ATWI8D – Day 6

The Baths.

Not the turkish baths (much to my disappointment) or a bath house ( not sure what that is but it sounds nice) or a hygienic practice one does to wash away the filth (both emotional and physical).

No, these baths were much cooler than all of those things. “The Baths” are found on Virgin Gorda which is North West of Tortola…for those of you keeping track. They are a series of massive boulders that create “caves” and other inlets where ocean water sits in serene pools or crashes trying to get into said pools.

The boulders have been eaten away by the ocean water over centuries. Or perhaps it was Earth Mother Gaia, or Poesidon, or Aqua Man. I’m not one to argue against someone’s faith.

It’s literally a hop skip and a boat ride away from Spanish town where we’d docked the night before. So after a quick trip to pay for the dockage fee and a stop off at the store to re-provision (more spam and mac and cheese. Praise Aqua Man they had it in stock) we were on our way to “The Baths”. I’m not sure why I’m using quotes on this. I mean technically they were baths. Although people didn’t wash themselves and there were little to now hanky panky going on. Although, I’m sure in the right mood much boinking could and would occur.

The mooring near the baths was temporary so we would have to leave for our evening dockage in a few hours. This left ample time for us to dingy over to the baths, hop off the boat and explore.

This of course, was not what happened.

“The Baths” are a very populated area and you are required to tie off your dingy at a line some 30 yards off the shore. At which point you swim in and explore. Now, we had some precious cargo we did not want to get wet (beer and cigarettes.) so a plan was formed. The F.I.L and the S.I.L would drop myself, the wife and Loc off on a beach near by. We’d navigate to “The Baths” on foot while they moored and swam to shore. Easy Peasy. Mac and cheesy (and spam).

Unfortunately, the beach we were dropped off on did not have a direct route to “The Baths” which were literally only a series of several boulders away from where we landed. These boulders were impassible or so it was decided, because it looked hard and we were in flip flops.

The only way for us to get there was to go up “the road”, which is in quotes because we weren’t quite sure it existed, and to walk half a mile to the entrance to the park.

Given that no one had a phone or a radio it was quickly decided that we’d walk. After about five minutes of searching we found the road and began to walk to the right. As it seemed like the logical direction to walk in at that time. We walked down what turned out to be a small road that several amazing and utterly unaffordable homes used. It was both beautiful and defeating.

After a massive hill that ended in a lot of sweat we reached the main road and the realization that we had more to walk. At this point I might as well have swam given how sweaty I was. I’m a “big fella” (or so the F.I.L said) and I sweat easily. Very Easily. Please read “Hot Time” for more information on my sweating habits.

Eventually, Thank Gaia, we reached our destination and walked another 200 meters to the shore. Where we were promptly met by no one we knew.  After a few moments of staring at the ocean in frustration we heard the S.I.L say “There you are” and we celebrated with beer, completely dry other than the condensation from the heat and the cold mixing and science stuff and the fact that it’s a liquid.

But we made it and we explored and it was awesome. Here is a picture to prove I was there:

 

Pretty cool right?

To ensure that the trip back was easier both the wife and the S.I.L swam back to the dingy, rowed it to shore, got the men, rowed it back past the dingy line…where we (Loc) took over and drove us back to the boat. We quickly unmoored and drove to the other side of Virgin Gorda to Levericks. Here we moored and ate dinner ashore. From our view you could easily see Sir Richard Branson’s Island which has a great view of his new island which provided me a full view of inferiority complex.

Dinner was lovely, but the view was even better. We soaked it and a few bottles of beer in before calling it a night.

The wind was particularly bad that evening so the ship was rocking quite a bit. And you know what they say, “when the ships a rockin Todd is probably not sleeping and fearing for his life.”

And so, as I quietly wished the world would stop spinning, I thanked Poseidon for another wonderful day.