Day 70 - 12/15/23 - Road Town, Tortola, British West Indies

 This is another port and the last this voyage  that is a first for us.  We arrived early and backed into our berth.  Guests were allowed to disembark by 8am. Our shore excursion "Virgin Gorda & the Baths" came highly recommended by our friends, Susan & Rick.  It was a 40 minute catamaran ride to Virgin Gorda on another island.  From there we boarded F-450 open air shuttles for the 10 minute ride to the starting point for the "walk".  





Devil's Bay Beach


The caves




A lone crab


There were two options:  Walk the entire loop, or just go down to the Bath beach. We elected to do the entire loop and it was a wise choice as we really enjoyed it.  We walked down a gently sloping but twisty trail that threads its way down through the rock formations and ends up a Devil's Bay beach.  Many elected to go swimming, but I chose to photograph the scenery. From there we hiked over to the Caves where we waded through huge rock formations and ended up at the second beach called the Baths.

A very funny thing happened there.  It started to rain and one of our guides said it's just a love potion.  Two of us immediately replied that it was Love Potion #9, and the guide had no clue what we were referring to.  So we explained it to her.  After some beach time we hiked back up the hill and boarded our shuttle vehicles for the ride back to the port where we reboarded the catamaran back to Road Town.  Once back at the port around 1pm, Angela and i decided to walk to the small botanical garden.  The challenge was that it was raining in waves.  In between the rain it was quite nice, but when it rained, it really rained.  Fortunately I had a rain poncho in my backpack, so I was able to keep dry, but it was a bit warm under the poncho.  


We finally reached the little botanical garden only to find the gate locked and a sign indicating it was closed.  So we decided to just walk around the perimeter.  On the back side, another couple caught up with us and they were also disappointed that it wasn't open.  They were from Austria, and we enjoyed meeting them.  We continued our walk around the park and walked back to the ship via a different street where we saw some nice Christmas displays.  












Back on the ship, we showered and cleaned up mainly to rid ourselves of the sand.  We ate a light dinner before watching the first show featuring the comedy of Buddy Fitzpatrick.   He was once again very funny.  Susan and Rick mentioned going to the 9 pm movie, so we decided to watch it.  It was "Devotion" about and unlikely pair of Navy fliers in the Korean War.  It was really good, but a tear jerker of a movie and 2 hours and 20 minutes long.  


Tomorrow we're in our last port stop of this voyage:  San Juan, Puerto Rico.  We have a mandatory US Customs & Border Protection face to passport inspection.

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