Trellis Bay, Tortola, BVI
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 12 Dec 2007 18:51
18:26.895N 64:31.907W
On Tuesday (12/11), we left Great Harbour on Peter
Island and had a very brisk sail in lots of wind to Trellis Bay on the eastern
end of Tortola. We had visions of finding a nice space to anchor in this
very protected bay, but instead found about a million moorings crammed
in every corner. We gave in to the trend of the crowd and picked up a
mooring.
Trellis Bay is home to the famous restaurant, 'The
Last Resort' (not to be confused with the restaurant chain, Dick's Last
Resort). This restaurant is situated on a tiny island called Bellamy
Cay in the center of Trellis Bay. It is famous for its singing dogs, its
donkey named Bottom, and its unique atmosphere that can only be described as
shabby chic and according to Don, kind of strange. The first picture below
was taken from Bellamy Cay looking out at Trellis Bay and some of the millions
of moored boats (the dilapidated boat in the foreground is very typical of those
seen laying around everywhere). Our boat is just to the left of
center in the picture. The second picture is the outside of The Last
Resort as you approach the front entrance from the dinghy dock.
Since it had been a full twelve days since we had
last gone out to dinner and something different from my cooking, even if it was
just a hot dog or something, was appealing, we made dinner reservations at The
Last Resort and headed over early for the two-for-one happy hour (now that we
are retired, these types of specials hold much interest for us - if The Last
Resort had an early bird special for dinner, it's very possible that we
would have gone for it). Happy Hour started at 5 and we got there at
5:30. There were no other patrons in the restaurant but
us. So much for our plan of being somewhat social for once. We sat
at the bar with our drinks and waited for other boaters to arrive, hopeful that
we'd have someone to strike up a conversation with. Nobody came -
except for a group of five guys that immediately went into a different corner of
the restaurant. Promptly at 6pm, all the waitresses and bartenders sat
down at one of the picnic tables in the front of the restaurant and ate
dinner. Meanwhile, we sat at the bar, by ourselves, and wondered how it
might be possible to order another drink. It wasn't. Not even after
the waitress/bartender feast was over at 6:30. Hmmmm, as Don said,
strange. We decided the best course of action was to sit down to dinner
early instead of continuing to sit at the bar by ourselves, drinkless and
feeling awkward. This apparently wasn't a problem and we sat down to a
surprisingly really good dinner. As we ate, the restaurant filled with
other boaters and the various restaurant animals started to prowl around for
table scraps. We counted five dogs and three cats. We didn't see the
donkey. We did make friends with one of the cats though, and it stuck
by us under the table for most of the night (picture 3). I tried to feed
it some of my mahi mahi, but it stuck its nose up and one of the other cats
pounced on it (apparently the mahi mahi was not prepared to 'our' cat's
liking). We didn't stay for the band, which we can only assume included
the singing dogs. Unfortunately we didn't happen to catch any of the five
dogs we saw singing, and the same with the cats (although there were no singing
cats in the restaurant's advertisement). I did use the bathroom there
though, and had to laugh at the directions I received from our waitress when I
asked where it was. 'You go down the porch steps, turn right, go around
the hammock onto the stepping stones and pass by the rope swing, after that,
it's on your right. And it was exactly where she said it was, hammock,
rope swing and all. In the end, although we didn't meet our full
socialization objective for the night, we did have a good time and at least
enjoyed the company of the cat (picture 4 - dining at The Last
Resort).
The weather is still a bit iffy - very windy and
lots of rain squalls passing through. So we will stay in Trellis Bay for
one more night and then probably make our way across the Sir Francis Drake
channel one more time to Virgin Gorda, which is the easternmost British Virgin
Island. From there we plan to make the 80 mile overnight trip to St.
Martin. It looks like the weather will be ok for us to do this on Sunday
or Monday.
Anne
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