RView RV and Travel Adventures
RView RV and Travel Adventures
BVI Catamaran Trip 2023
Come listen as George and Lisa tell you about their latest adventure, a trip around the BVI on a 51 foot catamaran. They will tell you what they learned on this trip and they will also give you great tips on where to go and what to do. So sit back and listen in on their conversation.
Below you will find links to all the places they visited and also some fun pictures and videos.
MalDiv Charters with Captain Anthony
MalDiv Charters – Creating Memories On The Ocean
Virgin Charters
Bareboat Charters | Virgin Charter Yachts
Peglegs Restaurant
Restaurants and bars at Nanny Cay
Provisioning
Online Groceries in the BVI | RiteWay Food Markets
Willie T's
The Legendary Floating Bar and Restaurant | The Willy T | William Thorton (willy-t.com)
BVI Chat group
(12) BVI Charter Chat | Facebook
Cooper Island Beach Club
Eco Resort in the British Virgin Islands - Cooper Island Beach Club
The Baths on Tripadvisor
The Baths (Virgin Gorda) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (tripadvisor.com)
Top of the Baths (Restaurant)
Top of the Baths Restaurant & Bar – Virgin Gorda BVI
SABA Rock
Saba Rock
Mooring Ball Reservation app.
BoatyBall.com
Potter's by the Sea
Potters By The Sea: Our Menu (pottersanegada.com)
Big Bamboo
Loblolly Bay Restaurant & Bar | Big Bamboo Anegada
Anegada Beach Club
Anegada Beach Club Luxury Tents & Hotel Accommodation
Scrubb Island Resort Spa and Marina
British Virgin Islands Resorts | Scrub Island Resort, Spa & Marina, Autograph (marriott.com)
Great Dog Island (Snorkeling) (Tripadvisor)
Great Dog (British Virgin Islands) - All You Need to Know BEFORE You Go (tripadvisor.com)
Foxy's
Foxy's Tamarind Bar: ONLINE STORE now open! – Foxy's BVI (shopfoxysbvi.com)
Corsairs Beach Bar & Restaurant
(11) Facebook
Soggy Dollar Bar
World Famous Beach Bar Resort | Soggy Dollar & Sandcastle Hotel | British Virgin Islands
Callwood Distillery.
Callwood Cane Rum (callwood-cane-rum.myshopify.com)
Bannanakeet Restaurant @ The Heritage Inn
Heritage Inn – Bananakeete Cafe – Tortola, Virgin Islands – Come for the Views…Stay for the Food
intro
Welcome to RView with your hosts George and Lisa Hernandez each week listen as George and Lisa talk about their RV and travel adventures all around the world. George and Lisa travel in their 40 foot Class A Tiffin motorcoach and tow their Jeep Wrangler, always looking for fun and adventure.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Hi, welcome back to RView. I'm Lisa RichartHernandez.
George
And I'm George Hernandez.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And we have a great show for you. Today we're going to tell you all about our catamaran trip in the British Virgin Islands. This has been on our bucket list for many, many years. So we have done so much research, we did a bareback boat, that means we had our own captain and we did not have a cook. So we got all of our own provisions. And we're going to tell you all about it.
George
Yes, I will tell you all about the things we learned from this trip, which was incredible. And this may be a two part series. We don't know. Let's see how long it takes for us to tell you all about it. Yeah, that's right. So let's start right from the beginning. The catamaran was at nanny K in Tortola. So let's start with that. We flew into St. Thomas. And we were told to grab a water taxi.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so this is something that needs to be set up ahead of time. There's a bunch of different water taxi services. And we had been referred to this one from a friend. The cost, we had to kind of decide getting to navigate from the United States is can be complicated. So we ended up driving to Fort Lauderdale and flying a direct flight from Fort Lauderdale to St. Thomas. So there's no customs to go through there. But then when you get on the water taxi, or if you choose to do the main ferry that takes you back and forth. You go through customs at that time. We had a lot of recommendations to do the personal tap water taxi because there was six of us. And we don't know what the actual ferry would have been like. But it was a seamless, very easy to do.
George
Yeah, it was awesome. We got on the actual we were met at the airport, got a ride to the water taxi at the marina. We were able to get a cocktail for the ride over. We just jumped on little nice center console with Captain Anthony. And we'll put all his information in our podcast notes. But he was awesome. He picked us up right there. And he took us directly to customs in like
Lisa RichartHernandez
four you go into the BVI. Yeah, yeah.
George
And literally, we stayed on the boat. He took our passports went and did his thing came back out. And we were good to go. And then we continued over to Manny Kay,
Lisa RichartHernandez
take you right to the dock where you're saying,
George
Yeah, literally right next to the boat where we are boat that we were chartering. On a side note, one of the things that we did read about and we're told about was that the ferry is good, but sometimes the it could if there's a lot of people going through customs could take some time. So a lot of our friends who had done this trip before really recommended a private
Lisa RichartHernandez
taxi. So that was an additional cost of $200 per person each way. So you know, as a couple, that's an additional about $800 We spent getting from St. Thomas to nanny k there. I mean, there was already always already I mean, you you could get a private plane that's more expensive. And it sounded like the water fairy was going to be a little bit less expensive. But I guess based on the
George
little bit less expensive, but more of a headache. That was the sound. That's what it sounded. So for us it was worth the extra couple dollars to get dropped off right at the
Lisa RichartHernandez
boat. Yeah. And that included them picking us up and taking us right back as well.
George
Yes. So we got to nanny K. We checked in with Virgin charters, who we booked our catamaran through. And I have to say they were awesome. Yeah, our boat wasn't ready yet. It had just come in from a charter they were cleaning it up getting it ready for us. And they just said, drop off all your luggage here in the office. We'll keep an eye on it. Go enjoy peg legs, which is a restaurant right there at nanny K. Go have a cocktail relax. We'll let you know when the boat was ready. So we put our bathing suits on and went over to peg legs and had a couple of cocktails and our first of many painkillers. That's for
Lisa RichartHernandez
sure. Oh, I think they're actually called bushwhackers that we had.
George
Yes, they're they're bushwhackers but they also had painkillers. Yeah, you're right, Bush. Bush, rocky handler. Boy, they were good. Yeah. And Lisa decided that she needed to have them for the water taxi ride over was an hour long drive. Oh my god an hour long. I think we'll hear about that in a few minutes. Yeah.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, the good thing about this is they have all the provisions and everything is right there, literally at the dock. So we ordered our provisions from the grocery store online ahead of time, right way was the name of the grocery store that we use, they literally have everything that you need. I think for the we had four couples. So there's eight of us total, we spent about $1,600 and provisions that included our liquor. We plan to eat two meals a bore on the on the boat, and then breakfasts and lunches. And I'll tell you what, we had way too much food. Way too much. We had way too much liquor. I guess I didn't realize if I was to do it again, I would say get less provisions, get snacks and things that you're gonna want maybe some breakfast food that's simple to make. But generally speaking, every single place that we went to had great restaurants, and no one's gonna go hungry. They're
George
not at all we as a matter of fact, we'll touch on a bunch of the restaurants that we ate at and I think that was to me, the biggest surprise was how good all the restaurants were. I mean, like, really good. Yeah. So provisioning and thank God because we were told freezer meat, bring it fly it over from the United States and bring it on the boat, you're gonna need to cook you don't need to do any of that whatever you need is right there especially if you go through nanny K and through Verdun charters. Like Lisa said, the grocery store was right there.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I mean, when when I was reading the online forums and having never been there before, and I guess the side of you know, where we were our boy was that 90k Literally the right way is like 100 yards away. Like it's right there. It's not a huge grocery store or anything, but it has like the basics of everything that you need. We did end up getting like a few extra things, which all also went to waste. I mean, you really don't even need to bring unless you have like some kind of special shampoos or whatever. Generally speaking, they had literally everything.
George
Everything was there. And limited but everything was there. Yep. And I'll say this much, considering it's an island in the middle of nowhere. The prices were not bad at all. Yeah, I agree. I thought we were gonna get killed when we walked into a grocery store but the prices were very comparable.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yep. I totally agree. And just as an aside, so I don't forget when we did it, we we decided we want to do a steak dinner one night. And so I bought some filet mignon and I was wondering what the quality of the meat was going to be and it was we'll talk about that later but it was actually like a really great cut of meat we got chicken kabobs that were already prepared. Those were excellent.
George
And everything was delivered to the boat. Yeah, when we got there it was already on the boat. They put it away for you they put it they didn't put it away we had to inventory it all to make sure that we got everything. Remember it was sitting on the back of the
Lisa RichartHernandez
boat. Yeah, but if you're not there they'll put your refrigerator Yeah.
George
Oh, you're right. The refrigerated stuff was put away I'm sorry. So yeah, we did the quick inventory of everything. Everything was there. We got way too much booze way too much water flow, live and learn but it's okay. The deckhands were really happy when we got back. I think pretty much everybody got a bottle of booze. Yeah, I
Lisa RichartHernandez
think so too.
George
So let's let's get right into it. So we chartered no worries, that was the name of our catamaran. It was a power cat. It had four cabins, it says it's for 12 Max 12 guests. I don't know where you would put 12 people. But it says for 12 It's
Lisa RichartHernandez
got Oh, that's because they have captains quarters up in the front.
George
Those aren't counted. Right? Yeah. When I looked it up, those aren't counted. Okay, so mean. So remember, the main does go down to that turns into a bed. Each cabin had its own bathroom, which was really nice. It's 51 feet long, 25 feet wide, and only drafts three feet in the water, which is excellent. It was really economic to and we really didn't when you think about it. We motored every day, but your motor for what an hour, maybe at the most the most. Our longest one was Anegada. And that was a half hour and a half. So you're like, oh my god, we're gonna run out of gas, but you really don't really use it. So that was good. So before we could leave my cousin, Jorge. So it was let's cover this. My cousin Jorge and his wife, Annie. Jim and Tammy are friends. And Tracy and Carl and Lisa and I those were the four couples, and we had a fantastic time with them. We all got along so well. There was no drama, thank God. And it was I don't know how it worked out but everybody He just fell into kind of, I don't want to say a job, but everybody fell into. Okay, this is what I'm gonna do this.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Everybody worked together was yeah, it was awesome. It was awesome. Yeah, it was great.
George
So back to Captain Jorge he decided to be our captain instead of hiring captain. Before we could leave he had to get checked out by the I guess resident captain for Virgin charters.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So it sounds like if you're interested in chartering your own boat and being your own captain, they want to know your previous experience as a boat captain and what boating experience you have. And so he had to submit all that information ahead of time. So we did the sleep aboard the first night is what it's called, so that we woke up in the morning on the boat, but we couldn't leave until they checked us out. So we had paperwork to sign in the morning. And then the captain thing and they dropped off the guy at the fuel dock. I got Oh, he.
George
Yeah, he went and went over with us. He went over with us just to make sure the captain knew what he was. Yeah. So, Philip. Yeah. Philip gave George the check ride, I guess. And then he wrote over to
Lisa RichartHernandez
Willie T's. Okay, what's the
George
river already hurts. So we motored over to Norman Island, where Willie teases. Yeah. And boy,
Lisa RichartHernandez
so Willie T's is like, I don't know, like a shipwreck ship in the middle of the bay. Or the little cove, I guess, if you want to call it and it has a restaurant and bar on it. And people literally, like just drink there. It's like bathing suits, and they jump off the top of the boat into the water. It's a big, it's a big party. It's pretty crazy. Sort of anything goes kind of a thing.
George
It was so much fun. Yeah. You cannot go to the BVI and not go to Willie T's. So we talked to a lot of people and we did the counterclockwise route. Most people do the clockwise route and ended up at Willie T's as their last stop. We started at Willie T's and I'm glad we did.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, cuz
George
we got our shit show out of the way early.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, you got that pent up like yeah, room vacation energy. That was like vibing that day, and everybody was ready to have drinks and days drink and then they had the shot ski, which is you've never heard of it before. It's a long ski with all the shot glasses on it and everybody drinks it at once. And we experienced that.
George
Yes, we did. And the girls got their tattoos. Willie T's tattoos. Yeah.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So Willie T's tattoo is they basically spank your butt so hard, and they put a handprint on it. But he also get a little tattoo that says Willie t's on it or whatever. So it's pretty funny.
George
Yeah, I want to know how you got that job.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I'm pretty sure you could probably Google that or put it on the YouTube and there's probably tons of videos of Willie T's so you can do your own online research for that and decide. I mean, during the daytime there was there was families and kids there and stuff like that. But it's a pretty crazy drinking crowd, I'd say.
George
Oh, absolutely. It was so much fun. And then jumping off the back of Willie T's from the second story. It was really cool. The water so clear. Oh my god, that was our first experience with the water. And I mean, from that vantage point, you could see straight to the bottom and everybody was jumping off. It was so much fun. But Willie T's was first put there by William Thornton. That was his name. That's Willie T. And I found some interesting information about him. Willie Thornton was involved in designing the United States Capitol pump. Ah, interesting.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I sure that's fine. The boat is named Realty.
George
Yes. And the original Willie T's was destroyed in a hurricane.
Lisa RichartHernandez
So when they do wreck another ship out there.
George
It's not a rocket to a bar, a bar cargo ship. It was it had an initial purpose but so we blew it out the first night.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, even. So let's see rookie moves. Somebody didn't tie the dinghy on good enough the dinghy got washed up to shore.
George
Let's step back a little bit why we didn't talk to Danielle properly. So we were Willie T's and I was designated the dinghy captain. I was dinghy George. So I ended up having to ferry two groups back to the catamaran and I may have had one or two too many. And as I was getting off the dinghy, everybody was off the dinghy and I'm trying to get off and I slipped and fell headfirst into the engine. And I cracked my head open. And I was bleeding like, it looks the the dinghy look Like a murder scene was blood everywhere but if you know anything about head injuries, any little cut on your head will bleed like crazy. So everybody, of course goes into panic mode. They're given, you know, they took great care of me. But whoever grabbed the rope for the dinghy just, I guess in panic just kind of tied it up really quick to the rail, not to the cleat. And later that night, if somebody said where's the day? It was gone.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Well, it's pitch black dark out, so you can't find it in the pitch black dark. So we woke up at the crack of dawn and found the dinghy we thought onshore thank God. But one good thing and this is another like quick tip. All the thingies look exactly the same. Yeah, so we tied a blue, like the bright blue bag, one of those since that was a cinch sack. But it had like, just even if you just had like, a ribbon or a scarf or something that you tied to your dinghy so that you use kind of like, like, like a luggage tag, you know, like there's because they, I mean, every single place that we went in the BVI, you have to get there by dinghy and there was like 30 dinghies, and they all are exactly the same. And so we've got a lot of information off the BVI charter chat group, and on Facebook, and that was one suggestion that somebody had and I was so thankful the next morning, when we woke up and saw the dinghy over on land, I'm like, Yes, that's ours. I can see the blue bag tied to it.
George
Even if it wasn't it was gonna be ours. So now Lisa and I are standing on the on the boat going, Okay, how do we get the dinghy? And who goes to get it the guy with this cut
Lisa RichartHernandez
head? Oh, whatever. Whatever. dramatical Yeah, totally fine. So
George
I put a lifejacket on. And I started swimming over to the the dinghy. And I will tell you what was going through my head. Okay, so I was bleeding. If I start bleeding again, sharks love blood. So to barracudas, so does everything else. I got to shore really quick.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I wondered why you were swimming so bad. Yeah,
George
that, but thank God, I was able to get it off shore and the engine started right up and the emergency was over. Yeah. And so that was the big drama for our first day. And the only drama we had actually on
Lisa RichartHernandez
the next morning, that group of them went snorkeling. We didn't we didn't do that morning snorkeling. We just kind of took it easy because we woke up literally at like five o'clock in the morning to get the dinghy. And then we're like, I gotta lay back down for
George
ya. So that let's touch on that too. We got up every day, as soon as the sun came up, because there's the light just comes right into the boat. There's no blackout curtains.
Lisa RichartHernandez
If you're I had my sleep masks that I definitely brought with me. So there's another little tip if you're sensitive to the morning sunlight, just make sure you pack your sleep mask. So you have a little bit of darkness and don't wake up at 445 every morning. Yeah, we
George
were trying to cover the windows with shirts were that anything we could and it just it just woke us up every morning. But that was okay. Got our day started early. So after Willie T's and we did say try the painkillers and the most of the other drink Bushwhacker bushwhackers. They're They're everywhere. Everybody says, you know, it's like the greatest cup of coffee in New York City. Everybody has the best Bushwacker Yeah. So you got to try them all. So after that, on our second day, we motored over to Cooper Island. Yes. What a pleasant surprise. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
it was actually a perfect day after the crazy night that we had the night before. And honestly, when we pulled up to the island, I was like, this is where we're going. There's no cars, there's no roads. There's just like a very small island. Very, very small. But it was beautiful.
George
As a matter of fact, the only thing on the island is Cooper island beach club, which has a all inclusive, not all inclusive, but everything is at the beach club. They have a small brewery, they have a Rum Bar, they have a coffee shop, and a restaurant. And let me Okay, we just let's talk about everything else. Because you know, there
Lisa RichartHernandez
really is a talk about I mean, there's I mean, it's not like it's a huge brewery that there's you can talk all day about it is
George
but what I was gonna say is the also everything we ever replace, we went we grabbed the mooring ball. We did stay in two marinas and we'll talk about those later. But the mooring balls there the beach was beautiful. The water was incredible. And like Lisa said, we pulled up to this place and we're like, Okay, it looks cool. You know, how long are we gonna be here? How wrong we were. Oh my god. So we got off we go have a cocktail, swam in the beach, somehow managed to get a reservation at the restaurant. I'll tell you what the food was so good.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, that was our first real dinner that we had on one of the islands and I had very low expectations of the restaurants like, I've been to the Bahamas and we do a lot of traveling and I was kind of picturing like, sharks on the beach with like, food out of Styrofoam containers. Conch, the vitae. Yeah, and this. I mean, like George said, he, that was probably the best fillet he's ever had. The steak was delicious. I got to split the tomahawks. Incredible. I had a curry dish. I even though it was delicious, was probably the least best thing of all the other ones. I was like, very envious of everyone else's food. That was excellent. I mean, mine was excellent, too. But it was just like, wow, like the I would never I was afraid to order the steak because I didn't think that it would be good being on an island in the middle of nowhere, but it was fabulous.
George
Mine was I and I said this to everybody on the ship and everybody that I've taught talk to since we've been back, I would I would have put that filet mignon up against any top steak house. It was just cut it cut it with my fork. Yeah, it was delicious. Yeah. And the service was fantastic. The scenery was incredible. We had that relatable sunset. Yeah, you're
Lisa RichartHernandez
overlooking this beautiful water. So it was a perfect day for like the crazy night that we had the night before. As far as what you were, I would say, um, this island men would just put on like a golf shirt, maybe in shorts. The ladies just wore like some dresses. And I'll tell you what, as far as packing goes, Don't over pack. They'll tell you that a million times. I literally packed all of my things in a duffel bag, like a gym sized duffel bag for the whole entire week. And I still didn't use all of that. So just little sundress that you can throw on and really some flip flops and you're good to go for this even even though it's a very nice restaurant. You don't have to be overly dressed.
George
But yeah, I mean, there was really nowhere that we had to get.
Lisa RichartHernandez
No I mean, you might along with a collared shirt for the men. Yeah, like
George
you could get away with men could get away with what did I bring three golf shirts? Yeah, and I don't think I wore all three. Well, you bought something that I bought some Yeah. But if you get a chance to go there. Oh, my God. Go to the restaurant and have that filet mignon. Yeah, incredible.
Lisa RichartHernandez
It was a very chill day. Out of all the places that we went. That was probably one of the most chill places on it
George
was the first beach that we actually hit. Yeah, so we just chilled out on the beach. It wasn't the
Lisa RichartHernandez
prettiest beach, but it was very pretty. Yeah. So where do we go after that?
George
After that, we went to Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor, which was where we took the taxi over to the baths.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, okay, so we went to the baths that day. So before we left, we charted out with a captain where we were gonna go. And we had one non swimmer with us. Now one way that you can go to the baths as you can get more involved, and you can sort of swim in. Now that I've seen how far it is physically to swimmin. I think she could have managed the swim. But if you have a non swimmer or young kids, and you're not quite sure, you want to do that more involved. We didn't go we stopped at a restaurant right past the bass. It was a marina right there, and got off the boat and took a taxi over to the top of the baths. And that was what like $10 a person round trip or something.
George
20 bucks a couple. Yeah, great.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. And it's interesting, because they'll pick you up and take you and they don't take your money until they come pick you back up. They do on the honor system there. Yeah. So we said pick us up at like four o'clock. And it was right there was right there. Yeah. So we did the bass, that was probably one of the highlights of the trip. And we were there on a non cruise ship data. So you can also like I've heard, we did so much research on this before we left. So hopefully this podcast will save you like you could practically just copy everything we did and save you like months of research. But there was
George
you can lots of research times for because everybody did. Yeah, we were very,
Lisa RichartHernandez
very deep, deeply researched. So the you could go online and check and see when the cruise ships are going to be in the port. They're at where the baths are. But apparently when the cruise ships are there, I mean, there's just like hundreds of people because it's one of the excursions and
George
so if you've ever been on a cruise ship and you've done an excursion you know what we're talking about just large crowds just and it's not not sometimes it's fun. Sometimes it's not it's just too many people.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Right? So we were lucky there was no cruise ships. So we got great pictures. I mean, you know, just went exploring and snorkeling really and he dropped
George
us off right at the so now you got to pay I guess. You don't have to pay now you gotta pay, which is cool. It's $3 a person and then you walk down to the bath And to Devil's Devil's Bay,
Lisa RichartHernandez
yes. So you definitely want to have water shoes for this this is not something that you wouldn't wear shoes for. I would actually recommend packing water shoes. Period George got a great pair of tennis shoe water she likes to wear all the time now. But they're so they're like so comfortable. They look like sneakers, but they have like holes in the bottom for the water comes out. Highly recommend that and bring yourself
George
a watertight bag. I was very helpful.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh yeah, that's, that's another thing. We had a that's like that was like my purse everywhere we went was one of those waterproof bags where you roll it down three times, and it clips and you keep all of your stuff dry in there. And we use those because we were always on the dinghy or traveling through the to the beaches and stuff like that. Everybody uses those. So you know, this is no place to have your Louvre Aton if you want to put yourself in a bag. That's what you should carry. Everybody else has the same kind of waterproof bag
George
where you go. This is like SeaWorld. You're on the splash zone. You're going to get wet. Yes. So don't bring anything that you don't want getting wet. So
Lisa RichartHernandez
hats, sunscreen, sunglasses, and a lot of people had waterproof cases for their phones. So they could take pictures or GoPros because they're just beautiful photos that we took at the baths.
George
Yeah, lots of fish and lots of stuff to take pictures of. Yeah, so
Lisa RichartHernandez
the baths are like a bunch of big rocks kind of on a mountain. You can google search it up and see beautiful photos of it. So you walk down kind of a winding dirt trail, I would say it's not easy terrain. So if you're like, you know, have any physical things that you're not capable, you know? Yeah, getting stopped throwing rocks there. Yeah, it's it's your, your, your scooch scrunched down and going down some different ladders and things like that. So you definitely want to be you know, you don't have to be a triathlete or anything like that. But you know, you also just, I would want you to be aware not to take your anybody who is struggling with any sort of knee or ankle or back or whatever, it can't get around easily. So yeah, at the bottom of the was at the bottom, we walked up to the top, where they have like a restaurant like a they have like a food shack and drinks.
George
So the baths is one side and Devil's Bay is another side. Devil's Bay is the beach area. Yeah, do not miss that. Because everybody talks about the baths, the baths, the baths, the bats. Devils Bay was beautiful beach area, and great for snorkeling, and I got to throw a plug out to Otterbox which is what I the case that I have for my phone. I got such great pictures and video with my iPhone. just can't say enough about it. And if you don't have one, get one or get something that's waterproof. So you can get pictures because it's unbelievable.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, how clear it is really clear blue water. We probably struggled there for probably a good hour.
George
Oh, yeah. Yeah, because we were in no hurry. We're right. We weren't on a
Lisa RichartHernandez
excursion or anything like that. So we did that. And then we walked up to the top and there's a restaurant at the top and there's a pool there. It's like a little, almost like a little mini Lazy River. Very small pool. But there's a place to rinse off the sand from walking and then you can kind of dip in the pool and have dinner or lunch or I think we had sort of a It was sort of a mix between breakfast and dinner. I guess it was like three or four o'clock in the afternoon when we ate.
George
Yeah, the name of the restaurant is top of the baths, top of the baths. Really nice sort of review of their incredible view. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
we had some gigantic drink. What was that gigantic thing? It was like 82 ounces. And they bring it in this big tower. It was called a tower. You know, whatever kind of drink you wanted. And they brought you all cups with ice in it. And it was all eight of us drink. It was I think it was 120
George
it was 120
Lisa RichartHernandez
I think they take pictures of you were probably there on the wall of shame of people that have drink.
George
I was I was just looking to get the name of the restaurant. And then I started looking at the pictures. It's called the called the tower. Okay, it's called the tower and they'll fill it up with whatever you want beer, mixed drinks, painkillers, or Bushwackers. Oh my god. So we drank one of those. We all drank it together. It was beautiful. We got our picture. I'm going to look through here because I'm convinced our pictures on this website. So we had a great time and our driver came picked us up, took us back to our boat. And we jumped on and that same day, we sailed over to levert Bay Resort and Marina. Where was our that was our first night in a marina. Okay. Yep. And that was the day that we went over to Saba rock.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, and I was so surprised by this.
George
I think we were all surprised As we fought we, I don't know how nobody googled it and saw a picture of it because we all thought that it was just like this island that we were going to snorkel around.
Lisa RichartHernandez
We thought Sava rock was like a big rock.
George
Well, a Rock Island. We all literally thought we were just going to be snorkeling around this thing. And it basically looks like an old four in the middle of the water. And we're just like
Lisa RichartHernandez
a flying saucer landed with a cool restaurant on the outside. It was like, the coolest thing ever. Yeah,
George
yeah. Now I see what the big draw is there. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
I will say this. They said you can take a dinghy. So we stayed in levert Bay Marina. And there's restaurants that are which we did not have time to go to. If anything, I would have spent two nights there so we could have experienced more of that area. But they said you can take your dinghy over to Sabah rock from lebryk Bay. And I'm so thankful that we didn't because it was a long cross across the bay. And they have a free water taxi that goes back and forth like every 30 to 45 minutes, picks up right on the right on right on the docks and stays till they close, sava rock if you're interested in eating there or visit the bottom. The other place we went was
George
Saba rock, sava rock and then we went Bitter End Yacht Club a bit around Yacht Club and the shuttle the water tax. The water taxi takes you to both Yes, Tom where you want to go?
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, and both those places were super cool. We had drinks at both places. We ended up getting a dinner reservation at Saba rock. If you want to go to solver rock, and you know what day you're going to be there would not hurt to get a reservation ahead of time if you want to eat at a primetime hour. We couldn't get in there till 830. They accommodated us, which was great. The food was really good again. They have a really fun bar upstairs that had a DJ all day long. They had swings that you sat at the bar had some big like Jenga games, pool tables, that kind of stuff. And then on the back of Saba rock, there are some like hotel rooms that are there. And on the back they had like a beach Roenick Gabbana cabanas hammocks out there. Yeah, so it was really, really pretty. There's really cool kite surfer. It was really fun to watch him. There was a lot of things that you could do there. One thing that I would have loved to have done that I felt was a missed opportunity is I would have loved to have done a tour of Necker Island. And so if you wanted to do a tour of Necker Island, you would need to have that other day. At that lebryk Bay. Marina would say because there was a shuttle that goes right from there and does tours of Necker Island. Necker Island is Richard Branson, Sir Richard, Richard Branson's Island. Yeah. Which I think would be really cool to check out.
George
Yeah, that was another one that kind of slipped through the cracks. We're gonna be that close right there.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Like it. I think for me, before the trip, the actual like, judging of the distance of how far everything was, I felt like everything was further away than it actually was. I was like, Oh, my God, we're like a 15 minute boat ride. We could we could have been at Necker Island. When are we ever going to be here again to go see that? Yeah, that would have been something cool to plan ahead. So a missed opportunity there. And again at lebryk Bay, two nights in the in the marina would have been
George
Yeah, every night. Everybody agreed that two nights maybe even three nights would have been great. You could get to so many things from lever Marina. Or if you stay at the resort, you can, I'm sure. Hire boat and take you almost anywhere. Right from there was a great, great, great location.
Lisa RichartHernandez
That was one of the few nights that we stayed in the marina and we really just took advantage of those days to have like full showers on on land. But really honestly, showering in the catamaran wasn't bad. had really good water pressure. Ours did anyways. But you just have to be aware of how much water you're using. So we did fill our water tanks up every time we went into a marina to stay for the night. Yeah, we
George
filled up their quick little tip secret tip. At the end of the dock. There's a British phone booth. That's a shower. Don't tell anybody but yeah, go and shower. There's ours. It's so called the phone booths. Everybody walked all the way to the resort and I just showered right there in the phone booth. Yeah. So then from Leverett Bay, and I gotta we went to Anegada which everybody told us you got to go down and God it's the most incredible place it's beautiful blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, first of all, we thought it was going to be way further. We thought it was going to be like a two three hour boat ride. It only took us an hour and a half from lebryk Bay from lebryk Bay. It was a really nice ride. It was a little choppy but not nothing that so much smoother on a catamaran because he got the twin holes. Yeah. So it was really nice ride got out there. Picked up a mooring ball.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I think we did get a believer All that time because we were worried that we weren't going to get anything. So you can go on this app called Bodie ball loadable. It'll be on the known you can like check and see if there's any buoys available and you pay for it ahead of time and they have numbers on them. They're the the red ones usually. And then that way you have a mooring ball reserved. So it's like a busy time, you would want to have a mooring ball reserved in case there wasn't but when we got there, we would have had plenty of places to stay for free.
George
Yep. So another tip, red mooring balls are motivos bowtie balls and you have to reserve those white mooring balls are first come first serve and somebody will come around and collect the money for the mooring balls. Yeah, so we got to Anegada. Yeah. Pick up a mooring ball. We go on shore to go exploring this beautiful island that everybody's telling us that we gotta go see. And we went to big bamboo.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Right? Well, we got off at what's the name of the daughter's Potter's by the sea? Yeah, we left our dinghy at Potter's by the sea, which has a dock right there. And when you come in, he the owner greets you. Basically he says he's he's got the hook up on everything. And then you basically have to put your food order in for dinner that morning. Yeah, so, uh, how many lobsters Do you want. And this is the place that's famous for the lobsters. So think we each got one lobster, and they're like you, we understand why they're famous for their big huge lobsters. There's some pictures on our social media. You can check those out, but big huge lobsters.
George
And then we also asked them if they could prepare our steaks for us. And they were more than accommodating. Yeah, we just brought him on shore where
Lisa RichartHernandez
he cooked and perfectly our grill. So we really only ended up cooking one meal on a catamaran because we brought our steaks and for him to cook and he did a fabulous job.
George
So we went to big bamboo and it was kind of it was we were the only ones there.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, and you know, it's here's what's really sad, like everyone's like, Oh my god, that was my favorite beach ever. Well, the shore Gump shore Gomez and how you say it,
George
we kept saying the sarcasm sorry.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Whatever. It's the it's the seaweed. That was probably two feet of seaweed. It was everywhere all over the beach. We know that like just from what we had been reading that that kind of seaweed can like cause skin irritation and stuff like that. So he pretty much stayed out of the water. We were disappointed because it was just everywhere. You couldn't there was Norco, whether there really was no way around it. So we did end up having lunch there, which I would say was probably closer to what I had assumed all the restaurants were going to be which was like sort of like fried fish on you know, paper plates kind of a Yeah, but very laid back.
George
Very laid back very isolated island. I mean, between potters and big bamboo. There was nothing cows and goats.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, very, very little. And I guess it was all underwater during the hurricane. But the we I think we paid like $40 A couple or something. And the guy kind of drove us all around around the whole island. Yep. So we have like a taxi van.
George
That was the same thing. He took us wherever we wanted to go when we didn't pay him until we we got back to Potter's. So in doing a little research before the podcast. I did look up. I gotta and I looked at some of the pictures and it is absolutely beautiful. The beaches were nothing compared to what we saw. So unfortunately, maybe we were just there at a bad time. But it you know, it is what it is. So from big bamboo, we ended up going to the Anegada Beach Club. Yeah, the biggest pool and all of anakata actually the only pool and all of that I gotta
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, I think it was it was their claim to fame. Maybe it was like 10 by 10 or something. It's very small. Yeah. A little dipping pool. Yeah. But they had a bar there. And so we sat for a little bit and they have a spa there, which it was very, very, there's maybe like three other couples besides the eight of us that were all total there. So it's very quiet at that time of year, walked out on the beach on that side of the island and there was still a bunch of seaweed. It was everywhere on that island, unfortunately, yeah. And unfortunately, they're having problems I guess, you know, that big seaweed kind of out of control. So that just happened to be one place that had a lot of it.
George
Yeah. But that resort was actually pretty nice. It's tiny. But they had these bungalows on the beach that actually look beautiful. Like you can rent those out. Yeah, man, that would be a beautiful place to wake up in the morning if everything was ideal. They had some regular hotel rooms. I think they had 12 of those right by the pool, and then a bunch of huts along the beach. You said a spa restaurant. And that was about it. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
yeah. Now when we got back to Potter's that night we had our dinner which was excellent. And it was very it was full. The whole restaurant was full for dinner at Potter's.
George
Yeah, it was everybody that had a mooring ball basically ate there. Yep. And I got a great video. I'll see if I can post it on. So you guys can see. Sammy, wasn't it his name, Sammy. I can't remember. But it really because he kept saying Sam, I'm
Lisa RichartHernandez
I am. I am Sam. I am Sam or something like that. I like something about
George
his hands. I can't remember not no one even tried to.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yes, he had everything you needed and said, I'll
George
tell you what, Sammy, I gotta give you a shout out. That was the food was the lobster was and they were massive. They were big lobsters. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
they cook. They basically cut them in half. And they cook them on this big, huge grill. And he's got all these like fire grills going like, really good. Just very delicious.
George
And they basically cook for everybody in one shot. Yeah. Yeah. That's why you order ahead of time. They just they know how many lobsters they need. They know what you'd size you want. And they just cook it all in one shot. Yep. Again, the service was really good.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Let's be honest. Okay. So like, if you are not a big lobster lover, then there really isn't anything else exciting about that. Now, compared to the other restaurants that we went to, I think anakata sort of got a like for us. Sometimes your expectations get set so high for things that you're thinking, Oh, my God will everybody is said This is so amazing. Out there, you're like, well, this wasn't all that, you know. And so it to be fair, that's probably why our you know, our expectations were so so high for this. And we felt like we had to go out of our way to get there. And once we did, we were like, Why? Because all these other places that we had been before that are so nice. You know, like levert Bay was so nice. The restaurants. Yeah, Cooper Island was delicious. And so it was just like, Okay, well, I didn't really get that. But the lobster night dinner definitely made up for that. And then then we had it all the next morning. Oh, oh, who are we? After we decided before dinner. We were like, just kind of everybody was like showering getting cleaned up. And we saw the sea turtles. That's when you got the pictures of
George
the turtles. That's the first time we saw the sea turtles. Yeah. And so I think our friends were losing their mind,
Lisa RichartHernandez
I think Damion Tracy must have taken about 1000 pictures of sea turtles. They're like, the third is there's a turtle.
George
They started screaming. And like, I ran upstairs. I thought somebody went overboard. Because like, Oh my God, look what's going on. Yeah, and it was turtles. But it was really cool. They were all around the boat. And that was the first time that we actually saw them.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah. So is that where you got the picture of?
George
No, no, that was it'll come to me later. But yes. So unfortunately, like Lisa said, We'll throw the disclaimer that I'm sure Anna God is beautiful when things are when there's no seaweed? Yeah, yeah. So give it a shot. So from there, we motored over and that was our longest day on boat. And it wasn't even a day it was like maybe two hours at the most out of an hour and a half. Nothing is over two hours, unless you make it over to
Lisa RichartHernandez
really most days. We probably spent 30 to 45 minutes underway, and that's it.
George
Yeah, you could probably go around the whole island and for hours. Yeah. So we motored over to scrub Island. Scrub Island Resort Spa and Marina. That was our second Marina that we went to the one on the mountain top. It was beautiful. We swam at the pool.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I thought we went to the soggy dollar before that.
George
Sure. Maybe we did. Now Nagasaki dollars over way over on Jasmine date. Okay, so we went to scrub Island resorts pod Marina, which is an autograph collection collection. It was beautiful, beautiful resort, beautiful spa, spa Marina.
Lisa RichartHernandez
It was Georgia nannies anniversary. So they actually got a hotel room that night and stayed in the hotel.
George
And we had another fantastic dinner there. Yeah, they have
Lisa RichartHernandez
like a fancy restaurant and then more of a casual restaurant. The food was great in both places. They have to swim up bars there. That was nice. They had so we did a lot just like some walking around. They also have like breakfasts and like a little like little store there. We can pick up some groceries and that kind of thing at the marina but we were walking around and I would love to go back there. They had these villas on the cliff overlooking the water that were just so beautiful. I would love to just go back there just to stay up just to say that autograph of collection and spend a weekend there, whatever it is. Yeah, on the cliff, one of those
George
yellow villas are built into scattered throughout the mountain that the resort is built on. And on one side, remember they had the whalewatching area? Oh, yeah. It was surprised it wasn't whale season. No, no. Yeah, but I didn't even think about that. Yeah. And they had a couple villas on that side. I imagine waking up in the morning having coffee and seeing whales that would be so awesome. Yeah. But give them credit. It was a beautiful resort. All the Marina hands were extremely helpful. Everything was really nice that they have they Yeah, they had a little store there. So we
Lisa RichartHernandez
bought it. You could have got breakfast sandwiches and everything there. And then we definitely took good showers there. One thing that we noticed is when we were hooked up to shore power, we just had better air condition. And so the the boat was like nice and cold. And when we were running on just generator power, we didn't have as great of air conditioning. Sleeping wasn't as great when we were mooring.
George
But we did finally kind of figure out a trick that helped. I just think the generators. The boat we had was a little bit older wasn't very old, but the generator I think just may have been worn out or maybe underpowered. But one thing that we did when we went to bed was somebody always turned off the AC in the in the in the main salon, which gave more power to the cabins and then it got it got cold enough. Yeah, it was good enough. So we went to the restaurant. The meal was great. George and Annie got their little happy anniversary thing from their friend. It was a nice surprise. What else did we do that there was something Oh, we went for a walk. Listen, I decided to go for a walk. And we realized that it was really cool that the hotel had the floor of the resort had like this really cool garden. So they were growing a lot of their own vegetables and stuff for herbs. And I thought I thought you know, that's perfect. And I thought it was cool. Yeah, but I agree with you. I would love to go back and stay in one of those villas for probably the one night we can afford. Anything else on that island
Lisa RichartHernandez
now? That was it was just it was a great. That was a great stop. Yeah,
George
great stop. Great view.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, earlier that day before we pulled in there, we went snorkeling.
George
Yeah, where did we go? I can't remember.
Lisa RichartHernandez
It was a cove and I can't remember the name of it. We'll try to put it in the show notes. That was the place we only did do some nice snorkeling there and spent, you know, several hours just floating around and the rocks just come, you know, into the water on the side of these like mountains and all the coral reefs are sort of all around there and stuff. So there's so many fish and it was really nice snorkeling, definitely. Yeah,
George
it was, that was definitely worth worth a stop. And I think
Lisa RichartHernandez
that that being said, one of the other things that was probably a missed opportunity, or if we were going the second time, I would have all these scuba companies like scuba diving companies, they will like literally meet you at your boat and take you snorkeling or scuba diving on almost like excursions if you want to. And I think that would be a really cool thing to do because there's a lot of really cool places to go scuba diving and stuff and they could probably take you to a lot better places than we just went on our own.
George
Yeah, absolutely. So from there we went to Joss Van Dyck
Lisa RichartHernandez
Okay, that's where the soggy dollar wow that's
George
where the fox sees Corsair and soggy dollar bar. So let's start we grabbed the mooring ball went over and we went over to foxes.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so this is this is actually a good tip. Foxes is the place you want to go at nighttime and soggy dollar is the place you want to go during the daytime. So we decided since we were having some cocktails to get a mooring ball on the side of foxes.
George
Alright, you can get more eyeballs on so they're they're on two different beaches. And you can get a mooring board either one we decided to get one at foxes so that we could go have dinner there at night.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so we went in, we left our dinghy there. And we took a little taxi I think it's like 10 bucks.
George
Oh my God and I highly recommend that it was a taxi slash roller coaster. Oh my god it was the steepest hills I've ever been in a car. And if you go up you gotta go down. But but the good thing was, you are up so high that I got some beautiful pictures and I'll post those on the show notes. Just the water is beautiful. You see the boats all that everybody on the beach. So I highly recommend that if you go to five, well, if you're at the soccer ball and you want to go to foxes grab a cab, same thing. You don't pay to get back, it was $5 a person, how could you go wrong?
Lisa RichartHernandez
I would say that the soggy dollar was one of my favorite beaches, it was the first really, really white, white sand crystal blue beach front with a bunch of different like bars and people like party feet, like, just had a great vibe. And of course, we had to get our T shirts and everything from there. That was really, really cool. But I really loved that. And we just hung out in the water all day, that day, having cocktails,
George
drinking and talking to a bunch of people. And it was just so much everybody was just having a great time.
Lisa RichartHernandez
And I think part of the thing so we said we, you know, I guess you can be one of two kinds of people. They had a bucket of beer for 20 bucks, you know, and I think like Bush, or are they called painkillers were like $7 or something. It's a mixed drink and they were really strong. So it's like you can buy them on, on on land. Obviously you can bring your bring your Yeti cups in they'll basically mix a drink in your cup for you. Or you can you know, stay on your boat and drink and I guess save money if that's what you want to do. But all the way too much. I think we had too much liquor on board because we we spent most of our days just on the beaches, drinking from these, you know, little kind of beach bar shack places. We
George
never felt like we were getting ripped off. I mean, yeah, it wasn't crazy. It was truly a bucket of beer. Like in some places in the United States. They tell you a bucket of beer, you pay 20 bucks and you get five beers. What happens to the sixth one? You know there and it was whatever beer you wanted. They had everything. I thought it was great price. Great. Overall was yeah, a great experience.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yep. I totally agree. That was really fun. And then we ate at Carstairs. Oh my god, that was so good. I was so shocked once again, like had low expectations. The owner was there we met the owner, he was such a nice guy,
George
an interesting guy, I'm gonna reach out to him and see if he'll do an entire podcast with us because he was just, there's way more to that onion that we got. We just got the first later on.
Lisa RichartHernandez
We're talking about Kenny Chesney and all the stuff that he did for the islands during after the hurricane came through and, you know, put roofs on the buildings and Bucha and Anakata. Yeah, and did just a lot of really cool stuff. So he was he was a cool guy, our server that was there. I think he said he had worked there for like 14 years or something. And he says, we got the we got of award winning winning chicken wings. And so I'm like, okay, everybody's got a ward wedding. Like,
George
where are we go?
Lisa RichartHernandez
Where was the award? You know, it's like this little island in the middle of nowhere. Well, I'll tell you what, if I could go back and get some more of those wings today. I was they were really really great wings.
George
Yeah, at least I was licking our fingers by the night. All their food was really good. Everything.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, they didn't they have pizza, too. They had pizza. They
George
had sushi. They had a lobster. But we already had so much lobster that we decided to try. That's when you were like, let me try the wings. Because, like lobster it out? Almost. Yeah. Yeah. So it was I know we only mentioned lobster one time, but we ate lobster a lot.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, that's true. So that was really surprisingly fun. And then we went to foxes and sang karaoke. And it was just it's like a typical Sandy Flora beach bar, open air. Had a really, really great time there.
George
And the cool thing is, everybody that's there is doing the same thing. So they're just having fun. We met so many people. We met a couple. It was the wife's birthday and we did shots with her and then we met another one when it was whatever their anniversary and we did shots with them and we just had a blast and then we ended up remember that one catamaran that kept going everywhere. We were out and they're like shirts made up at least.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, yeah, we met them the first the first night so that's fun. Yeah, so you see a lot of the same people kind of going on the same routes to different places and that that also makes it kind of fun. We always meet people wherever we go. We've never met a stranger I guess so. Yeah.
George
And we did. I can't remember where we were. Oh, it was at right where we were talking about remember the boat had the Gamecocks flag.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we follow them around yelling Yeah, yes. Yeah, that
George
was pretty cool. Oh,
Lisa RichartHernandez
I would say that's another like, pro tip. Yeah, like if you have a flag or because all catamarans look the same to just as much as the Dickies do and they had a big Gamecocks flag. So you know, if you want to put like a cool flag or whatever your sports team is or something you know, like to identify your boat or identify your boat, and you'll just find other people that you know, are either from your area or have some thing somewhere in common with you I thought that was that was cool. We were like oh, you're the game Gods Hey are you doing you know?
George
Yeah we on Lisa found some battery operated lights like string lights and we just wrapped the upper deck of the boat with him and yeah that's awesome because that was a great beacon
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah and also at nighttime when you're trying to get back to your to your catamaran. You want something to distinguish your boat when it is dark out. That's another pro tip. And a lot of those things like I said, we learned that on the BVI charter chat, and yeah, we're happy we did that
George
as the thing he kept and if you are going to dinghy at night, make sure you bring a flashlight with you. Oh god, yeah, it sounds silly, but it's you know, there's a lot of lines from boats, anchor chains and all kinds of stuff that you can get snagged up on and you don't want to do that at night. So just bring flashlights just little, little heads up. So of course there's soggy dollar bar, foxes. And then the next day we went to cross the bay to Tortola, but the backside of it. We went to Cane Garden Bay. That's where the turtles were I swam with the turtle. Oh, okay. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that place was a nice surprise, because that was the closest we came to like a town. Yeah, remember, we got out and all the bars were there. And they had almost like a real Main Street. And that's where the little distillery was all wood rum distillery. 400 years old, and it's still operating. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, but it was so cool to go and do the two second tour. Yeah. And you can walk to everything.
Lisa RichartHernandez
There's a bunch. That was another place. It was very similar to where the saga dollar is really beautiful white sand beach. Lots of like little bars, right? Right on the beach there. Okay, so what was the name of the drink that that you guys made for me?
George
Oh, Lisa got a chance to try for the first time in her life. pure cane sugar juice. We call it in Spanish, we call it guapo. The guy basically squeezed the juice right out of the cane sugar right there and then put rum and ice. And Lisa lost her mind. She's gonna be so sweet. But it was the Licious. He did a great job.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so I mean, the guy had literal sir game, like on the beach, and he would like chop it with his machete. And then he would put it into the squishing machine and you like crank the thing. And then like the juice goes into like some thing that captures the juice. And then there's a little spout at the end and he would just put it right into your drink. And then I'll put my face they put a bunch of room and then he would put that onto the top of it. And I tell you why. It was so good and so smooth and not too sweet and not too strong. And they went down
George
like water. They were it was really refreshing actually. Yeah.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I was worried when you are in Jorge were like, get one of these get one for Lisa because I was like, oh boy, God, I don't know what what are they gonna make me drink now? And once I had one, I think I had five.
George
It's kind of weird because you think sugar cane? You know, that's what they make sugar out of? It's gonna be like, so sweet. But it really wasn't. No, it was like a delicious, delicious. And I will post a video of me actually working the machine like a pro.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, that was fun. So and then when we went for dinner some that night, we went back to the boat and got cleaned up. That's when everybody was looking at the turtles. Yes. I mean with the turtle.
George
Yeah. So everybody kept looking at the turtles and Jim and I were like, Let's stop looking. And let's jump in. So we put on our snorkel gear. I grabbed my phone. And we found one. And I was always curious, as you know, they come up for air, and then they go down and you kind of where we were and not a god. It was a little murky, so you couldn't see the bottom. So I was like, What are they doing at the bottoms on this one, I jumped in and I could see what they were doing, which is eating like vegetation that's growing on the rocks. So there was one right below me and I just waited. I said, I know he's got to come up. And so I just waited and waited and he came up right in front of me. And I got the greatest video and the best picture of this turtle right in front of me. It was so awesome. And I was able to reach out and just barely touch his shell and you know, he took off but it was cool, nice experience for me. Then we went to that mountain top restaurant. Yeah, for sunset. Yes. Do you remember the name of it? No. Talking I'm going to find it.
Lisa RichartHernandez
I thought it maybe it was called sunsets but so once again, we just went into town got a cab, and I don't think we had a reservation ahead of time either. There again, if you know you're going to be in a place and you want to be to a set schedule. We didn't make reservations because we didn't want to be too with that schedule. But We probably could have got better times for our dinner had we planned ahead, I guess, if you will. So we did get a reservation. And I mean, it's this beautiful restaurant like on a cliff on the side of a cliff. It's part of a hotel. And we had our dinner there. Again, it felt like all open. And it was, it was just really, again really nice last night to just have a beautiful view and take in the scenery. And
George
yeah, and the food was, again really, really, really good. Yeah,
Lisa RichartHernandez
it was really, really, everything is like hands down. Cooper Island to me was like the best restaurant, I would say Saba rock was my second favorite. And then I would say that night was probably our third. I don't know that between that and there's a bunch of good restaurants I guess. When I started comparing them while they were all really good, shockingly, really good. But I would say Cooper Island is still my favorite restaurant that we went to there. So that was really it for that night. And the next morning, we got up and headed back to nanny K.
George
Yeah, so we had to motor around the island. And like I said, you could probably go around the island in four hours. Because it took us two hours to go halfway around. We were We were literally where we were eating dinner to Manny Kay was 1520 minute car ride. We were just on the other side of the island. So we made our way around had our last cruise on the boat.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so from that Bay to back to Nene K It was like a 45 minute boat ride in the morning. We had to be back before noon. Because our taxi picked us up at noon. So we got there at like 10 o'clock, took our final showers packed everything up was very easy disembarking we left everything that we didn't want for the people that work for Virgin John, the cleaning people and the deckhands and everything. So they took all of the leftover food and all of that, we just packed our stuff up, they did a boat check to make sure that everything was intact and not broken. And then we took some showers there, they're really nice, clean showers there. And then our water taxi picks us up at noon and took us back over to St. Thomas, where we went to the airport. I will say people say there's not very good food at the St. Thomas airport. I'll have to agree with that. There's very little options. It's like a burger or some sort of a few sandwiches and stuff, but not a lot of great options. So you got to be there two hours early. There's not really there's not really a lot going on at the St. Thomas airport. But
George
not food, not food was at a nice bar. We had a couple of cocktails
Lisa RichartHernandez
flew back on spirit, which was fine spirit is what spirit is, but it was a direct flight. So we were back in Fort Lauderdale. And by that evening,
George
one thing I will add is, for some reason, going back when we went through customs, we literally had to take our bags off the boat. We had to get off the boat go through customs. They checked or not checked, physically checked our bags, but they x rayed them. And then we got right back on the same water taxi and finished our ride. I don't know what what the difference was.
Lisa RichartHernandez
But I don't know it almost felt like we had to go through customs twice. Twice. Had to do it again. Yeah, we did it there. And then at the airport, St. Thomas. So I don't know. It was fairly uneventful. And I think the water taxi made it really a lot more seamless. Not worrying about making it there on time and getting to customers on time or any of those things was very quick and easy and convenient. Yeah, we
George
had a direct hotline with the captain. And we knew that he was on his way that it was coming to pick us up we were able to communicate with everybody was really good about communications if you reached out to anybody and Virgin charters give them credit to they had a wonderful app. If you had any issues with the boat. You just posted a quick note on there and somebody responded within minutes.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, they were really great. Actually, all of their service and their website has so much information really almost any question you really have was there. I'm sure they've been asked a million questions and that's why I have every question. It's like if you if you have a question read all those things before you pick up the phone call them and they've got almost the answers to almost everything you really
George
have pictures of all their boats. So if you want if you're thinking about doing or you can look at the boats and pick the right size boat for you. One thing that we did learn some boats have icemakers some boats don't have air conditioning.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Some have a gas grill, some have a charcoal grill, some have an electric grill, so yeah, so just you know, yeah,
George
we bought charcoal for an electric grill.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Yeah, so we end up giving that away, which is fine, but just you know, basically read what you want. Pick people that you know you can spend close score hers with for seven days and that are going to be easy going and sort of all on the same page I think is really important.
George
Yeah. And you'll have a great time we had such a good time. It was so beautiful. We lucked out the weather cooperated that it ran even rain at all. I think it rained a little bit one day.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Barely. Yeah, we were just, we were there the first week in June. So it was very, very beginning of hurricane season, which is starting now. As a matter of fact, the week after we left there was a there was a tropical storm that came through. So a lot of people we saw that I was still on the BVI charter chat back then. And I saw people you know, questioning whether or not they should change, change places and stuff like that. But overall, great experience. Great charter company, great friends, great itinerary. We'll try to put as much in the show notes as we possibly can for you. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us at RV podcast.com can comment there. Don't forget to follow us like us on our however you listen to our podcasts, whether you're on Spotify, or Apple podcasts, or Alexa or whoever, please, the more likes and followers we have, the better it is for us. We appreciate you listen to our shows. And what's our next big trip? Ah, Lake Jocassee. Oh, yeah, let's be the Caribbean of the South. So we're taking the RV there, Land Yacht. And we're going to be there for a week. So we'll tell you all about that our next podcast I think that'll be our next big trip.
George
So stay tuned.
Lisa RichartHernandez
Thanks for listening. Have a great day. Bye bye.
Outro
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