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Caught another barracuda! And it was even bigger than the previous one. We threw this one back too. Hmm, I seem to be catching nothing but barracuda. Maybe it’s time to switch lures. No matter, tonight is the night of the Full Moon Party at Bomba’s Shack. These parties are legendary, as is Bomba himself. I dressed up in full pirate outfit, with flashing pirate earrings (one of the funniest things was for several days after the party I would continue to run into people who would come up to me and ask if I was the guy in the pirate outfit at the Bomba Shack party!). Here is a video of Darcie spinning glowsticks at the party.

Caught my 2nd Barracuda. This one was over 20 lbs, I swear! I had obtained an official fishing license which allowed me to do unlimited fishing for 1 month. I purchashed some fishing line (100 lb test), lures, and hooks and we let out about 90′ of line to troll behind the boat. I did a scuba dive in the afternoon at a dive site called the “Aquarium”, so called beause of the huge variety of colorful tropical fish, it’s almost like diving in an aquarium!

We left Pirate’s Bight temporarily to do scuba diving. I dove the Indians (large pinnacles that protrude from the surface) with Cupcake and Rita. We returned to the Bight to prepare for our boarding and invasion of the floating boat bar, the Willie T’s. We all dressed up in pirate gear, and rigged a Jolly Roger flag on Qen’s lobster snare. To get us in the right mood, Twirly performed the open passage of Treasure Island. Then we boarded the dinghy and set out for the Willie T’s. As we approached we yelled out nasty threats such as “Arrrrrrghh!” and “Prepare to be boarded, ye scallywags!”, much to the amusement of the other patrons. The captain brought along a flask full of the 15 yr aged Pusser’s rum (definitely the smoothest, best rum I ever tasted. 2^nd best rum is Mount Gay Rum from Barbados), which we all swigged. Took lots of pics on the upper deck, then came back down and started a Limbo line, which got the rest of the patrons excited and they started participating too. By the time we left we were the life of the party and most patrons seemed thankful for our takeover. Including the owner/manager who begged us to return again on Friday when a TV crew was coming to film a special on unusual bars around the world.

We arrived today at Norman Island, the basis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic Treasure Island. “Spyglass Hill” is clearly visible as our boat approaches the Pirate’s Bight mooring. There is fantastic snorkeling at the nearby Pirate Caves. Lots of the brightly colored Parrotfish. Underwater you can actually hear the scraping noise of the Parrotfish chewing the coral. This chewing creates the fine white sand you see on the beaches around here. There are 2 bars here. One beach bar, and a floating boat bar. Today we went to the beach bar (we have bigger plans for the boat bar). When we reached dock, we saw an amazing sight. Some large tarpon fish (at least 3’ long) and sharks (at least 4’ long) had herded a large school of a smaller fish into a very tight group right up against the dock. This group was so dense at first it looked like just the rocky bottom, but when you looked closely you could see the individual fish moving within it. It was basically a carpet of fish, about 3’ thick and 30’ across!

The beach bar had giant versions of popular games, such as Jenga (played with two-by-fours) and Connect 4. We had rum punches with homemade rum that the bartender had made himself. We left the bar with the Jenga game booby-trapped in an extremely precarious state, where the slightest nudge would send the entire tower crashing down.

Home of the world’s best conch fritters!

Can’t resist the Key Lime pie.

Lots and lots of rum drinks.

Franklin gave the Captain’s meal free and let us take a picture behind the bar.

 
spells TAXI backwards. This is the taxi we took to go to dinner at the Rock Cafe, a restaurant nestled between actual granite boulders in the Baths of Virgin Gorda.

 
Some of my fellow crew mates. Here is a video of our first sail!

A raunchy irreverent bar that is literally a shack. They are famous for their wild Full Moon parties (yes, we are going to that!).

Our boat, “Kristina”. She’s a humongous 57′ catamaran, with *seven* bathrooms, 8 cabins, and WiFi internet!

Full boat specs

I find I have a hard time thinking of it as a sailboat; to me, it’s more like a cruise ship, or a floating condo!

I now start Part 2 of my trip — where I join up with 7 other friends to sail around the BVI!

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