The Town Mouse and the Sea Mouse

First, some pictures of the boat and other island novelties:

Island politics:

Our boat:

Some cabinets:

 What's in the cabinets:

After finishing unpacking and eating dinner (lasagna) Sunday night, we went to downtown Road Town on a quest for groceries. As we walked from where the boat was docked, many of us mentioned how at night the place reminded us of Israel: the warm weather, the trailers we saw, the quiet, the many stars, the barbed wire fences, and the way the hills are sparsely lit up against the sky.

Why you shouldn't text while walking:

 We tried to be good citizens to help future pedestrians:

It should be mentioned at least once that here, since it is a British territory, you drive on the left side of the road, even though all the cars are American with the driver on the left. But as our first taxi driver on BVI told us, it’s easier to drive that way on the narrow roads, since you can see the curb.

Downtown we saw the intersection with the traffic lights, a department store or two, a walking sign with a guy that actually walked, the Variety electronics store (“Quality, Value...Variety”), a smoothie stand, lots and lots and lots of bunting (like at car dealerships, but there were no car dealerships), and a very well attended game of billiards (at which CG was hit on by at least 5 guys). We eventually asked for directions to the grocery. People are really nice here, the lady we asked actually got out of her food truck to point us the right way!

It was nice to be in an air conditioned building. We picked up a bunch of food, and some drinks, such as orange juice, milk, and a Tortola-made spiced rum.

Yes, it comes with that little hat.

Something we didn't buy:

Twins?

We took a taxi with the groceries back to the boat. Then we relaxed, read, and a few of us played Boggle (by each person making up a random 5x5 grid of letters for the group on a piece of paper). Before we knew it, we had tons of mosquito bites.

That night, we all were very warm. There is not much wind when you are at a dock.

First light Monday morning saw us all still asleep. But we did get up earlier than we might have at home. We hired a captain for a couple days to teach us to sail and he came at 8:30. He went over some important information with us, but we didn’t embark until around 12:45. There were many things on the boat that needed to be fixed up, such as some outlets and lights which delayed us, but once we left the docking area, with the wind in our faces and smiles in our hearts, we sailed forward into the wind (well, not exactly into the wind. It is an airfoil, though).

Our destination was Peter Island, southeast of Road Town. It is named for someone named Peter. It’s much smaller than Tortola and it took us a little over an hour to get there. Each person on the boat had a role they learned to do. I was in charge of the sheets (ropes) for the mainsail. Others were in charge of the ropes for the foresail, steering, and testing the effects of Dramamine.


Look at the adorable couple:

Upon arriving at Peter Island we attached to a mooring (a huge concrete block set at the seafloor which has a rope attached to it that has a floaty-thing on it). Then we took the dinghy to the shore. Since we wore our bathing suits and were planning to go swimming, I didn’t take my camera, for better of for worse in terms of what I am about to describe.

First, the “beach” - a little sand, but mostly what at first glance was rocks, but was actually bits of dead pieces of coral. For lunch we had bagels and cream cheese, with some tomato slices, salsa, and chips. Then it was time for the water!

The water was very clear (clearly with rocks on the bottom), so I kept my sandals on. But it was also clear in that we could see little schools of green fish, algae, and sea grass. Sammy even saw a sea turtle. But the real fauna stars of the moment were the pelicans, who swooped out of the sky to catch fish and then gobbled them up. If one came near I made sure to wave my arms, so they wouldn’t mistake me for a fish, despite any impressions of fish I can do.

Runner-up for fauna star was a smaller seabird which would land on the pelicans and try to steal their fish from them. It sounds crazy, but they would actually land on a pelicans back and just stand there, then stab their beak at the water and the pelican’s beak, to try to take the fish. We never saw it successfully grab a fish though, so it’s a questionable strategy.

Besides look at fish and birds, we brought a frisbee and a small football, which we threw around. It’s a bit harder to throw when you’re up to your shoulders in water.

After we took the dinghy back to the boat, Sammy and I stayed to bail out some water that had gotten in to the dinghy. Since it was already tied to the boat, we decided just to swim the distance back. I managed to swallow some sea water as I started. I don’t recommend it.

On the way back to Tortola we were hit with rainstorm. It came down hard, right as we had gotten mostly dry. I’ve driven in rain before, but it’s another experience having it hit you as you’re also traveling fast (although not nearly as fast as driving). What is cool about rainstorms when you’re on the water is that you can see it coming from a mile or two away (it looks grey and foggy and you cannot see the horizon). This gave us just enough time to take down the sails.

After the rain there was a rainbow.

Oh, I mean a DOUBLE RAINBOW.

We anchored off of Road Town about a quarter after 5, relaxed, and kashered our barbecue grill (thanks to Amichai for knowing what to do, Ben for doing it, and Yoni for figuring out how to work the stove in the first place). For dinner we feasted on bread, hot dogs, and salad. Ben even made us some salad dressing from scratch!

For the night’s entertainment we watched a movie (on a laptop) and then we either snoozed, showered, enjoyed the night breezes, prepared pasta for some more food before tomorrow, or...wrote a blog entry.