Tortola: Part 2

Continued from here...

Wednesday, Feb. 6th
First thing Wednesday morning, Jimmy got a couple awesome hours in at Apple Bay. It was a little rainy for the first little bit, so I was designated photographer from the window of big red.

Then we were both starving, so we headed back to Quitos where we had an amazing burger topped with grilled pineapple and fried plantains and stuffed with roasted red peppers...oh, and an "umbrella" drink. With full bellies, we waded into the water at Cane Garden Bay, also at the steps of Quitos.

To commemorate our last night on the west end of the island, we made reservations at BananaKeet for dinner - a restaurant known for their good food, inventive drinks and panoramic sunset views.

Thursday, Feb. 7th
Thursday we packed up and checked out and headed to Soper's Hole to return Jimmy's board and get one more delicious breakfast sandwich from D' Best Cup. With breakfast to-go, we took the same (flat) coastline road to Road Town where we were staying our last night on Tortola.

We immediately booked tickets on Speedy's Ferry to visit the famous Baths at Virgin Gorda, supposedly the inspiration for Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island. At one point, we had all of Devil's Bay beach to ourselves. I read and Jimmy snorkeled - it was pure bliss.

That's me at 8 o'clock

Me reading in a natural pool = heaven

Next, we checked in to our hotel for the night, which was nothing to write home about, cleaned up and then whipped out our computers to take advantage of the much faster urban internet speed. We did FaceTime with Aunt Ali and Danny (aww) and then set out on a walk around town, with our final destination being The Dove restaurant. Though I didn't like the overall city feel of Road Town as much as the little "towns" located in each bay, The Dove was by far our favorite restaurant. It was sort of like La Residence in the islands - very quaint and homey, excellent service and amazing food. Man, what I'd do to eat dinner there again right now.

View from our hotel balcony

Stuffed at The Dove

Friday, Feb. 8th
Friday we woke up before our alarms went off, which we were later very grateful for, because the Beef Island airport was definitely on "island time". Took us (and maybe a total of 10 other people) a good 1.5 hours to get our tickets and through security. Our travel day was otherwise VERY uneventful. Spent hours and hours waiting for our connecting flight in San Juan, which we luckily got changed to Charlotte (from Philly), since the Northeast was getting buried in snow!

Danny, who has been sleeping through the night for months now, woke up at 2:30am and just wouldn't go back to sleep. I happily "rescued" him and put him back down. Needless to say, I crawled back into bed about 3am feeling more "me" than I had in almost a week and happier than I even thought possible...

LIFE IS GOOD

In sum, in case you're interested in ever going to Tortola, here's our final two cents...

• Food was really good, but pretty expensive. I've never been to foodie spots like St. Barts as a comparison, but food was definitely better than other islands I've been to
• All the bread served at restaurants is homemade (read: yummy!)
• Natives are extremely friendly to tourists - construction workers literally climbed down off roofs to help us navigate our way
• The island definitely has an "island" feel - more rustic than fancy - but infrastructure is actually really sound and we felt 100% safe the entire time
• If you rent a car, you can find consistently good and, at times, awesome surf. Locals are very friendly and waves are not too crowded.
• You must rent a car! The island is spread out and taxis are expensive.