They exist!

I don’t know if this is the case for everyone but when Rebecca and I envisioned traveling the Caribbean, we often pictured being able to land our dinghy on beautiful beaches to visit towns whose sand-covered roads are lined with cool shops and friendly people. Guess what people? Places like that actually exist, one of which is called Jost Van Dyke! Of course, everyone already knows that, which is why Great Harbor, the main anchorage here, fills up daily with charter boats.

On a related subject, after recently seeing a sign for a dangerous tree that we are not to touch, Rebecca and I noted that in nature, the color red seems to be avoided, often a symbol of danger. Do you think then that it’s a coincidence that a large number of the charter boats here have easily-visible red Sunbrella on the leading edge of their headsails? Yes, there are a LOT of charter boats here, better than 80% in my opinion. Based solely on our one day’s observations, it seems that these boats probably take off early in the morning (some are leaving as I write this) and roll in to the anchorages mid to later afternoon.

Our first stop in JVD was of course Customs and Immigration. These 2 offices are located in the police station, 20 paces across the sand road from the main dinghy dock. The process for clearing in was painless with the exception of our not having the 20 cents to pay for the immigration forms. Yes, the officer was kind enough to give them to us anyway as long as we promised to bring her back the 20 cents later that day. 🙂

After getting all nice and legal, we found our way to Corsairs bar/restaurant where tended to by Capt. Vinnie, we had a couple of late-morning Bloody Marys and some awesome food, celebrating our BVI landfall (note: it wasn’t much of a passage — JVD is only 4.5 miles from where we were anchored in the USVI). In addition to great drinks, food and service, Capt. Vinnie gave us the lay of the land and also turned us on to what I think may become the most important guide book in our possession: The Drinking Man’s Guide to the BVI. Yes folks, this book lists most of the popular watering holes in the BVI and equally as important, it includes coupons for free drinks/food when you visit them. We’ll easily pay for the book before we get out of Great Harbor! If you visit here, definitely go see Vinnie and pick yourself up a copy of this $15.00 book.

Of course, everyone who knows of JVD knows about Foxy’s and it didn’t take us long to find our way there (just walk the other way down the sand road). We first visited there in the afternoon, chatting it up with some cool people on a charter cat. After dinner we returned again to find a massive party taking place (it was BarBQ night). We both had a great time there, enjoying the awesome live music and dancing.

Today we plan to stay here at Great Harbor but we’ll likely dinghy around to explore what White Beach has to offer, including the Soggy Dollar. And yes, we’ll be bringing our Drinking Guide with us!