We are home and Tortola was magical

Our travel day, Friday, January 27th started out at 3:30 in the morning.  We headed to Bradley International for a 6:50 a.m. flight.  The kids were so excited.  We were excited.  We desperately needed caffeine, but waited for until we got in the air for coffee.  I don't have much to say about American Airlines.  The boarding process was chaotic.  I've never seen anything so mismanaged.  The flight was a little late only because of people trying to bring the largest most overstuffed carry on luggage.

Anyhow, we landed in Miami at 9:30 am and went directly from departing one plane to boarding our connection to St. Thomas.  That flight was on time, and everyone heading to their vacation destination were a little more relaxed.

The flight was uneventful, and we landed on time.  We retrieved all our luggage and made way to the taxi stand.  I knew from reading that the ferry dock was only three miles away.  There's nothing like feeling the warm air and the bright sunshine.  Once to the ferry dock we found that a Native Son ferry was leaving at 2:30pm.  Hooray, an hour earlier than I thought !  The ferry ride to Tortola was great.  We viewed the coast of St. Thomas, the island of St. John and other smaller islands.  We arrived at the West End of Tortola at close to 4pm.   The West End dock is just a five minute ride to Sebastians, where we will find the villa that we stayed in last year.  It's so great going to a place you know.  It feels like home.  The villa called Orchid has a queen size bed, a pull out sofa for the boys, a small kitchenette area, a big walk in closet, a make up mirror and sink and a big bathroom.  It's just perfect for the four of us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once we got to our villa we found our bathing suits and made a mad dash to the beach for a swim.  The water was great !  After our swim we made a reservation at the Sebastian's restaurant.

During dinner Tyler fell asleep on my lap.  I almost fell asleep too.  The long travel day, the swimming, we all conked out by 8pm.

Day two, Saturday we awake to the crashing of waves against the rocks below our balcony.  We make our way down the road, a five minute walk to where the main area of Sebastian's hotel and restaurant.  There are some interesting sights on our walk.  We look for lizards, we look to see who are neighbors might be for the week.  We see and hear chickens and roosters, kitties and dogs, which by the way all look pretty healthy. We pass the old car covered by vines.  The little houses, some with funny boarded windows.

Eating in the restaurant for breakfast was a daily ritual.  I would go from having fresh orange juice scrambled eggs, fruit and homemade bread basket to banana pancakes and rum french toast.  Bill had rum french toast every day.  Tyler, plain pancakes with whipped cream and a tall glass of cold milk.  Julian tried everything!  Fried eggs, scrambled eggs, fruit, scones, banana bread, and guava juice.

After breakfast a walk was definitely needed.  We'd slowly make our way back to the villa to pack our beach bags and get in our suits.  One of our first beach destinations was Smuggler's Cove.  A beautiful and quiet cove that often has gentle waves, and great snorkeling.  It's kind of primitive, in year's past the jungle brush was the loo.  Not too fun.  This year nice clean port-o-loos! yay! 

On this beach we always gravitate towards the right end.  There is a great guy named Nigel that offers food, drink and most importantly beach gear like snorkels, SUP boards, fins etc.  Nigel sorted us out and Bill and Julian headed out.  Tyler and I jumped little waves, made sand castles and began our vast collection of sea shells.  For lunch Nigel was steaming shrimp and ma-hi ma-hi that had been marinating.  He steamed this on the grill in foil with potatoes, carrots and onion.  So delicious.

(images from smuggler's cove)

After our days at Smugglers, we'd return to the villa, take showers, make coffee, have a rest and then get our suits on and head down for another swim at the beach at Sebastian's which is called Capoons Bay.  This year we ran into three groups of people that we met last year.  One group which consisted of a surfing dad, mum and teenage daughter.  Another group that we call the Man-cation group from Greenwich, CT.  Middle-aged guys that think they can surf.  Pretty funny.  And a family that we met 10 years ago who rent a house next to the villa.  I recognized the father straight away as I had taken so many pics of him in a surfing contest. 

We adore the ladies who take care of us each year too.  There's Annie, Lorna and Patricia at the restaurant and Gleremena, our housekeeper.  This year Gleremena made us cross-stitch place mats and wrote us a beautfiul long note.  More reasons we love going to the same place.

And of course there was surfing and lots of it. 

and sunsets, the dramatic cloud images are from a restaurant that is built into the side of a mountain, called Bananakeet.  (never a judge a restaurant from it's name, we had driven by this place an number of times and it took a recommendation from other surfers for us to check it out, and were we surprised.  Four star meals, amazing views).

Our journey home was just as pretty as coming, but sad too.  We missed Stormy, it was time to go home.  We made as many mental movies as we could on the ferry ride to St.Thomas.  A bit of hassle travelling to St. Thomas due to three customs checks, but I guess we'd do it again.

My heart is full, my mind is filled with the colors of the sea, and even though New England is cold and brown, it's home.