Tropical innocence
Former stamping grounds of some of historys most famous seafarers, the Virgin Islands are now invaded by thousands of visitors who arrive daily by cruise ship and plane from Miami and Puerto Rico. These green, hilly islands, some governed by the United States and some by Great Britain, number about 100 in all. Most are tiny and virtually uninhabited, except for a few birds or an adventurous boating party stopping off for a little snorkeling or swimming. For the ultimate tropical getaway, it is possible to rent an entire island for yourself.
Most Virgin Islands natives are descendants of African slaves who worked the sugar-cane plantations. In recent years, the local population has swelled with an influx of down islanders, people from other Caribbean islands. Many Puerto Ricans have also come here; they are joined by a wide cross section of mainland Americans, including well-heeled yachties and young expats who have become addicted to the limin lifestyle. The old ways of the islands are all but gone in bustling St. Thomas and St. Croix, but they may still be found in St. John and some pockets of the British Virgins, especially on laid-back Virgin Gorda. Below, you will find the highlights of this quintessential vacation paradise.
Christopher Columbus named the islands Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes
What happens when steady trade winds meet an island-flecked channel with tame currents and hundreds of protected, salt-rimmed bays? Every mariner worth his sea salt sails there which is how the British Virgin Islands became a sailing fantasyland. More than 40 islands bob in the group, welcoming visitors with an absurd amount of beach.
Tortola is the archipelago’s father. It holds most of the population and commerce, and its demeanor is a little bit stern as a result. That doesnt mean it wont let its hair down at a full-moon party or out on the bay windsurfing. Virgin Gorda is the BVIs beauty, beloved by movie stars, millionaires and yachties. Somehow she is maintained her innocence, with a clutch of exceptional national parks. Jost Van Dyke is the jovial island, where a man named Foxy is king and time flies when you aint doin shit, as the T-shirts proclaim. Not-like-the-others Anegada floats in a remote reef; if you are looking to get away from it all, this atoll has a hammock waiting. Then there are the sprinkling of out islands – some uninhabited, some with just a beach bar, some with shipwrecks to dive on. You wiill need your own boat to reach them, but since the BVIs are the worlds charter-boat capital, you are in luck.
While the islands are British territories, there is little that is overtly British. The BVIs are quite close to, and intermingled with, the US Virgin Islands, though the BVIs are more virginal as far as development goes.
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Sage Mountain National Park is not a rainforest in the true sense, because it receives less than 100 inches of rain per year, but the lush area possesses many rainforest characteristics. It is cool and damp, populated by bo-peep frogs and lizards. Hikers should keep an eye out for 20ft fern trees, mahogany trees, coco-plum shrubs and other flora that have not changed since the dinosaur days. You will also see spectacular vistas of both the USVIs and BVIs. Allow two hours for your rambles.
A turquoise cove ringed by steep green hills, Cane Garden Bay is exactly the kind of place Jimmy Buffet would immortalize in song – which he did in 1978s Mañana. The areas perfecto 1-mile beach and throngs of rum-serving bars and restaurants make it Tortolas most popular party zone.
Rid yourself of visions of a sprawling resort area, however; the sheer mountains dominate the landscape, so everything hugs the water along a small strip of road. South of Cane Garden Bay are a series of picturesque bays.
Jost Van Dyke is a little island with a big personality. It may only take up 4 sq miles of teal-blue sea, but its good-time reputation has spread thousands of miles beyond. A lot of that is due to calypsonian and philosopher Foxy Callwood, the islands main man.
The tide ebbed and flowed for a quarter century, and not much changed. Electricity arrived in 1991 and roads were cut a few years later.
Though locals now all have cell phones and websites, and Jost is no secret to yachters and glitterati (Jimmy Buffet and Keith Richards stop by), the islands green hills and blinding beaches remain untrammeled by development. As one local says, When Main Street is still a beach, you know life is good. Hear, hear!
The island has no banks and relatively few accommodations. Many businesses shut down in September and October.
Copper Mine National Park. You will drive a heck of a winding road to reach this forlorn bluff at Virgin Gordas southwest tip, but it is worth it to see the impressive stone ruins (including a chimney, cistern and mine-shaft house) that comprise Copper Mine National Park (admission free; sunrise-sunset).
Anegada is a killer island. Literally. The island takes its name from the Spanish word for drowned or flooded, and thats what it did to more than 300 ships in the early years – it sunk em. The island is so low (28ft above sea level at its highest) that mariners couldnt see it to get their bearings until they were trapped in the surrounding coral maze known as Horseshoe Reef.
Today its the salt ponds rife with flamingos, blooming cacti and giant rock iguanas that will slay you (figuratively, of course!). You can dive on many of the shipwrecks, or snorkel from ridiculously blue-watered beaches such as Loblolly Bay and Flash of Beauty.
Virgin Islands National Park. In the early 1950s, US millionaire Laurence Rockefeller discovered and fell in love with St John, which was nearly abandoned at the time. He purchased large tracts of the land, built the Caneel Bay resort, and then donated more than 5000 acres to the US government. The land became a national park in 1956, and over the years the government added a couple thousand more acres.
For the record: more than 30 species of tropical birds nest in the park, including the banana quit, hummingbird and smooth-billed ani. Green iguanas, geckoes, hawksbill turtles, wild donkeys and an assortment of other feral animals roam the land.
