Thursday-Virgin Gorda!

Thursday of the first week

Matthew and I took the 7:00am ferry from Tortola to Virgin Gorda. We were on the boat with the workers and school children. It was actually really fun, plus this time we were prepared for our tickets.

Once in Spanish Town/The Valley of Virgin Gorda we got a taxi driver to take us to the Baths. His names was James and he’s the nicest one we’ve met so far. He dropped us off at the Baths and asked us what time we’d need to be returning and was just really nice. A lot of taxi drivers and store owners tend to be pushy, but he wasn’t.

We arrived at the Baths before the park even officially opened, but James just said to head on down. We were SO excited and went as quickly as we could down the path to the Baths. We were blown away by the beauty of it all.






We were blessed to be at the Baths about an hour before anyone else arrived. These great pictures are Matthew’s of course, and we went and explored Devil’s Bay and the Cave.
We don’t have any really good pictures of Devil’s Bay because there was a short sprinkling and we ran back to make sure our stuff was not getting too wet. But it was still really great.

The Cave:






We brought lunch (of course) and packed it in our amazing green lunch box! It may not look appetizing, but after lots of snorkeling we were starving and it was really good! Mmmm Big Frank hot dogs. Food and fish! For Matthew what could be better than that?










This is a picture of our hats! Matthew’s says “Groom” on it, but he wears it sideways. Grandma bought us these bucket hats and they have been SO useful! They really protect us from the sun, and we wore them basically everyday. Matthew repeatedly mentions how grateful he is to have them.



As the day got more crowded we saw that people were jumping off of a little cliff thing and decided to try it. We hunted a little bit to try to figure out how they got in, and found a different cliff to jump off. Here are the videos & pictures:














When we were home that evening we saw the first really good sunset we’d seen at Kerensa. It was the perfect way to end that day. =)





This was my favorite trip because I’ve long wanted to go and visit the Baths at Virgin Gorda.

As I type this I am sitting on a lounge chair on the beach of Sapphire Bay as Matthew snorkels. The water is clear and he’s enjoying it of course =) The breeze is perfect and humidity is low. We have been blessed to relax and enjoy the beauty of what God has created. There is beauty at home too, and each of God’s creations are different, but it’s nice here for now.

First Week- Wednesday

This was a relaxed day. Slept in, hung out in the pool and around the house…but we wanted to visit a new beach and go out to dinner! On our way to dinner we stopped by Lambert Bay (those who have not seen “Lambert the Sheepish Lion” need to look it up on YouTube. Matthew showed it to me because I’d never heard of it. It was funny and cute. Classic Disney.) It was a beautiful bay and we enjoyed relaxing there for a while before continuing our journey to dinner.
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Conductor of the Waves!
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Going out to dinner in the United States is a somewhat easy adventure: find a restaurant, order something (ask it to be made vegetarian), and enjoy. (Pay the bill of course, but that’s not important.) Matthew and I had looked up countless restaurants and looked at different places that others had recommended for us to eat at. But there were two problems (1) Lack of any vegetarian options (2) Price range. Who pays over twenty dollars for ONE plate of food that’s not even editable by vegetarians?? Here is real example of Matthew asking for a restaurant.
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Matthew: “Do you have any restaurants that serve vegetarian food?”
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Local Man: “Like vegetarian, like you eat fish? Or vegan? Like nothing at all?”
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As you can see, vegetarians are basically extinct on islands (and understandably so). So we drove to the restaurant owned by Jessica and Ben, the owners of Kerensa. It is called The Last Resort and is on an island. You call their ferry and they come get you for free! It sounded cool and we thought we could ask Jessica to help us out with the vegetarian option. However, before we called the ferry we looked at their menu, and the prices and food options weren’t what we were hoping for. So we headed back toward a Chinese restaurant I has seen as we came into town. I have an eye for Chinese restaurants (“Yes she does!” Commentary by Matthew White).

Finally, we had found something within semi-decent price range and edibility!
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This is a picture of two very happy customers. The restaurant was clean, the people were nice, our view looked out onto the harbor—and most importantly the food was delicious. Seriously, it was amazing.
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We also passed the Adventist Church after dinner. =) It was actually a very nice building. Then we returned home and slept because Thursday was our next adventure day!

First Week- Tuesday

Tuesday of our first week we took a ferry to the island of Jost Van Dyke. It was somewhat of a traumatic ferry because we only had enough cash to get there, but not back (but the man at the ferry assured us that someone would be able to give us “cash back” at Jost Van Dyke). We ended up being helped by the man who owns the dive shop we rented our dinghy from. We really appreciated his help. For those that don’t know, a dinghy is a sturdy, inflatable raft-deal with a motor on the back. We used that to go to two very beautiful islands.

This is Skipper White:

The first island was Sandy Spit:

This picture wasn’t taken by us because we were too busy driving to get a good far away picture, but we wanted you to get the idea of the place.

This is our dinghy, a view of the beach, and then my feet. Being that my modesty wasn’t up to par on the honeymoon (bikinis) I have taken liberty to not post any of those pictures. Thus, many pictures of Matthew, and less of me while at the beach.

We ate lunch at Sandy Spit under the only palm tree, and thus the only shade on the island. Almost felt guilty for the other people, but when we realized they were from the catamarans nearby we didn’t feel guilty much longer.

We snorkeled a bunch here and I saw my first octopus! We only have a dark picture so it’s not very good, but its eye was looking at us and was kind of creepy. Matthew and I enjoyed seeing fish and little bits of reef.

The second place we went to was Sandy Cay.

This picture we didn’t take either.

There was a nice little trail through the woods and we saw many lizards and hermit crabs. Luckily we survived and got back on our dingy. But there were some beautiful views, flowers, and trees.

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That was our first of three officially planned adventures. It was a great day!

Travel

Hello!

We have been traveling again and getting unpacked once more. We have traveled from Tortola, BVI back to St. Thomas, USVI for our last week. We will post tomorrow or the day after (depending on our exhaustion!) with events from the previous week and hopefully the start of this week. Tomorrow we go to visit St. John =)

Here is a link to some more pictures. Notes to come soon:

http://flickr.com/photos/56841549@N00/

Kerensa- Our Villa

This is our villa. Let me take you on a brief tour that will by no means do the place any justice.

This is the stairway going down to Kerensa.

If you turn to your right you will see a set of steps leading up to the hot tub.

This is the view from the hot tub. It more-or-less overlooks Sharks Bay

If you turn to your left when coming down the entry stairs you will see this:

Across from that sitting area there is the pool.

Sometimes we relax at the pool....

And other times we have a blast jumping in and swimming around!

To the left of the house you see in the picture above is this little table and hammock.

Entering the building through the doors by the table and hammock is the kitchen/tv room area.

This is me from the outside of the kitchen area doing dishes.

Going from the kitchen towards the hot tub direction there is an open space for the dining room.

If you go through the next door, you will go into the bedroom and bathroom.

This is the little sitting room as you enter the bedroom to your left.

View of the sitting room and bedroom.

This is our bedroom porch and view.

We will take better pictures of the bedroom, but I (Beth-Anne) have been eaten by misquitos and so we keep the bedroom area closed up so as to keep the nasty bugs away as much as possible when I'm sleeping or trying to do devotions.

If you enter the door to the bedroom and go more to the right you will go to the bathroom.

The sink area...

The very cool shower!

And the view from the shower.

One night we had a storm and this little guy came and visited us then and has been back several times since then. He's cute alright, but he made my razor drop over the edge and I wasn't too happy with him at that point. But you have to admit, he's kinda of charming. Wonder if I kissed him if he'd become a prince?

The place is amazing and breathtaking. We are spoiled forever with real life. Matthew has some amazing pictures showing views and all that so I'll let him post with those later. I just wanted you to see where we were staying and enjoying life this past week! More posts later on other adventures we have done this week! God has blessed us with the beauty of His creations each and every day.

Love,
Beth-Anne