St. Thomas Bay & The Baths, Virgin Gorda Island, BVI
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 15 Dec 2007 15:00
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18:27.263N 64:26.465W
On Thursday (12/13 - happy birthday Dad!) we left
Trellis Bay and our friendly cat behind and sailed the short distance across the
Sir Francis Drake Channel (yup, again with the channel) to St. Thomas Bay on the
island of Virgin Gorda. Virgin Gorda is the easternmost Virgin Island, and
will be our jumping off point for our sail to St. Martin on Monday
(12/17).
On Friday, we took a side trip in the dinghy to an
area on the southwestern tip of Virgin Gorda called The Baths. The trip
over in the dinghy was exciting enough - Don felt the need for speed to cover
the distance. It's a good thing we went for the high pressure
inflatable floor instead of the aluminum floor when we bought the dinghy
- otherwise the ten thousand times we bounced off the floor wouldn't have
been quite so comfortable. We arrived in one piece and tied the
dinghy off on a floating mooring line located about 25 yards from shore.
The shore at The Baths is the thing of wonder. Giant granite rocks piled
up on each other every which way, creating caves of a sort and all kinds of
pockets and crevices for the surf to crash through. Picture 1 is a view of
The Baths shoreline.
We didn't know when we headed out that
beaching the dinghy was not allowed, but we did have the forethought to pack the
camera, our sunglasses and a shirt for Don in a very nice watertight plastic
container that used to be a big-ass jar (special Wal-Mart 'Super
Size') of Metamucil powder (Don swears by it and drinks one
gritty glass of the stuff mixed with water every morning, ugh). So when we
arrived at The Baths and saw we would have to leave the dinghy tied off on the
floating mooring line and swim the remaining 25 yards to shore, we were glad
we brought the Metamucil jar (Don chose this moment to point out that he
was the one who rescued the Metamucil jar from the trash - I was the one that
wanted to throw it out, which is true). We both jumped in the water and
Don swam to shore, holding the Metamucil jar high to ensure the camera would
survive the trip. Luckily there was no label on the big-ass jar, so the
audience sitting on the beach watching us had no idea that Don was
actually waving around a Metamucil jar. I wonder what they would
have thought had the label still been on the jar? Probably
that one of us had one hell of a constipation problem.
We made it to shore, camera, sunglasses and
all, and proceeded to the Devil's Bay trail. Picture 2 shows the start of
the trail - the entrance is the really short, slanted,
triangle-shaped 'doorway' to the left of the sign. Pictures 3
and 4 were taken as we walked, waded through the water, scrambled and sometimes
almost crawled over and under the rocks along the trail to
Devil's Bay. We thought the area shown in picture 3 would make a nice
living room space, complete with windows like that shown in picture 4. The
whole area was really breathtaking, and very fun to hike around in.
After a bit, we decided it was time to head
back. So we packed up the Metamucil jar with our precious stuff
and this time I waved it (or at least tried to) above my head as we swam back to
the dinghy. We reached the dinghy no problem, and the Metamucil jar was
tossed softly over the side where it landed safely on the floor of
the dinghy. Then we looked at each other, ok - now how do we
get back in the dinghy? The water was many feet deep, so it wasn't like we
could stand on the bottom and try to crawl up and over the inflated rubber tubes
that comprise the sides of the dinghy. The seventeen inch diameter sides
look a lot taller and bigger when viewed from below while treading
water. We tried standing on the floating mooring line - nope, it just
sank. Don tried the basic heave-ho approach and got an arm and leg sort of
over the side of the dinghy, got stuck, and fell back in the water. Oh,
I'm sure the beach audience was really getting a kick out of this show - we
didn't even look to see if they were looking - way too embarrassing. I
tried giving Don a boost by having him step in my hands as he tried the heave-ho
approach again. Nope. Then Don tried giving me a boost by having me
step in his hands. Aha! I got one leg and an arm over the side and
with another push from Don on my butt, fell into the dinghy like a sack of
potatoes, bringing about a gallon of sea water with me. Great. Now
how about Don? He went for the heave-ho approach again, got one leg and
one arm over the side and grabbed onto my hand. After a bit of a struggle
- it was questionable at this point which way the rest of Don's body was going
to fall - and a monumental effort by Don, into the dinghy he flopped.
After a bit of a giggle, we got underway, trying not to look at anyone on the
beach or elsewhere that may have witnessed our dinghy-embarking
spectacle.
A perfect day (minus the various bruises we
incurred while crawling into, and traveling in, the dinghy) was topped
off by an unusually nice sunset (picture 5).
Anne
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