Our B.V.I. Adventure

There's been talk about a runway expansion at Beef Island airport for years now, but it looks like real plans are beginning to take shape.  If you've flown into Tortola, you know, the runway is small.


But the question is being asked - is an expansion really needed?  And if so, at what cost?  The nearby Trellis Bay and the cays, Bellamy and Marina would be drastically affected by the proposed expansion.  

Right now, to fly (commercially) to the BVI, you must first stop in Puerto Rico from the US or Antigua from the UK.  Or, you can fly direct to Saint Thomas and catch a ferry to the BVI.  We've done it both ways, as have many of our guests.

In today's paper, the owners of The Last Resort, a very unique and special restaurant, authored an op ed on the subject.  It questions the expansion and highlights the sad reality that would result for many of the businesses that call Trellis Bay home:

Attempting to get larger numbers of visitors to a destination quicker and cheaper by destroying the very thing that attracts them in the first place doesn’t make any sense. The VI has been blessed with unique and magical natural beauty, yet some residents seem hellbent on sacrificing their inheritance to this blind and voracious god called “Development.”

Let's hope a compromise is found!!!

My parents and sister arrived on Christmas Day!

What we thought would be a slow travel day turned out to be a pretty busy one!  The airport was packed!  Fortunately, all of their luggage made it which meant we could exchange Christmas presents on Christmas night!  Oh, and look who accompanied us to the airport to greet them...  Can you spot little Mills in the back seat?  :)

Our friend Travis arrived in the BVI on Day 336!  Whoo hoo!  It was great to see him again.  {Faithful readers may remember that Travis paid us a visit back in February.}

Other than family, Travis is our first repeat customer!  Like so many of our friends who come to visit, he packed more than swim trunks and flip flops in those suitcases...

He brought us some of our favorites from the grocery store, like grits and the makings for jambalaya and gumbo.  Can't forget the Keurig K-cups either!  A few more of our bath towels.  The most important import was the new underwater Olympus Stylus Tough camera!  I was able to order it online at BestBuy.com and select "in-store pick-up by friend."  How cool is that?!?

Underwater pics to come!

We joined the BVI SUP club for another day of paddling on Saturday.  We started off at Trellis Bay on Beef Island and paddled two miles to the Beef Island Bridge.  Here's a map of the area, if you're interested in following this journey geographically:

View Larger Map
We headed over to Little Camanoe and checked out the beach there.  For the most part the paddle was downwind...
At one point though, our fearless leader, Andy directed me towards a reef somewhere between Beef Island and Camanoe.  He wanted me to see the reef through the window in my board.  Well, the current took me too far to the right and I missed it.  I turned around (ever so carefully) and headed straight into the current, hoping to catch a glimpse of this reef.
Andy estimates the water was moving at two knots.  So there I am paddling my little heart out and not getting anywhere.  It was like trying to walk up a down escalator.  I could see a piece of brain coral through the window in the my board - it stayed in sight for a good minute or so as I paddled left, then right, right, then left and again and again.  By the time I actually made forward progress, I was too into my own paddling stroke that I missed the reef completely!  Andy so coolly says to me, "It can be quite the work-out."  Understatement of the day.
So, after a story like that - it's clear I was not the "star" of the day, as the title of this post may have led you to believe.  This was the star or the day...
We saw three or four starfish in this shallow area off of Beef Island.  We also paid a visit to the conch mound.  A few people in our group hadn't seen it before.  Here are some photos from day...
All in all, it was another great paddle!  Our longest yet that's for sure!

We joined the BVI SUP Club for a Saturday morning hike on the water.  I must admit, only having paddled once before I was a little nervous to paddle side-by-side with avid SUPers.  But we put in underneath the Beef Island Bridge and it was very calm, which made getting up and staying up really easy.

 Michael wore his new lycra HiHo shirt.  You like?


After an extremely pleasurable SUP experience, Andy put the boards on top of our car to use again on Sunday!  We wanted to come back to some of the same spots, but this time with our camera!

Check out what has to be one of the coolest things I've seen in the BVI since moving here in December...  A conch mound, tucked away in the back of a bay on Beef Island:

Andy told us this mound has been here for 20+ years.  Locals (and I imagine a few gutsy tourists) would dive for conch, then leave the shell on this pile after removing the meat.
We were able to get our boards right up to the edge of the mound.  And since my board had a window in it, I was able to see straight to the bottom!

I saw a stingray on Saturday then on Sunday, two small barracudas swam beneath me.  They were probably no longer than two feet each.
SUPing the Beef Island Bridge area was only the beginning of our adventure on Sunday.  We headed to Smuggler's Cove where conditions were perfect!  We were able to go long distances and neither of us fell off the board!  Dare I say, we looked liked the avid SUPers from Saturday???

A huge thank you to Andy at HiHo for teaching us and allowing us to use the boards on Sunday.  I highly recommend renting a board for the weekend!

EDITOR'S NOTE:  SUPing is pronounced "supping" like "cupping."

That's her husband KK {aka Michael's "twin"} in the orange hat - peeking out from behind the sliding doors.  It was so good to see them!!!  A few hours later, our fourth and final Memorial Day Weekend warrior...McRee!!!

Now that the crew is all here - the BVI better watch out!

Within 12 hours of dropping my parents off at the airport, we were back on Beef Island...this time, to pick up our friend, Jason or JMac as we call him.  Wow-wow-weeeee!  {If you know JMac, you can hear him now can't you?}

Despite some rain, we headed to Road Town for dinner.
JMac was just the first of our Memorial Day Weekend warriors, KK, Lauren, and McRee were not far behind...

What do they have in common?  Well, they all landed at the Beef Island Airport today...within minutes of each other actually!  Here's our neighbor, Sir Branson!  {wink! wink!}

Apologies for the angle...an attempt at being discrete.  Everyone in the airport played it so cool - that is, except for me. I just couldn't justify taking a papparazi-like photo...

This one is much cuter, isn't it?

Only my mother would wear 4 inch red patent leather peep toe wedges through three airports!  :)  The apple does not fall far from the tree, does it???

It is so good to see my parents - it's been almost 5 months!  If you've been following our adventure since the beginning you may remember that they were here at Christmas.  We had only lived here for seven days!  We know so much more about the island now and our goal for their visit will be to avoid any repeats!  Except of course Smuggler's Cove! 

Before the big arrival, Michael and I did some more scouting of the beaches on Tortola so there wouldn't be any surprises when we brought visitors along.

Our first stop was Josiah's Bay on the north side of the island. It is a surfer's paradise. Some of the waves had to be 9 or 10 feet high, easy.

The waves were so powerful we couldn't really swim like we had done at Smuggler's Cove the previous day.  Same for Lambert Beach, where we went next.  Surfers were loving it though.  It was just one big wave after another.  Our time at Lambert was limited because my family was set to arrive at 6:00 p.m.

Here's a photo of the airport on Beef Island, which is the main airport for Tortola.