Tortola

In the British Virgin Islands, the atmosphere is funky and friendly

By Stan Grossfeld, Globe Staff, 03/31/96

ORTOLA -- Anchored in the bay, you could easily see bottom -- not the ocean's bottom, that's a given. I'm talking about the sand-colored bottom of the woman paddling face down on a surfboard toward our sailboat.

``Excuse me,'' she said, wearing little more than a smile. ``Do you have any Grey Poupon?'' She was only kidding, of course. What she was looking for was a can of Coco Lopez, an essential ingredient in a rum drink invented in the British Virgin Islands called thePainkiller. Such is life in the BVI, where they don't build higher than the palm trees, where the first light you see at night is the planet Venus and where there's a good chance that there are more pelicans on the water than people.

Especially this year, where preliminary signs are that tourism is down. The British Virgin Islands has suffered more from widely published reports of hurricane damage to its very close neighbors than from actual storm damage.

``People see the Virgin Islands as this little dot on the map and think we are destroyed,'' said Egberth Donovan, a restaurant owner.``But we here in Tortola were lucky.''

Just how lucky is evident from flying just 10 miles away into St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands.

Many of the orange-roofed houses on St. Thomas are interspersed with the blue plastic wrappings of FEMA that have covered the hundreds of tin-roofed homes destroyed by last fall's devastating one-two punch, hurricanes Luis and Marilyn.

We took a cab that still had blown-out windows, past a sailboat smashed along the rocks, to the capital, Charlotte Amalie. There we boarded the Bomba Charger for the 50-minute ride past the island of St. John to Tortola, the largest island in the 50-island British Virgin Islands chain.

St. John suffered considerable hurricane damage. (The Hyatt remains closed until May 1 and Caneel Bay says it will reopen Oct 1.) Yet only 2 miles away, Tortola was virtually untouched. The British, after all, have had enough storm damage between Charles and Diana to last a lifetime.

Although both the USVI and the BVI have the same volcanic origins and use the US dollar as their standard currency, there are huge differences. The BVIs are less crowded, funkier and friendlier than their US counterparts.

If you took every person who lives in the 16 inhabited islands of the British Virgin Islands and sat them in Fenway Park, it would be less than half-filled.

Before leaving home we went to the Welcome to the British Virgin Island home page on the Internet (http://ww.caribweb.com/caribweb/bvi/intro.html) to find a place to stay. We selected the Prospect Reef Hotel, the largest resort in the BVI, which has tennis courts, a marina, a huge swimming pool and a small beach. But instead of falling asleep to the soothing sounds of a lapping Caribbean Sea, we were jolted by hammers and power saws outside our room at 7:30 a.m. Following the golden rule that a vacation should not be like a root canal, we checked out and drove to picturesque Long Bay on the North Shore. There we rented a three-bedroom house on a cliff with sweeping views of the mile-long, crescent-shaped beach punctuated by a green gumdrop mountain that rose from the turquoise Atlantic. The cost: a mere $100 a night with maid service. That was a $50 savings per night from the Prospect Drill . . . er . . . Prospect Reef.

The path to the beach was always filled with butterflies who seemed to leave the poinsettias to give us a full butterfly escort.

Tortola's best beaches are found on its north shore. The best swimming beach is at Cane Garden Bay, which at night offers lively entertainment. Four nights a week you can hear Quito Rhymer, a local reggae star who has played with Ziggy Marley, perform at Quito's Gazebo. This club has a first-rate sound and lighting system, but all around there are reminders that this is not the United States. Outside the club, a goat tied to a tree tried not to look as another lifeless goat, hanging from a limb, was being skinned and quartered.

In Smuggler's Cove, there are other things you would never see in the USVI. Here, the snorkeling is good and the honesty refreshing.

``My wife, in bed with a broken kneecap, badly needs books. If you can spare one, help yourself to a free drink,''reads the sign written on a paper plate on a bartenderless bar at the ``Smugglers Cove hotel,'' a broken-down derelict building without windows or walls. But what it lacks in decor it more than makes up for with its old purring refrigerator, stocked with 76 ice-cold Heinekens, and an assortment of Amstels and sodas, including root beers.

Visitors help themselves to refreshments and potato sticks, making change and leaving their money in an old Cuban Montecristo cigar box with a Heineken bottle opener weighting down the bills from the tropical breezes.

Parked in the ``lobby'' is an old Lincoln Continental that, according to an old magazine on the bar, once carried a youthful-looking Queen Elizabeth around Tortola. Part of the movie version of Hemingway's ``The Old Man and the Sea'' was filmed here, according to another yellowing magazine.

The owner, according to beachgoers, wears a pith helmet and is quite a character. Although he was never around, this island has no shortage of characters.

The island's most famous character, Bomba, can be found tending bar and sometimes even sleeping over at the Bomba Shack, a funky beachfront bar made of junk, old license plates and autographed panties. Bomba is famous for his monthly ``Full Moon Party'' that draws patrons from as far as Miami and Venezuela.

At midnight, only on the night of the full moon, Bomba gives away what Frommer's Guide calls ``herbal tea.'' Technically that's true. But do not try this on your grandmother. This is not the ``high tea'' she expects served in the fancy sterling silver in London with the little cucumber sandwiches.

I'm sure Mr. Frommer doesn't want grandma down here chugalugging this stuff and climbing a palm tree. This is tea made with a local mountain mushroom that has been steeping for the better part of a month.

The mushroom tea is legal in the BVI, but before you try it consider this advice from an islander. ``You pick the mushrooms that are growing in cow dung,'' he said. ``The other ones are no good, mon.''

When we visited, there was a new moon, and Bomba didn't want to discuss tea. He recommends his famous Bomba punch, a mixture of homemade rum, passionfruit, guava, banana, papaya, pineapple and orange juice. ``It will keep a man and woman in love all night long,'' he said.

Far more romantic and elegeant is the nearby Sugar Mill, a hotel and restaurant run by Bon Apetit columnists Jeff and Jinx Morgan. The restaurant is housed in the three-century-old Sugar Mill, whose stones were ripped by slaves from Liverpool streets after delivering rum and goods to England. The stones were needed to restore the ship's ballast for the return trip to the BVI. The menu changes nightly, but the red snapper wrapped in banana leaves is a great catch. The staff is impeccable and the wine list excellent.

For food and drinks with a view, try Skyworld, where the view stretches all the way to St. Croix, 60 miles away. For exercise, go to Mount Sage National Park, the highest point of the island, where there are marked trails and a spot where clouds seem to pause and enjoy the view. Stop first at the North Shore Shell Museum, an eclectic museum/ restaurant that has the island's best homemade coconut and mango breads and pick up some bread and bottled water.

A word of caution if you plan to rent a car. This is the land of hairpin turns. Tortola has no traffic lights, and the locals drive on the left side of the road. There are goats, donkeys, chickens and roosters in the road along with roller-coaster hills that make the Cyclone at Coney Island seem like a speed bump. Each turn provokes a gasp from first-time visitors. Sometimes they are gasping at the startling view, other times from the tourist driving on the wrong side of the road and heading directly toward them. At the top of one mountain is an open-air, 24-hour bar. Atop another is a basketball court in the road where if you throw up an air ball, you'll chase it down a thousand-foot hill.

Sooner or later, you will wind up in Roadtown, the capital. Be forewarned, it is not geared to tourists but it does serve as the bareboat capital of the Carribean. Here you can rent a sailboat (bareboat) or if you are a lazy sailor, you might want to charter a boat with captain.

If you want to support someone from landlocked Nebraska, try Cheers. Its captain, Jerry Bean, learned how to sail from his son, who attended the Naval Academy. Faster than a prairie dog, Bean quit a coaching job, moved to the BVI, married a local woman and became the leather-skinned captain of Cheers, a 35-foot sailboat equipped with three sleeping berths and a huge hammock perfect for viewing shooting stars.

Jerry will take you to the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke where the painkiller was invented. The recipe is printed on plastic cups: Pussers Premium Dark Rum, cream of coconut, pineapple and orange juice topped with fresh Grenadian nutmeg. Or sail to the next bay over to Foxy's Tamarind Bar, rated one of the world's best bars by Newsweek. Get there early to hear the barefoot Foxy -- a US airline once made him buy a pair of shoes to board a flight -- strumming his guitar and singing stories.

Bean knows what time to visit the Baths, those huge boulders that have become all too popular with charter crews. Or when to stop at the wreck of the Rhone, a British mail ship that sunk in 1867. Beware: An eel bit a diver there recently.

For snorkeling, you can't beat Norman Island, thought to be the setting for Robert Louis Stevenson's ``Treasure Island,'' where you can snorkel right into the caves.

Back on land, if you're looking for local treasure, visit Nan Thomas at Little Apple Bay. The former Duxbury resident married an islander named Ben, and together they handpaint coconuts and fronds into masks, salad bowls and necklaces. Ben claims his brightly colored Jumbee face necklace brings good fortune

``When you want good luck, you just gotta wake him up,''he says as he shakes the colorful face hanging at his chest. He just might be right. One woman who bought one returned the next day and grabbed each and every Jumbee on display. ``Hey, Ben, the Jumbee worked,'' said the excited woman. ``After four years, he proposed!''

For more information, write to British Virgin Islands Tourist Board, 370 Lexington Ave., New York, NY 10017; or call (212) 696-0400.