Follow the rainbow to the Virgin Islands!
Cruz Bay, St John. This is the 1/3 of the island that is inhabited...
...and this is the 2/3 that are not. It's a national park.
Our little stowaway
The eastern tip of St Thomas (Red Hook and Coki Point)
Vesup beach, our anchorage in St Thomas...
...
The turtle that kept making swim-bys
The view from Hazel's condo: you can clearly see the inhabited vs. uninhabited parts of St John from here
Lizard Queen: she's only 3 1/2 feet long
Here's the King, a solid 4 feet of ”don't-get-between-me-and-my-banana-peel, bubba!“
St Thomas' capitol, Charlotte Amalie, as seen from the top of Paradise Point. You'll have to use your imagination, since I messed up the panorama feature with these two.....
...............!!!
Cruising to the British side. That's Tortola in the distance.
We checked in at Jost Van Dyke. This is Greg & Gail in front of the only dive shop on the island.
The beach at White Bay, Jost Van Dyke
A night out at the Soggy Dollar Bar, home of the Painkiller. Our dollars were dry, though -we dinghied into the beach.
At Norman Island
Monsieur Greg Vestal, a.k.a. Biggy Rat. He has a tatoo of a big rat on his left arm, smoking a dubie and drinking a beer.
The Caves on Norman Island, a popular snorkeling spot
Glassy sweepers
Stoplight parrotfish, blue-headed wrasse & sargeant major damselfish
Moon jellyfish -NO TOUCHIE!! You can see the small fish living in a symbiotic relationship amongst its tentacles.
Fire coral & black sea urchins, more No Touchies!
Stoplight parrotfish
Greg & Gailfish
The Indians, a dive & snorkel site near Norman Island
On the way down to the RMS Rhone, one of the Caribbean's best wreck dives
Note the four-eyed butterflyfish in front of the tube sponge: you'll always see two of them as they mate for life.
Yellow tube sponge
The biggest porcupine pufferfish I've ever seen!!....
...Omigosh, it's coming to eat me!!
Queen triggerfish
A bow section of The Rhone
Another bow section
Looking down the hull towards the stern
Going into the wreck
Inside looking out...
Greg swimming alongside the ribs of the wreck
Creole wrasse, favourite food of the trumpetfish
Trumpetfish. You can see how his head is purple. He sneaks up behind the creole wrasse but he's camouflaged as one of their buddies! Chomp!
Blue tang.... Dory! Nemo's not here, he lives in the Pacific.
The stern section
The shaft...
...and the propeller, about 5 feet in diameter
Whitespotted filefish
Stoplight parrotfish. They help to make sand by grinding up the coral to extract algae. One adult male parrotfish poops out approximately two tons of sand per year! Think of that the next time you're walking on the beach!
Turtle!!
Dude, if you can't keep your boat off THESE rocks, you've got no business holding a captain's license!
Hoisting the new mainsail
It's so shiny, what a beaut!
The Baths, Virgin Gorda
This is the biggest tourist attraction in the BVIs
Elkhorn coral
Brain coral
Bar jacks
Blue tangs
Here's the crevice we swam through to reach the shore. It's so tight we had to turn sideways to fit through.
The inside!
We had to squeeze through more tight places...
...to reach the top.
There is a trail, but we stubbornly chose to blaze our own.
One of the pockets of warm water: The Baths
...and another
Devil's Bay...
...and Beach
This way, stupid tourists!
End of the trail
We blazed our own trail again on the way back, since the paths were clogged with cruise ship passengers.
And found some cool stuff that they probably didn't.
CJ!
Swimming back to shore for lunch
Bitter End Resort, on the north end of Virgin Gorda
Captains in the cockpit...
...Babes lounging in the back.
The Chimneys at Dog Island jut from 30-40 feet straight to the surface.
You can see the waves breaking here.
Common sea fan
And yet another male stoplight parrotfish (they're just so pretty!)
Gailfish
Sea plume. There was a lot of very well developed soft coral at this site.
Sea fans
This little snapper followed us around for the majority of the dive. Notice part of his tail is missing. Maybe he was hoping we were big enough to scare away whatever tried to eat him! Lucky for him, we were without a speargun...
We think these are bush-like sea rods
French grunt
Yellowtail snapper, intact
Trumpetfish
Barrel sponge
(Sigh!) Tourists just can't handle our lifestyle!
Tortola
Happy hour at Pusser's Landing, Soper's Hole
And a fabulous dinner with Judith at the Jolly Roger Inn
Biggy out to catch the big one...
...!
At Woody's, Cruz Bay, St John
Jeffrey's permanent job is temporary tattoos. He's a fixture here at Woody's.
Sunrise
Another Sunday Brunch courtesy of the Galley Wench
This guy took his horse swimming everyday like some people take their dog for a walk! Vesup Beach, St Thomas
Back to Charlotte Amalie to send Greg & Gail to the airport
Cruise ship lifeboat drills. They looked like aimless bumper cars. I feel safer already.
Yacht Haven Marina & cruise ship complex was like a little city unto itself.
Each block had a pirate's name. Appropriately, Calico Jack was situated...
...right next door to his girlfriend. Awww.
