BVI 2008 - Day 01

Montreal to the British Virgin Islands

We left Montreal at 6:00 AM flying with United through Chicago’s famous O’Hurry…to your next plane, onto San Juan and finally on our Cape Air flight to BVI. , or Cape Fear if you have an aversion to small Cesnas.

What a spectacular view we had as we flew low over Puerto Rico, Isla Culebra, the U.S.V.I.s and finally the BVIs, past Jost Van Dyke and landing at the Beef Island Airport on the eastern tip of Tortola.

No beef in site… BVI customs had two friendly and efficient officers checking passports for the 5 or 6 passengers. Quite the contrast to Pierre Elliot Trudeau in Montreal where you wait in long lines at US customs and perform the bizarre American ritual of removing your shoes. Things could be worse, imagine if the nut they caught with the lame homemade bomb in his shoe had shoved it up you know where… In B.V.I. we didn’t even have to take off our flip-flops off we had pulled out of our carry-on.

We commandeered a taxi along the windy coastal road into the capital of BVI, Road Town, which we later nick name Roti Town. We arrived on the docks of the Fort Burt Marina in the warm late afternoon sun and quickly found Steve and Irma who had arrived early that day after spending a few days in Antigua. They informed us that Conch Charters thought we were arriving the next day and they were still cleaning and prepping our Beneteau 32 named Little Orchid for our overnight stay.

Andrea at The Pub, fresh off the plane.

While waiting in a tropical climate we did the only sensible thing one can do. We headed for the nearest local establishment which happened to be conveniently located at the marina and named: The Pub, in case you have any doubts… We tried the BVI drink called Painkiller because of Andrea’s recommendation. Later we walked to a nearby restaurant for dinner and went to Bobbie’s grocery store to buy important supplies for the boat like beer, water, eggs, bread, milk, more beer and a jar of Coffee Mate that Steve thought we needed…a sailor thing?, inexpensive dark rum and the rest of the ingredients necessary to make our own Painkillers.

We walked back to the boat and crashed early. Andrea was grossed out by a Stinky-Man Blanket that the cleaners forgot to change.  Later that night everyone is woken up by Paul yelling: “Hey, Get out of there!” He had a nightmare that some drunk was on the dock puking and thought he might decide to puke down the open hatch onto himself and Andrea. Gee…thanks for the warning Paul! Maybe it was the Stinky-Man Blanket Ghost?…

Check out a map of our itinerary.