South Shore Road, Tortola, early morning

Captain Paul picked us up in his taxi at 6:00 a.m. to get us to Road Town for the 7:00 ferry to Anegada.

We had some time at the station to get coffee and use the restrooms. I talked to a man who was waiting for the ferry, asked if he was going to Anegada. He said no, but he has sailed there. He said boats must go in at the east end to get through the reef. Once again I got the impression, this time from talking to him, that it was a small island. I forget what he said. But he was the second source who gave me a vague impression that it's a "small" enough island that getting "around" is easy.

But I couldn't reconcile that with maps and facts that state it's 10 or 12 miles long, and 2 or 3 wide. (If you were staying on the island and had the luxury of time, you might get around by bicycle -- as some tourists do.)

We boarded and sat topside. The ship got underway, and soon Road Town receded in the distance.

It was windy and a dark cloud brewed. People began to peel off the top deck and go below because it looked like rain. Liz went below. Beth and I were among the few who stayed. It was so windy that when the rain came, it came horizontally. We were able to stay pretty dry by ducking behind the solid back of the seat in front of us. The rain didn't last too long.

When Liz went below, she opened the door to the inside cabin and turned back because of the air conditioning. A man in the back seats gestured to her that there was a seat for her. She saw his construction tools and asked about his work. No speak English. So Liz talked to him in her fluent Spanish. He was a Panamanian (Liz had sensed that some of the passengers were South Americans) who was building a stone outdoor kitchen on Virgin Gorda.

The ferry stopped briefly in Virgin Gorda to let some passengers off, including Liz's acquaintance.

We continued on to Anegada. From 8 o'clock on the left to 3 o'clock on the right, the horizon was flat. About 15 minutes from docking at Anegada, nothing ahead was in sight. (And yet mountainous Tortola and Virgin Gorda are visible from Anegada.) As we got closer, a low fringe of trees stretched across the horizon and a few scattered buildings appeared. The Drowned Land. (The highest point on Anegada is only about 28 feet above sea level.)

Approaching Anegada

Docking

We disembarked and found a taxi, Tony's Taxi. It wasn't Tony driving but his son, Rondell. He waited for us while we walked to washrooms in the beach house of a small hotel across the road. I asked Rondell to take us to see the pink flamingos for a little while and then take us to Loblolly Bay. He said it would be $12 per person.

We drove through a wilderness of scrub, occasionally broken by muddy flatlands. Sprinkles of rain fell sporadically. Hardly another vehicle passed us, and we saw no more buildings. Eventually, he pulled off onto a bumpy dirt road and came to a stop at the edge of a large muddy expanse.

The pink flamingoes -- see them?

Rondell told us we could see the flamingos across the clearing. We got out and looked at the horizon. All we could see were tiny pinkish specks on the horizon. He handed us a pair of binoculars. When we looked through them, all we could see were tiny pinkish specks.

The Park Service tries to control the number of tourists visiting the bird sanctuaries, but it was the off-season. However, we didn't ask to try going closer. We got back in the taxi and went to the beach.

He dropped us off at the Big Bambo Restaurant. The first things we noticed were the funny signs around the restrooms. "I'm on my way to heaven," said one with a funny drawing of someone on a toilet.

Loblolly Bay

Only a handful of other visitors were there. It was still early morning, and we saw no staff there, but we walked into the open-air dining area. Liz and Beth looked through the book exchange shelves and each found a book of interest. A tell-all book by a famous chef, and a book on Oprah's list.

There were lots of pictures of people on the wall, many obviously restaurant staff or family, but at the top was a picture of Barack Obama. Even in the British Virgin Islands, he is celebrated (we'd seen people on Tortola wearing Obama T-shirts).

We walked through the dining area and found a small bar. A hundred or more pieces of driftwood were nailed up in the bar, each signed or inscribed by customers.

The manager came and asked if we wanted to order lunch (for later). Beth asked for a vegetarian plate. I asked to share a half lobster ($32) with Liz. "But it's only a half lobster," the manager said. Can't we share a half lobster? "I know, but it's only a half lobster," she repeated. She was trying to up-sell me. Alright, can we share a small whole lobster? "OK." I said small lobster because they started at $40.

Dark areas in the water are coral. Surf breaks in the distance at the drop-off.

Beth prepares to snorkel

We changed into our swimsuits in the washrooms. Then we headed to the beach on the left (west). We could see the dark reef all around in the clear, aquamarine water, with branches of reef reaching close to shore. While Liz sunbathed, read, and swam, Beth and I snorkeled.

There was a stiff wind and strong current. A school of angelfish joined us and swam alongside us for a while.

When we got out, I walked down the beach a little way and talked to the dive shop guy. He said the current was strong because of the wind. He thought it might calm down in the afternoon. (Later when I saw him he said, well, maybe not.) He said where the surf was breaking, beyond the nearby reef, there is a 30-foot drop-off.

He's been on Anegada for 10 or more years. He told me that a few years ago a hurricane tore out a 6-foot deep chunk of the beach around the point to the right - there is a 6-foot drop in the sand there. He's seen a lot of reef die, but he said there was a lot of new growth. He added that if we walk down the beach to the left, we will find another beach that is great for beach combing - lots of stuff washed up on the tide.

Beth and Liz were up for it when I suggested walking there. So we walked down the beach. Beth and Liz collected shells, coral, rocks, while I took photos of a great variety of little things on the ground, imprinted by Nature.

3-foot diameter piece of brain coral

There was a rocky scar along the waterline here. I wondered if it was just limestone or if it was dead reef. But how would reef get up onto the shore? Maybe the hurricane deposited a load of sand on top of and behind the reef, extending the shore and killing the reef. There was a chunk of brain coral 3 feet in diameter up on the beach. No tide could move that. I figured the hurricane must have thrown it onto the beach.

It was getting close to lunchtime, and Liz suggested we go back. She was beginning to get a headache. We walked back to the Big Bambo and sat down for lunch.

Our waitress was minimally helpful. At first we didn't get an extra plate so Liz and I could share. We had to flag her down to ask for an extra plate. Later we had to flag her down to ask about dessert. She never came around otherwise, although she stood around, idle.

Liz and I split a small lobster (they charged us only $32 for it). One person could easily have eaten it all. I hadn't had lobster in a long time. It was good but not worth the price, I thought. Beth was not impressed by her vegetarian plate. The mixed vegetables looked like they had been frozen.

After lunch we went to the beach on the other side, to the right. I had brought a plastic cup from Sebastian's and made sun tea on the beach bench.

Beth and I snorkeled again. The wind and current were still strong. It took some work to swim in the current. We saw a giant dead lobster on the bottom in 20 or 30 feet of water. There was all kinds of coral. Some of the coral grew like a heap of jumbled sticks.

We swam along the reef and got pretty far out before we decided to head back in. We saw a school of about 30 beautiful indigo fish about 6 inches long.

Back in the washrooms, Beth and I changed into dry clothes.

We agreed to meet Liz later, either at the bar or in a hammock, and we took a walk down the beach to the east. There was no one else there. We followed lines of fine brown twigs, like hair clippings, left by the surf and we crossed over 20-foot long green shoots reaching close to the water from the shrubs up on top of the dune.

Beth found a good piece of driftwood to make a sign for the bar. Too soon it was time to turn back. We found Liz in a hammock. Liz and Beth inscribed the driftwood and told me to add my name. The bartender said they will burn the inscription in with a magnifying glass (somebody must have a lot of time on their hands, I thought) and tossed our piece of wood onto a pile.

Liz asked the waitress to call Rondell for us. We waited for him on the walkway to the parking lot under a canopy of small trees. When he came, I asked how much for the three of us to the ferry. He said $12. For all of us? Yes, he said. We rode with three small school children in uniforms and a woman who was bringing them to the ferry.

In the middle of the seeming wilderness, we drove around a traffic circle, the only vehicle in sight.

Before we could board the ferry, some men unloaded supplies: one new car tire, a box of canned goods, etc. We saw a half-open cardboard box with ground beef in plastic wrap on the dock.

Beth and I rode on the top deck again. The horizons were cloudy and rainy-looking the whole trip back. It was very windy. I kept pulling my hat down tight.

Three of the men who had helped unload the ship were talking among themselves. One guy's sunglasses apparently blew away down to the gangway. He knocked on the window of the helm in front and shouted over the wind to someone in there. A deck hand made his way down the gangway and retrieved the sunglasses.

Captain Paul was waiting for us at the station in Road Town. He had suffered a stroke some time ago. One arm was bad, he walked with a limp, and his speech was a little slurred. His sailing business was not doing well. He wanted us to book a sail to Jost Van Dyke tomorrow for $90.

Liz had wanted to do the sail. It didn't appeal to me -- "stuck" on a boat, when we'd recently had several ferry rides. I was too stubborn. (Sorry, Liz. It probably would have turned out to be fun.)

I think we were still driving on the South Shore road when Captain Paul slammed on the brakes and the van screeched and skidded. "Saw it just in time," he said. A speed bump.

The rain held off until we reached Sebastian's.