It’s another beautiful day in the Caribbean. We’re up early because we have an excursion that begins at 9:00am. Because the weather is ideal, we have breakfast in the Terrace Café on the stern as Insignia approaches Tortola. We dock at 8:30, a half hour early. Across the pier is the gigantic Norwegian Escape (capacity 4,266 passengers).
Our excursion is named Virgin Gorda and Baths. It entails a fast boat ride to the island of Virgin Gorda, 12.5 miles away. and then several hours at The Baths National Park engaged in exploring The Cave, swimming and snorkeling at a very nice beach. We will return to the ship around 1:30pm
Here is a brief description from Wikipedia that explains The Caves: “Although volcanism accounts for much of the Virgin Islands, The Baths was formed by granite that eroded into piles of boulders on the beach. Granite forms from the slow cooling of magma at depth nowhere close to surface volcanoes. The granite only appears at the surface after geologic ages have eroded away all the overburden covering it. Once exposed, erosion continued to isolate the granite into large boulders and round their surfaces. The boulders form natural tidal pools, tunnels, arches, and scenic grottoes that are open to the sea. The largest boulders are about 40 feet long.”
Our group leaves the ship, walks the length of the pier, and there is our catamaran, the Ella-G.
We board, meet our escort Gregory and then get moving. This is a fast boat, and the ride is pretty bumpy. But it gets us there in thirty minutes. Gregory does tell us when we’re about halfway there that there is a red flag flying, which means that there won’t be any swimming at the beach due to dangerous currents and high tides. This is a disappointment to those who had planned to snorkel, and we hear a few grumbles. Oh well.
On arrival, our guide tells us that we will board a bus that will take us to the entrance to the national park. Then we will have a choice of paths to take to the beach. One is difficult and will take forty minutes. It first leads to Devil’s Bay Beach, then to The Caves and finally to The Baths. The other is much easier, takes only fifteen minutes and ends up at The Baths beach. Cathy’s been a really good sport about all the pain she’s feeling in her right hip, so she opts for the easier path. We will meet at the beach.
Steve has a very interesting adventure. At first, he is part of a group of about ten. Everybody gets spread out and he ends up on Devil’s Bay Beach on his own.
It’s a beautiful little secluded beach bracketed by piles of giant stones, one of which is The Caves. We’ve already been warned about the surf being dangerous, and this warning is amplified with a large sign warning of steep drop-offs, rip currents and high surf, primarily because there are no lifeguards and it is secluded. It’s a beautiful spot, but he leaves after a few minutes to continue on to The Caves.
The path has some signage, but there are also park employees at strategic places. It’s a good thing, because it would be easy to get turned around because you can’t see very far ahead due to the turns. It takes a few more minutes, but he does end up at The Caves, the most popular feature of the park.
It’s not a true cave, of course, but piles of dozens of enormous rounded stones, with big spaces between them where people follow a trail. There are others near the entrance, and Steve sees more as he goes along the trail through the cave. It is not an easy walk at all. There are many tight spots, some places where ladders have been installed to make it passable, and places where you need to hang on to a rope in order to keep from falling.
It is quite challenging, and takes almost thirty minutes to complete the walk. Steve sees a young employee on the route, and asks how many people a day does she help out of a jam. She says “about one a day.”
At the end, Steve finds himself at The Baths where Cathy is.
She has been chatting with a couple of people there, sitting at a table near the snack bar waiting for him to show up. We both take our beach towels and find a nice spot under a tree. We’re there for about a half hour, watching people swim. There are several catamaran sailboats anchored about a hundred yards offshore, and most of the people on the beach arrived on them.
We are on a schedule, so we start back around noon, back up the path that Cathy took to get to The Baths. It’s an uphill walk about twenty minutes long.
We meet at the entrance, find a covered open shelter that keeps us out of the sun. Our tour buses are nearby, and we have an opportunity to have a rum punch while we wait for the rest.
Then it’s back to the boat we came on, and we leave at 1:15, just as a mild rain shower begins. On our way back, we pass Norwegian Escape, which we are guessing left port around noon. It’s a beautiful day and a nice way to see some of Tortola and a couple of the other islands.
We are back to Road Town and on the ship around 2:00pm. On to Waves for lunch, where we sit with a nice couple from Dallas.
Dinner is at the Grand Dining Room, and the ship, having departed at 5pm, is rocking and rolling. Our waiter I Komang tells us that the motion has made some of the crew seasick. We order dinner, which includes appetizers of chilled shrimp for Cathy. Inexplicably, they are served frozen. Cathy asks our waiter for a new serving, and he answers “They’re all that way, madam.” We get a big chuckle out of that answer. It just can’t be true, but we just move on. He is one of our favorites, and we consider it a fluke.
We arrive back in the room and sit on the veranda while Ricarda and Eduard make up the room for the night. It also gives us a chance to take their picture for this post. The next two days are Sea Days. We have 1,007 nautical miles to travel before we arrive in Miami.
