: Good day all,

: Sorry for posting here, but the trips board seems to not be
: working. Admin please take note when you post there it
: disappears. When you click on pages the pages are all blank.

: So for all you cold folks up north I thought I would post a side
: trip from my trip with Rob to Jost VanDyke, BVI. I will let Rob
: post that trip first. This is a trip Amy and I did from Jost to
: Tortola for Valentine's dinner, and returning at night. You have
: to love a girl that can get out of a kayak, throw on a little
: black dress, and look amazing.

: Amy is the most awesome person you would ever want to meet. I am
: truly blessed to have met her here in St. Thomas. She was a
: travel nurse and was originally here for a short term to work at
: the hospital, but I convinced her to stay! Amy is a very strong
: swimmer and surfer, and she is also a great kayaker. Amy's idea
: of fun is to swim five miles or to paddle her surfboard out to a
: reef 1/4 mile out. Her idea of a vacation is hiking the Camino
: de Santiago 800km across Spain. I was okay with bringing her
: into open water, and what's even more awesome is she thought it
: was cool to kayak to Valentine's dinner. I just want to say I
: saw her first! Sorry guys, but you have to find your own.

: Amy had to work on the days Rob and I kayaked to Jost, so she took
: the ferry Sunday and met us there. Ivan's Stress-free resort is
: my favorite place in all the Caribbean. I have travelled
: literally to almost every island- certainly every major one, and
: Ivan's is my pick for best place to get away from it all. The
: plan was that Amy and I would kayak from Ivan's to Cane Garden
: Bay in Tortola, BVI. I am guessing about eight miles without
: looking it up on the map, all open water with a nasty headwind
: and current on the way there. We would kayak back at night using
: deck lighting that I rigged up. It is USCG legal, and we had
: flares, horns, communication, and all required safety gear.

: We started out in the afternoon around 2:30 to beat the sun's heat.
: 10AM to 2PM are the worst times to be in the sun. As mentioned
: before in another post, Rob and I had the thrill of 9-11 foot
: long rolling swells, but that had all subsided and the water was
: flat. It was perfect except all that swell had caused quite a
: current. As soon as we headed out I realized this was not going
: to be as easy as I had thought. I was still sore from the 5
: hours of non-stop paddling with Rob the day before and Amy was
: getting used to the boat we rented from a friend at West Indies
: Windsurfing. It was a brand new Wilderness Systems Cape Horn 17
: footer. Maybe 17.5- I can't remember. I was paddling my
: Shearwater Atlantic 19 foot strip-built with a Greenland Paddle.
: The GP did great in the headwind and honestly I didn't consider
: that Amy was having to fight the wind much more than me. Not
: only was she using a Euro Paddle, but I think the plastic boat
: she was in wanted to weathercock more and she had to fight that.
: My kayak has a very low deck and long waterline with less rocker
: and tracks very well. I kept having to slow down. As I paddle I
: often get in a rhythm and would look back and I was leaving Amy.
: This doesn't go well on Valentine's Day!!!

: I looked at Amy's paddle as we rounded the first buoy out of Jost
: and said "Dear, take a look at the name on that
: paddle." She said, "Yeah, what about it?" I said
: "What direction should it be, up or down?" She
: laughed- the paddle was upside down! That did help a bit on
: speed once corrected. The wind was pretty strong and head-on,
: and the current to my best judgement was around 3 knots. Amy was
: paddling about 4 knots! I soon realized this wasn't going to be
: the cute Valentine's paddle I thought it would. I had thought
: about 2 hours. Long story short, it took about 3.5 hours. We
: arrived at Cane Garden Bay at almost sunset.

: On the way in about a mile off Tortola's NW coast, we started to
: get some long rolling swells in the 8-foot range, but such long
: intervals it really didn't feel like that much. You just slowly
: roooooose up and then back down. If you watched the horizon you
: could see the massive swells rolling towards you, but as you
: paddled you didn't really feel it as much. I would watch them
: roll towards shore and count down... 10, 9, 8, 7.... 3, 2, 1...
: Crash! They would crash into the shore in threes. Luckily Cane
: Garden Bay is protected enough that it wasn't getting too much
: of the bad stuff, but beaching required timing the swells and
: making a run for it. Apple Bay, around the bend from Cane
: Garden, is a world-class surfing spot, and they hold surf
: competitions there. It was now closing out, but the two days
: before it was totally on. I almost wished we had taken a board
: with us, but I was happy paddling the kayak in open water.

: My buddy and "brother from another mother," Mark, had
: made reservations for us at a beautiful beach-side restaurant,
: Quito's. I had eaten there before and knew it would be romantic
: and charming. We arrived to find a DJ playing booty-shakin'
: music at about 20 decibles. I asked him, "Hey buddy are you
: going to play this loud stuff tonight? It's Valentine's Day you
: know!" He started to jive and dance and said in a used car
: salesman kind of voice "Hey man, I'm the DJ man, whatever
: you want bro, because I'm the DJ man, you want me to rock it I
: can rock it bro because I'm the DJ man...." Oh great. I
: canceled our reservation. Mark and some friends met us on the
: beach and they suggested another place that would be more
: appropriate.

: The kayak was the talk of the beach. Everyone wanted to know why I
: use "that skinny little stick" to paddle with. I
: explained how a GP works and they still said "I think you
: could go a lot faster with a kayak paddle." I laughed. One
: older gentleman was just fascinated with the boat, and stopped
: to talk for a while. I love listening to people reminisce about
: their younger days. He told about when he worked on a merchant
: ship and the captain gave him the wheel as he went down below.
: He said he'd never steered a big boat before. He turned the
: wheel and nothing happened. He turned again, and still nothing
: happened. (Those of you that know are laughing, but I will tell
: you- big ships take a while to respond to steerage) He said all
: of a sudden the boat made a big sweeping turn and he finally got
: it turned back around and on course. He said the captain came up
: and said "How's it going?" He said "Oh just fine,
: no problems." I'm sure the captain knew what went on. It
: was a funny story, and he was a very nice man, but Amy was
: hungry and when Amy gets hungry you'd better find food quick! I
: bid him farewell and we went to search for food.

: What I love about Amy is she can paddle a kayak, beach it, pull a
: little black dress out of a dry bag, slip it on, and she's still
: the prettiest girl at the prom! I changed in the bathroom into
: some linen pants and shirt- appropriate dinner attire that we
: call "Island formal." We walked down the beach to the
: place Mark had recommended. Some guy was singing very loudly
: "I've Got Friends in Low Places". I apologized and
: asked Amy if she wanted to go somewhere else. She gave me the
: "I need food NOW" look, and so we were seated. I told
: the waitress to bring something- anything- bread or something
: right away before Amy started eating the other patrons.

: She got us some wonderful fresh-made bread and we ordered wine and
: started to relax a bit. However, the singing went on. It was
: bad... I mean really bad... bad enough that Amy said "Is it
: karaoke night?" The waitress looked embarassed- "um,
: no... he's actually paid to do that." She informed us that
: it was happy hour tonight and they had singing all night. Wait a
: minute... happy hour all night? Only in the islands folks! So it
: was bad enough that this guy sucked, but also he sang songs
: about breaking up, songs about crying in your beer... nothing
: remotely to do with Valentines!!! Amy said "I'm just
: waiting for him to start singing "She f'n hates me".
: We laughed. I said "I didn't do too good this Valentine's
: did I?" She said, "Well, look at it this way- you want
: it to be memorable, and this is certainly memorable..." We
: laughed! The food was actually amazing, and once we were fed and
: watered we felt more relaxed and enjoyed it despite the horrible
: singing.

: Well darkness had fallen and we knew we had to get on the water
: ASAP. A crowd gathered around the kayak as I readied the lights.
: I used a clamp-on light that I clamped to a board which I slid
: under the deck rigging. We had backup ligting of the same type,
: plus head lamps as a tertiary backup. We had flares, cells,
: radios, and even glow sticks as a final resort backup just in
: case, but honestly I think they're pretty worthless. Anyway, the
: point is we were prepared. This would be about 6 to 8 miles of
: open water paddling at night. The water was flat as could be-
: almost motionless. Perfect for night paddling. We headed out
: into the stars and it was absolutely amazing. Complete silence.
: Once we got out of the lights of Tortola we rafted up the kayaks
: and briefly we shut off the lights so we could enjoy the stars.
: It was amazing. The milky way flowed across the sky like a
: river. A fish would jump now and then but other than that and
: the water sloshing on the hull it was completely silent. Amy
: said "Okay, this was a good idea- you've been
: redeemed!" The paddle back was absolutely beautiful. There
: was no boat traffic except one dinghy that passed a mile or so
: ahead of us and never came near. We paddled from Tortola over to
: the shore of Sandy Spit, which looks like the island in cartoons
: that the little guy is always stranded on... just a few palm
: trees and some sand. There is a little bit of shrubbery on the
: south side, and the treefrogs that live in the brush were
: singing to us as we paddled by. We got to Jost and paddled the
: shoreline for probably an hour all the way back around to White
: Bay where we were staying. As we passed Great Harbor we could
: hear the music from legendary Foxy's Bar in the distance, but
: the tree frogs sang a much more appealing song as we paddled the
: shoreline at night. Now and then a lone taxi would go along the
: winding road from Great Harbor to White Bay. Jost VanDyke got
: electricity in the mid 1990's, and has only had cars for about
: as long. There are only a handfull of cars on Jost, most of
: which are safari taxis that run the single road that circles the
: island. The point is- it's very very quiet on Jost at night. The
: treefrogs chirp like birds and the water lapped a drumbeat
: against the shore as they sang. It was quite beautiful.

: All the way I kept seeing bioluminescense as I paddled but I wasn't
: sure if it was that or a reflection of my deck light. We rafted
: up again and I shut of the lights to check it out, and it was
: bioluminescense. This kind was what I call "little
: sparklies" that come off the paddle like sparks. There is
: another type of bioluminescense that just glows green like a
: light. That happens in backwater. The sparklies happen in open
: water. They are caused by tiny single-celled organisms that glow
: when disturbed. It looks like your paddle is a magic wand as it
: goes through the water making little greenish sparks. It just
: added to the ambience of the night paddle.

: We arrived back at White Bay very late in the evening. There were a
: few people at Ivan's playing guitar and singing. We beached the
: kayaks and looked at the stars for a bit before turning in. What
: a great way to spend Valentine's Day! Amy rocks! Once it was all
: said and done she really enjoyed the kayak idea. I think the
: night paddle went much better than the loooong day paddle there,
: and I think I would have scored more points if the music hadn't
: been so loud, but that wasn't my fault, right?

: Hope you enjoyed. Look for a trip report soon for the trip from St.
: Thomas to Jost and back. It was beautiful. I don't think I will
: ever find a place I love more than the VI.

Thanks for posting this, finally had time to read it :)

Bill H.