No construction today — or at least not the shouting of workers at 7am. The sun was shining once again — very intensely. After having our pre-packaged sugar waffles once again, we layered on a generous amount of SPF 45. Today we planned to go to another boulder-filled beach called Spring Bay Beach. It is situated just north from The Baths, but does not have an entry fee. The only snag was that the road to Spring Bay was in such disrepair, that they had signs put up that it was closed. There was an alternate entrance through a place called the Guavaberry Vacation Homes.
Whether or not this is truly allowed isn’t really known, but we parked in front of their leasing office and walked past a barrier straight to the beach. We debated asking in the leasing office if it was okay to do all this, but what if they said no? I figured it was best to at least see the beach, maybe get yelled at for using their property as an entry point, and apologizing later. After all, we weren’t taking up valuable parking spots. No one was there.
In many ways, this beach was more scenic than The Baths. The rocks were more diverse in shape and size, and each turn was like a new discovery in this seemingly unvisited paradise. We really saw no one from start to finish. It was perplexing. It is said that this beach is like a secret escape from the crowds especially when The Baths are inundated during the regular season. The color of the water yielded some nice hues of turquoise blues. It really does look shockingly like the Seychelles. And as hard as it seems to get to the Seychelles, we encountered a lot more people there than at these beaches on Virgin Gorda. To be fair, we (and a few American Eagle flights) had our own share of adventures to get here, but at the end of the day, Tortola is just over a two hour flight from Miami…in theory.
The huge granite boulders you see on the beaches here (or in the Seychelles) are a result of millions of years of erosion on massive bodies of solidified magma. This process is not all that common, as evidenced by the fact that most beaches don’t look like this. And that actually brings up an interesting observation we’ve had. Two years ago, we went to Anguilla to use up some of Nicole’s free nights at one of the most exclusive properties in Hilton’s network. And while the beaches on Anguilla were perfectly fine and the water a rich turquoise blue, the island itself is frankly a little boring, void of unique topography or mountains. Virgin Gorda, on the other hand is like a lush and unique tropical oasis.
The sun felt quite strong, and we both went into the water to cool off. It was rather refreshing and the water seemed particularly clear. Nicole got stung by a jellyfish at one point, but shook it off. That seemed to be the least of her worries. After all, we’ve been absolutely inundated with bug bites from a mixture of mosquitoes and sand flies over the last 24 hours. The downside of not seeing any other tourists is that the bugs get very excitable upon seeing us. They have so many fewer people around to harass, they really go wild. Anyway, her jellyfish rash went away as soon as it appeared. I did see a few jellyfish myself which eventually persuaded me to get out of the water, but not before I saw a stingray befriend another fish.
After air drying a bit, we headed back to the Jimny to drive back to the Mango Bay. We fixed ourselves some sandwiches and sat outside watching the ocean as bugs presumably bit us some more. They really are relentless. Getting hot in the sun and hoping to avoid some bugs, we went back in the water in front of our room. It was refreshing, but as soon as we came back out, it got a little toasty. You would think this would deter the bugs, but it did not appear to be so. We also took the property’s kayaks for a spin, but they seemed to be missing the seat cushions and back supports, so it was rather uncomfortable, and we returned to dock after doing a quick loop in the bay.
We watched the sun set while trying to evade the increasingly tenacious bugs. Dusk is logically the most active time for most annoying insects, and given our experience the rest of the day, we didn’t want to wait and find out what they had in store for us as it got dark. We hopped in the Jimny and went into Spanish Town hoping to find some souvenirs (there were none) and order a pizza (there was one) before driving back to Mango Bay where we tried to enjoy our dinner outside without being bit. Tomorrow we leave Tortola (hopefully) and will attempt to make our way to St Barts. Because all of our days are now offset from our original plans, it actually helps because they run extra ferries on the weekends and we shouldn’t have to spend too much time at the Tortola airport, which does not appear to have many offerings. A demain.
passports & pepto bismol 