The Fat Virgin calls my name...and I respond!

View of Mahoe Bay, Virgin Gorda, from Adagio Villa

 A couple of weeks ago I got an email from the good folks at Fodor's, letting me know that I had been quoted again for their Caribbean 2011 travel guide.  If this sounds like a big deal, let me reassure you: it's not.  Despite my little jig upon hearing the news, it really only means that I spend far too much time chatting on online travel forums, particularly the Fodor's one, so it's just a small matter of running the odds to know that they were bound to pick me for something.  This year, my quotation was for Virgin Gorda, an island I've visited exactly once, but which will haunt my dreams until I return.  Though I may not be an expert (one visit, remember), I frequently raise my voice in passionate recommendations for this island to everybody who cares to listen, and no doubt to quite a few people who don't.  Too bad for them, eh?

Yesterday my complimentary Caribbean 2011 guide arrived from Fodor's, so naturally the first thing I had to do was skim the section on the British Virgin Islands to find my name in lights.  Or at least set aside in a tiny, shaded gray box:

"When you go to the Rock Cafe, be sure to make reservations for sitting outside on the deck with the waterfall--there's only one table there and it's very romantic. We had a great meal there." ~ ejcrowe  

Yes. With sage, yet strategic, advice like that, I'm pretty sure it's only a matter of time before mine is a name bandied about with reverence among travelers: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Lawrence of Arabia, Freya Stark, and Emily Crowe. 

So since I'm not far enough into any of the books I'm currently reading to give a real review, and since I've already blogged about my latest trip, and since I'm in the mood to blog (It sure beats the pants of housework.  Every. Single. Time.),  I'm resurrecting an older report from our trip to Virgin Gorda in '07 in honor of my forthcoming fame.

 Ummm, yeah.  That was the sarcastic part.  You got that, right? 

My companions for this trip were DH and our 15 year old granddaughter, and we stayed at the Adagio Villa in Mahoe Bay for 5 wonderful nights (NB: Per my agreement with the owner, I cannot disclose the amount we paid, but it was decidedly less than the published rates. He offered me reduced rates renting directly from him after he noticed that I was an active poster on www.traveltalkonline.com.  Sometimes membership really does have its privileges!). We had taken DG on a special trip in 2005 for her 13th birthday, a tradition we do with all of our grandchildren, and she was so smitten with the Caribbean that she asked what she could do to go again.  We told her that if she raised enough money to pay her own way ($1,000), that we would take her on another trip.  We assumed that, as with many teenagers' passions, this, too, would pass, but less than a year later she informed us that she had saved enough of her money to go again.  My husband's and my finances couldn't accommodate a trip in 2006, so we took close to a year deliberating (DH would say agonizing over) all of our Caribbean choices.  Since DG and I love to snorkel, and since all three of us wanted something a little more off the beaten path, and since it's difficult to resist an island whose name translates to Fat Virgin, in July 2007, we were finally Virgin Gorda-bound.

As usual, we flew out of BDL on American Airlines and connected in San Juan to Tortola's Beef Island aiport.  We had a wait of close to two hours in Trellis Bay for the North Sound Express, which we spent exploring Aragorn’s art studio and drinking Ting at the internet café.  After a 30-minute crossing, both the villa rep and the Mahogany car rental rep met us at the dock and got us squared away.

Aragorn's sculptures in Trellis Bay on Tortola

DG on the ferry tide from Trellis Bay to VG

I had arranged with a catering company to have some provisions left in the villa, so we quickly unpacked, fixed some drinks, and proceeded to explore the villa and its grounds, complete with our own swimming pool.  The villa was airy and gracious, comfortable without being fancy, and the view out to the Dog Islands during the sunset was just lovely.   Considering the deal that we got on the rental rates, we should have been gobsmacked over our good fortune, but the long travel day, combined with the preprandial cocktail, left us instead with a feeling of utter contentment that seemed to go soul-deep.  Island time at last!

Sunset over the Dog Islands. 

TBC...