Red Flag Day
The Bitter End Yacht Club is one of those places that we had read about, several thousand miles ago. Yesterday, Rebecca and I had the pleasure of enjoying a Painkiller in their bar, accompanied by our friends on Top O’ The World, but not before first exploring the infamous Baths of Virgin Gorda.
Like many of our other excursions, this visit was not without its challenges. When we arrived at The Baths we found numerous red flags flying. Remember when I mentioned that the color red was nature’s danger signal? Well that is exactly what these meant. The seas were very stirred up, breaking hard over the rocks and onto the beach. In these conditions you aren’t supposed to swim to shore (you can’t land your dinghies on the beach, nor would you have wanted to try) and in truth, it says you aren’t even supposed to tie to a mooring there. Someone should have told that to the other boats there though, because there were “several.” Anyway, we didn’t come all this way to turn back so after packing the expensive non-waterproof camera in 4 layers of dry bags, we donned masks and fins and swam in. As I am here to tell this story you can pretty much assume that I didn’t die during this exercise. Rebecca was keeping a watchful eye on me, I think.
The natural rock formations at The Baths are spectacular and we could easily have spent some more time there. Perhaps we’ll go again. I do know that before I bring the big camera in the water again, we need to get some new dry bags because it was only the final 4th bag that kept the camera from getting soaked, allowing me to post these pics.
For those of you with far too much time on your hands, here is an 8:30 minute clip of us snorkeling at The Indians. I originally used some Led Zeppelin as the music on the clip but YouTube didn’t like that very much. Enjoy!
The Baths is really an amazing phenomenon and I loved it there. Devil’s bay is a great place to snorkel as well – you will often see a ray or two there. You just have to be careful of the surf – it picked my daughter and me up and deposited us far up on the beach rather roughly. She lost a new necklace and I slammed my bad knee causing us to have to take the long trail back up to the road instead of climbing back through the boulders. But still a fabulous and unforgettable day.
There’s a great restaurant at the top called Top of the Baths and they have THE BEST coconut battered chicken tenders ever. And there’s a little swimming pool there to cool off in while waiting for your order or just enjoying the view. It’s a great place.
Your video of The Indians snorkel was great!!!! I loved the music you put it to – perfect. Was that a shark way down on the bottom at one point? There’s tons of Lemon Sharks and Black Tip Sharks in these waters. Nurse Sharks too, I believe. Supposedly all harmless unless there’s chopped up bait in the water to lure them to fishing lines.
Happily that was a fish was a Tarpon, not a shark. I likely would have freaked had it been a shark.
Yes, the surf there was rough yesterday. We didn’t do any snorkeling and it likely wouldn’t have been very productive if we had as the water had pretty poor visibility due to the sand that was being kicked up.
While we love Led Zeppelin, the music you chose is great! Who is it? Also, sorry if you’ve answered this before but what brand/type of equipment do you use for underwater videos? Looks like a really cool place!
The music on the clip now is some public-domain youtube stuff. I forget who exactly. I did an audio swap removing the led zep as the video would have been blocked everywhere but the USA.
This is the camera we use:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001SER460?ie=UTF8&tag=zertocru-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B001SER460
It is the one that I said stopped working but I seam to have revived it. I was just about to order the exact camera again because we love it.
I always say that red flags are for suggestion only.
With all the snorkeling you guys are doing – Have you guys thought about picking up some SCUBA gear/get certified?
My fiance and I are in the planning stages of moving aboard and going cruising once she is done with school. As such I’ve been mulling over getting SCUBA certified and collecting all the gear and a compressor for the boat.