry captain told me to speak with the receptionist at Guavaberry who would call the other ferry to get the bag back to us. We were laughing like madmen, because every single stitch of our clothing was in the other bag. The only thing we had with us was our snorkeling gear, a few toiletries and some reading material. And the next day, we were scheduled to go on an early, all-day sailing and snorkeling trip. But we didn’t have swimsuits.
Fortunately, even though we were late checking in at Guavaberry, Valerie was extremely helpful, calling all of the ferry services and eventually learning that the people who own Neptune’s Treasure on Anegada, go into Road Town every day, and would take our bag with them on Tuesday, and the bag would come to Virgin Gorda on the ferry and be in our room before we got off the charter boat. She also had a “lost-and-found” box with laundered swimsuits we could borrow. We were fortunately able to find suits to fit us, and everything ended up the way they said it would.
We got back to our room at Guavaberry, and there was our bag! Thanks to the ferry captains and employees, Valerie, the Neptune’s Treasure people (we stayed with them on Anegada a couple of years ago -great place!), and the taxi driver who brought the bag from the ferry.
Amazing!
June 9th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Duh! Whit Monday. Where have you been?
June 9th, 2009 at 8:34 am
Cool story, and a different ending than the time my duffel bag sat in the Honolulu airport for a week, even though I had identification INCLUDING A CELL PHONE NUMBER on both the outside and the inside. You’d have thought that some alert airline employee might have thought “hmmm, here’s someone’s luggage, perhaps they might need it while they’re vacationing in Hawaii”, and simply picked up the telephone and called me.
June 9th, 2009 at 10:05 am
BTW Wreg, while snorkeling, we saw some wreggie fish hanging out around Guavaberry Spring Bay. They asked us to tell you “Duh huh”.
June 9th, 2009 at 12:01 pm
I know what they mean.
June 9th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
great bag story
one of the photos illustrates the name ‘infinity pool’ – gorgeous!
June 9th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
Bummer about your bag, Gary. Apathy and laziness really suck. Now you know. Better to visit the BVI than Hawaii….
June 11th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Thanks for the useful info. It’s so interesting
June 15th, 2009 at 2:16 am
Typical island story. Everything gets totally messed up for absolutely no good reason, you laugh about it because it’s SO rediculously messed up (and any other emotion is just a wothless waste of time), and it all turns out perfect in the end!
June 20th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Dad pointed out this article to me back in April.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/01/business/01boats.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
I’m not sure if he was suggesting I take a trip to a coastal area to find myself another boat or if he was just simply passing along an interesting story.
Have you been checking ads in Florida for the boat you want? You might find one cheep enough that you could still afford to hire a captain to deliver it to STX for you.
June 23rd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Chip,
Interesting article. We figured prices would be low now for this very reason. And they may be, but they don’t seem particularly low for the size cats we’re looking for. We’ve been checking on-line listings all over the world, not just here, or Florida. Prices seem best down near us, in BVIs. Stateside are a little higher, Europe higher still. Which works for us, the closer the better. We have seen some price reductions lately, which bodes well for buyers. We plan on making low offer and go from there.
We don’t really expect to see the type of boat we’re looking for at bargain basement prices, and not sure we’d want it if we did. If an owner has been properly maintaining his $100k+ catamaran, he’s going to try to sell it at market value, or at least minimize the loss. If he doesn’t have the money to keep it up, he’s likely to skimp on maintenance long before just dumping the thing in a swamp. In which case, you’d be buying a headache, not a seaworthy craft.
We have very specific parameters for the boat we want. The model that best fits our needs, in the size and budget we can manage, is the Athena 38, by Fountaine-Pajot. There are two for sale in Tortola, a few in St. Martin, and we just found a listing for one in Margarite, in southwestern Caribbean off the coast of Venezuela. Now it’s time to line up the money. We may be looking for an investor or two. Do you want to be part owner of a beautiful 38 ft catamaran in the Caribbean?