Back on the other side of the island, we drove Terry and his wife to their home, which they were living in despite its half-constructed state. From the piles of assorted junk that covered the yard and filled the small rooms, it was easy to assume that Terry’s affection for garbage dumps was not something he’d developed that afternoon. Despite all this though, the view from his front door out over Coral Bay was inspiring, though I wondered at the logic of paying $100,000 an acre for barren, rocky ground that was useless for anything but the view. This end of the island was so dry that residents of Coral Bay had to drive all the way to Cruz Bay just to buy water. The astronomical prices and inconveniences didn’t deter Fred and Mary either, who had also bought a lot on this hillside with intentions to build on it someday.
Terry had a friend who owned an undeveloped waterfront lot near the anchorage, and since he was not on the island at the time and we couldn’t ask his permission, Terry told me to go ahead and camp there for the night. Back at the bay, I accompanied Mary to Redbeard’s bar to have a couple of beers. Inside, there was an even larger collection of unsavory characters drinking themselves into oblivion now that it was mid afternoon. Most of them looked like modern-day pirates or perhaps drug-runners, hiding out in this backwater to avoid either the law or the IRS. But I wasn’t one to pass judgment, considering how I looked after months of kayaking. To me though, Redbeard’s had a depressing air, and the patrons inside had little interest in anything other than drinking or smoking ganja. I left and paddled over to the beach Terry had directed me to and set up my camp early. There was a solo sailor named Mike anchored nearby on a trimaran that he had recently sailed across the Atlantic from England. He shared my impression of the Redbeard’s crowd, preferring to stay alone on his boat, but wanting good conversation, he invited me aboard for dinner and gave me 3 gallons of water from his rain catchment system.
I broke camp early and paddled out of Coral Bay after having a cup of coffee with Mike. Around the peninsula again, I pulled into a different cove than the one I’d camped in before, where I had the luxury of a larger beach and a view of Tortola and the islands along my route to the east. That evening as I cooked dinner, a curious mongoose visited my camp, eyeing me from just a few yards away and eagerly accepting the chunks of tuna I tossed his way. I had read that the abundant mongooses on the island were brought there by the early Danish sugar cane growers in hopes of controlling the rats. The plan didn’t work, however, as the animals worked different shifts: the rats being nocturnal and the mongooses feeding by day.
That night I studied my maps and made plans to cross in the morning to Road Town, the main settlement on Tortola and a port of entry to the B.V.I. I looked forward to reaching the British Virgins. As far as I could tell from the maps, they were less populated and more undeveloped than the U.S. islands.
The crossing the next day didn’t take long, since I left early to beat the trade winds. Up close, Tortola was an impressively high, mountainous island. I paralleled the coast for 2 miles to get to the wide bay where Road Town is situated. I was a little nervous about clearing customs, as I was not sure I would be allowed in if the officials knew I was camping. I tied up to a dock at a marina, and as I was digging my passport out of the kayak, a man approached and called me by name. I didn’t recognize him at first, but I vaguely remembered him when he introduced himself as Philip and said he had met me near Darby Island, in the Exumas, when I was having coffee on his friend’s boat. Once again, I was embarrassed by my lack of ability to remember all the names and faces of the people I had met in my travels. It was easier for them to remember me, I reasoned, as my mode of travel was both unusual and conspicuous.
Philip directed me to the customs office, a white building about a half mile away along the waterfront. I was glad I had docked my kayak where I did. Maybe the officers in customs and immigration wouldn’t bother to come out and take a look at it since it would involve walking so far. Along the way to the building, I couldn’t help but notice the difference between the streets of this town and those of Charlotte Amalie. Everything here was neat and clean, perhaps reflecting the British influence. The wood frame houses were painted in bright island colors, and the streets were far less cluttered with cars and pedestrians.
There was a long line at the customs desk, but when I finally had my turn to apply for entry, I was asked surprisingly few questions and given a 2-week cruising permit for about four dollars. After taking care of this business, I set off to look for a grocery store where I could stock up for my tour of the B.V.I. I quickly found that the stores were a lot like those of the Bahamas – small, and stocked with limited and overpriced items. But by shopping in three different ones, I found enough supplies to get me by for several days.
To the south of Tortola, across the 5-mile wide Sir Francis Drake Channel, lies a string of small islands that stretch from St. John to Virgin Gorda. The islands in this chain are the most pristine of all the Virgin Islands, and I looked forward to spending a few days there, hoping to find similar camping conditions as I had experienced in the Bahamas. Upon leaving Road Town, I crossed the channel on a heading for Dead Chest Island. Dead Chest is a tiny little cay, right next to Peter Island, which is one of the largest in this undeveloped group. There was no one on Dead Chest, so I set up camp on a beach with a view of Road Town in the distance.
Some yachts were anchored within view in a small cove on Peter Island, but no one came to Dead Chest or seemed to mind that I was there. The next day I paddled over to Peter Island and continued past the anchorage to the south shore, where I came to a long, deserted beach at the foot of a steep hill. A grove of coconut palms stretched from one end of the beach to the other, so I continued close inshore until I spotted a couple of palms that looked climbable. Most of the trees in the grove towered 50 feet or more, but these two leaned out at an angle and held clusters of green drinking nuts just 20 feet over the clear water at the edge of the beach. I opened two for breakfast, and stripped the husks off several more to make them easier to carry with me. The beach would have been a lovely place to camp, but a short walk back into the palms revealed a dirt road with fresh tire tracks. I followed the road and discovered that it led to a dump, where there were several rusting Land Rovers, as well as the usual assortment of garbage. I figured someone would see me and ask me to leave if I stayed on the beach, so I paddled away, continuing my journey eastward, past Dead Chest to Salt Island, the next in line. There was supposed to be a good diving site near Salt Island – the wreck of the H.M.S. Rhone – a freighter that had broken apart and gone down in a storm. But I had read that it was too deep to reach without SCUBA gear, so I continued on to Cooper Island, where I still didn’t see a likely campsite.
The next island over was Ginger Island, more isolated than the others in the chain, and extremely rugged looking, with tall cliffs rising out of the sea to barren summits of cactus and scrub covered peaks. I skirted the shore of this island on the south side, which consisted of nothing but sheer rocks smashed by heavy swells from the open Caribbean. There was one indention on this side of the island that couldn’t really pass for a cove, and in it was a small pocket of beach big enough for a tent, but the surf pounding it discouraged me from attempting a landing. I paddled around to the east side, passing under a rocky headland, and to my surprise, discovered a gorgeous horseshoe-shaped bay, lined in the back with a long sweep of crescent beach. Halfway into this bay, barring the entrance to the beach to most boats, a reef stretched from one headland of the horseshoe to the other. It would be a perfect hideaway for a kayaker, so I headed for the reef, confident I could find a cut through the barrier of coral.
When I found a likely looking opening, I cautiously backed through the surf zone and suddenly found myself in the quiet, protected waters of the inner bay. But the apparent tranquility of the surface of this sheltered lagoon was an illusion. In the clear waters beneath my hull, I could see tens of thousands of fish, all of a single species and about one-foot in length. They move
d in undulating schools and frequently changed directions to dart away in panicked unison. Then I saw the reason for their erratic behavior as I paddled on towards the beach. First one, then three, four… no, dozens of 5 to 6 foot black-tipped sharks were working the schools of fish in a feeding frenzy. When I’d first seen the transparent waters of the bay, I had thought I would grab my mask and snorkel as soon as my kayak touched the beach, but the sight beneath my hull quickly changed my mind. I hurried on to the beach, certain that there were probably a lot more sharks than just the ones I saw, and sure that some might be a lot bigger.
As I pulled up on shore and looked back over my shoulder, I saw that the schooling fish were not only under attack from below, but that death came from above as well. Scores of brown pelicans cruised low over the water, each frequently folding its wings to pierce the surface in a sudden dive and take another of the rapidly dwindling school. I watched this spectacle in fascination as I walked the lonely beach, looking for the best spot to pitch my tent. Like most of the other beaches I’d seen east of Salinas, this one was littered with junk blown ashore by the hurricane. There was one short coconut palm with about 10 drinking nuts hanging within my reach, and these were a welcome addition to my water supply, since I knew from first sight that I would stay here for more than one night. It was as near-perfect a tropical beach as I could expect to find. It was doubtful that many people ever visited this beach, because of the reef, and since the cove faced the open Caribbean, I could see none of the other Virgin Islands, and consequently no signs of civilization. I put my tent on the opposite end of the beach from the lone palm, under some large sea grape trees that afforded some shade.
There was a steep cliff on the east side of Ginger Island that dropped vertically at least a hundred feet to the sea. I was able to get to the top of this escarpment by scrambling up the back way, over slopes of loose stones held together by scrub brush. From the cliff, I had an excellent view of Virgin Gorda, the last big island in the Virgin Islands group. East of Virgin Gorda, there was nothing but the treacherous 80-mile Anegada Passage that separates the Virgins from St. Martin, in the Leeward Islands group.
I spent a lot of time during the next two days sitting atop that cliff, contemplating the future of my trip. In one way I wanted to go on, to see all the islands of the eastern Caribbean, but I knew that the way beyond Virgin Gorda would be dangerous to the point of suicidal. I would still be facing the full strength of the trade winds, which I now knew I could not paddle 80 miles against in one stint. The only option would be to once again crew aboard a yacht to cross that passage, but even then I would have many open ocean hops of more than 30 miles as I worked my way south towards Grenada. I was through with crewing on yachts. I didn’t like being on someone else’s schedule, and I didn’t enjoy living aboard or even the sailing near as much as I liked kayaking. All I wanted to do was paddle and camp on wonderful islands like Ginger Island, which assured me that there are still some unspoiled places left in the Caribbean where Nature is still in control. The life and death struggle taking place in the lagoon beneath my rocky perch was ample proof of that.
I broke camp on Ginger Island after a three-day stay and paddled on over to Virgin Gorda. I would turn back from there, I had decided, but I had to at least go and look over the edge into the Anegada Passage. On the south end of Virgin Gorda, I stopped to see The Baths, a world-famous natural wonder and tourist attraction. The Baths is section of coastline dominated by strange, rounded boulders of pure granite.
These are no ordinary boulders – some are 50 feet or more in diameter – and they are jumbled up like gigantic pebbles along the shore, both in and out of the water, forming dark passageways between them and sunlit grottos filled with pools of crystalline water. The place is a natural playground for anyone interested in exploring, rock climbing, or snorkeling, and I spent hours there, along with many other visitors who arrived by yacht or overland by the road. The beaches in the vicinity of The Baths were the most beautiful I saw in all my travels, despite all the hype about those on St. John. Here the smooth granite boulders decorate soft white sand, and green coconut palms scattered about provide areas of shade. The waters around the rocks are as transparent as glass, and since spearfishing is not allowed, the reefs teem with life.
There was a large modern marina about a mile north of The Baths, and I stopped to visit the grocery stores and have a sandwich in one of the cafes. After leaving the marina, I paddled on along the coast of the island to the north end, where from a distance the steep mountains inland appeared to be covered in lush jungle. As I drew closer, however, what had looked like a cloak of forests on the hillsides was, in reality, just low scrub like all the forests I had seen in the Virgin Islands. I camped on uninhabited Little Dog Cay, a bit to the west of the main island, and the next morning paddled back to Virgin Gorda in a pouring rain. The rain passed quickly and when the sun came back out, surreal mists steamed off the verdant slopes, making this unspoiled part of the island look like a pristine paradise.
My goal for the day was the North Sound of Virgin Gorda, which is an area protected from the open ocean by a group of little cays. The North Sound is the easternmost safe anchorage in the B.V.I. for yachts headed across the Anegada for the Leewards. I had heard that those sailing down island often wait for a considerable time to find the right conditions make the crossing. The Anegada has a well-earned reputation for rough going because of its strong currents and unfavorable winds.
Even inside the sound, the wind made it difficult for me to reach the east end, but after several hours of paddling, I arrived at the anchorage. I scanned the sterns of the yachts there for names I recognized, but there were none there, so I paddled on up to the docks. A sign over the waterfront read: The Bitter End Yacht Club. Though I knew the name was an old sailor’s term for the end of a bight of line, it could fit in another way as well. This place marked the bitter end of easy sailing in the closely-spaced Virgin Islands, and it marked the bitter end of one long kayak jaunt that was about to come to a close. I liked the name of the yacht club, and I was glad I had come to the edge of the North Sound and looked over. I found a waterfront sandwich shop and had lunch.
Afterword
I spent eight more days in the islands after reaching the Bitter End Yacht Club, leisurely retracing my route back past The Baths, Dead Chest Island, and Tortola. I paddled back into the U.S. Virgin Islands unnoticed, without bothering to officially clear out of the B.V.I. Back in Charlotte Amalie, a travel agent helped me arrange to have my kayak shipped to New Orleans by airfreight at a reasonable price. The day before my flight out of St. Thomas, someone I met at the marina told me that George Bouillon was working in Red Hook, a town on the eastern side of the island that I hadn’t visited by kayak. I took a bus over to see him, and we cooked a celebratory feast on Winning Edge while he filled me in on his past few months of sailing. He was still married to Millie, but he had come to St. Thomas to find work and only saw her once a month when he could afford to fly to Puerto Plata. He still had plans to sail on to St. Martin, where he could legally work as a French chef and get a visa for his wife.
When I returned to Mississippi, I found that I was not ready to make the adjustment back to normal living after such a long period of free-spirited travel. I returned to Black Creek in my kayak and spent nearly a month living in the woods along its banks. I did not forget my longings for Black Creek’s peaceful tranquility while camping on the surf-bound beaches of Culebra, but during this time plans for another long journey began to take shape in my mind. I wanted to do a kayak trip that would not be so dependent upon the cooperation of the wind and that would not require hitching rides on larger boats to make lengthy passages. Inspired by Lawrence Pitcairn’s descriptions of Canada while visiting with him and his daughter, Laura, on board Heron I in the Bahamas, I turned my attention to the north.
After paddling out of the Black Creek woodlands, I went to work doing some free-lance house painting and quickly scrapped up the fun
ds for another voyage. In July, just four months after my return from St. Thomas, my brother, Jeff, drove me to the Canadian border at Crane Lake, Minnesota, where I launched my kayak for a journey back to Mississippi. My route took me northwest along the old fur-trade route to Lake of the Woods, down the Winnipeg River to Lake Winnipeg, and then up the Red River of the North to its headwaters on the border of South Dakota and Minnesota. From there I traveled overland to the headwaters of the Minnesota River, then paddled downstream to St. Paul, where I entered the Mississippi, which I followed back to my home state at Vicksburg. This trip took only 102 days, even though at 2,600 miles, it was much longer than my Caribbean voyage.
After that kayak trip, my interests turned to boatbuilding and eventually to sailing, and despite my dislike of crewing on yachts in the Caribbean, I am now passionate about sailing and have a small liveaboard cruiser of my own. Even so, I still think that sea kayaking is the most rewarding and efficient form of water travel, and I foresee no end to my interest in exploring in these wonderful, human-powered boats.
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On Island Time: Kayaking the Caribbean Page 27
