Photo Tour of Euphoria Villa, Leverick Bay, Virgin Gorda, BVI

One of things I knew I wanted to do while on this trip was take lots of photos of the villa where we stayed, in the hopes that it might be helpful to other people wanting to rent there in the future. There are tons of websites out there that feature Euphoria, and they all seem to have the same professional photos. We were lucky because the villa in person looked even lovelier than the pictures we'd seen, but that's not always the case when renting. I do want to mention two other websites, though, to give the most complete portrait of Euphoria: this one, which is the owner's video tour, and the one from VRBO, which gives the full run down in list form of every amenity on offer.

The owners of Euphoria recently refurbished the kitchen area and it's difficult to image a more comfortable place to make one's home-away-from-home. The kitchen is fully stocked with the usual items & appliances, such as a coffee maker, microwave, toaster, blender, etc, but it also had a toaster oven and an air popcorn popper. We ate breakfast in the villa each morning and dined in three nights for dinner; usually when we rent villas, we either make do with what's already stocked, or we try to find the missing item on the island to purchase and leave behind for the next guests.  But in Euphoria, there was nothing missing. We had pizza cutters, wine openers, two full sets of kitchen knives, saute pans, stock pots & colanders of all sizes. We were spoiled for culinary choice, really, and previous guests had even left behind various spices. My sole criticism is that the knives could have been sharper, as my DH had difficulty finding a knife that would cleanly slice our tomatoes and other veggies.

The cupboards came stocked with plates, dishes, three sizes of bowls, and drinkware in both glass and plastic incarnations. The main table could sit six people in maximum comfort and eight people with a little less comfort, I'd guess. Cloth napkins and placemats rounded out our dining experience. Out the door in the above photo is the gas grill and the path leading down to the separate guest suite below, with its own kitchen efficiency. We didn't use that space, but we peeked into it.

The bedroom DH and I shared was very comfortable (to say it was the best sleep of my adult life would not be an exaggeration), with a king-sized Tempurpedic bed, en suite bathroom, and a small walk-in closet. The bedroom had air conditioning, which we used most nights but one night we felt so comfortable with the breeze coming in through the screen doors and jalousied windows that we went without the a/c. I imagine that if we ever had the luxury of multi-week vacations that after the first few nights of acclimating to the island's temperatures and humidity that we'd go without the a/c altogether.

These are rocking chairs. No better place to read, ever!

We had sliding glass doors looking out to the pool area and another set leading to a small deck that was my favorite place to catch the early morning light over coffee, or to read in the shade in the afternoon.

I really loved our glassed-in garden shower in the bathroom, which was done in a terra cotta with island accents and tilework. Some villas go for such a clean, modern look that it's hard to imagine that those places are comfortable, but not Euphoria. Everywhere you look, there are island details, whether it's the tilework, the furnishings, or objets d'art scattered around the villa.

The other king bedded room

My mom was in the other king bedroom that looked out over the pool and which had jalousied windows on two sides of the room and sliding doors to the pool on a third side. Though there was a/c in the room, my mom never used it, preferring to take advantage of the breezes and to better hear the sounds of the Caribbean, both night and day.

View from my mom's room.

Melanie's room was the twin-bedded room off of the entry hallway, and while it had a garden view rather than a water view, it was also the room that could be made the darkest for sleeping since it was south facing. Once the jalousied windows were all shut up for the a/c to be on, the room turned into a crisp little cocoon. Mom and Melanie shared a bathroom in the hallway, and while I never could get a good angle to photograph it, they had a glassed-in shower similar to the one in our bedroom.

Melanie's bedroom and the shared bath are off this hallway.

The painting in the bathroom

I also liked the small, original painting hanging in their bathroom. The house was filled with little artistic touches, which I of course failed to photograph. My favorite piece in the house was a signed & numbered lithograph hanging in the living room of a boy standing in front of a light blue chattel-style home, with long shadows thrown across the image. There were also lots of handmade little touches, like metalwork switchplates for the light switches. It's so nice when the owners put that much thought into the visual aesthetics and place a priority on individual pieces of art rather than put up on their walls the same old, faded island posters that are found everywhere. Even outdoors there were nice touches, such as the bell at the entryway, which DH suspects might be the work of Tom Torrens:

By the front door, seen at night

The area between kitchen & sitting area, with library.

The living room is divided into two sitting areas: one with the flatscreen TV (with DVD and Blue Ray players) and one with some of the most comfortable chairs I've ever sat in.  Those two swiveling, rocking, padded and ultra-comfy chairs were pretty amazing.

The TV area, with screen doors to patio beyond.

The second sitting area

My favorite chair ever.

The second morning, I was sitting there with my coffee and a book and DH asked me why I was inside. I told him to try the chair opposite me and he would understand why, and after that it was rare that I had another chance to sit there, because he and my mom kinda took over.  They know a good thing when they see it  sit on it.

See what I mean? There they are, in my chairs. Behind to the left is the master bedroom, and the sliding door behind my mom leads to the pool and is the cause of all of the backlighting.

Pool, looking toward the master bedroom 

Looking toward mom's bedroom and the dining area

Now, for the outdoor spaces.  One of the best things about villa vacation is that typically you have as much outdoor space as indoor space to call your own, and Euphoria was no exception. No matter whether you wanted some space to yourself or space to be social, a place in the sun or a place in the shade, Euphoria has you covered. The owners had recently bought all new pool furniture in an Adirondack style with padded seat covers, all in a sturdy material that was something like a pressurized polycarbonate. Much better and more durable than the traditional wood for a seaside setting.

That's Prickly Pear in the background

There was another set of chaises longues off of our bedroom

The pool was bigger in person than it looks in any of the photographs I saw on line or made myself. It's not a huge pool--you're not going to swim laps in it or anything--but all four of us could be in there at once, floating around and treading water and not feel like we were going to run into each other.

Pool seen from the living room

Looking at pool from outdoor dining area

Outdoor dining area

There wasn't a bad view from anyplace outside.

My mom's little balcony area

DH posing with one of his books in our little private alcove

We could see Mosquito Island (where Branson's crews were at work), Prickly Pear, and much of the North Sound, including across the water to Bitter End Yacht Club and the just the top of the main dining pavilion at Biras Creek. With my husband's camera I could even get a decent shot of Saba Rock.

Saba Rock, seen from our patio

When standing up, you could see the rooftops of the villas that were lower than ours on the hillside, but when sitting or in the pool, it was nothing but that beautiful horizon. We didn't have a true sunset view, but we could see the play of light to the west in the evenings, but oh, what glorious sunrises we saw!

And here are a couple of shots I made of the villa from the road above Leverick Bay, looking down. It gives a good idea of how close to the water we were:

Euphoria with sailboat in background

Super-closeup shot of Euphoria

And until I get some shared photographs from my mom and Melanie, that concludes our tour of Euphoria Villa for today.  Thanks for coming along for the ride!

One of the many beautiful blooms in the surrounding gardens

Virgin Gorda: Day II

Up once again with the dawn.  It's odd to me that it's only on vacation that I voluntarily rise so early in the morning. Most mornings at home I have to drag myself out of bed by 8:00 simply to get to work on time, then rush out the door without so much as a sip of coffee. But here in the Caribbean it seems to be easy.  Partly it's because at this latitude there's very little dawn or twilight time: it goes from dark to full sunlight in a matter of minutes and vice versa at the end of the day. Partly it's because my bed directly faces east on Virgin Gorda.  However, I like to think that there's something deep in my blood that pulses to the rhythm of the island. That first quiet, early hour is a precious thing.

DH catching some early morning rays

My mom, dozing in the morning sun

Before long, though, all of us are awake and puttering around.  DH prepares breakfast once again; it's positively decadent. This time he regales us with cheese omelets, bacon, toast, juice, and coffee. We rush to clean up and pack our beach bags & cooler, for today we head to Spring Bay, which is absolutely my favorite beach on the island.  It's Saturday, so we know that the Baths will be crowded with daytrippers and the boating folks (or at least as crowded as it can be in October), and I remember from experience that Spring Bay tends to gather more of a local crowd.

Spring Bay: note the picnic tables off to the left

You reach Spring Bay as if you're heading toward the Baths, but the turnoff is on the right before you get to the more famous destination. There's a parking lot immediately off the road, but don't stop there; continue down the dirt path to the second carpark, which is much closer to the beach. You'll still have a bit of a hike to reach the beach, but it's only onerous if you're also trying to cart beach chairs and a cooler. In other words, exactly what we were doing.  There are a few picnic tables down on the sand, but for us it was worth the hassle of toting things in because of the sparse shade. We wanted to set up under the sea grapes and snag what little shade was available.

The walk down is carved amongst the boulders for which the southern part of the island is famous, and a well-worn path weaves among them, with a few stairs cobbled together where the way is steep or where tree roots might give way to stumbling. But it only takes a few minutes' time to get there, and is it ever worth the walk. The moment you break out into the open from the path, this is what you see:

Note the hoards of people

In other words, in front of us stood the most inviting rocky grotto of a swimming hole as can possibly be imagined.  After settling our chairs & cooler in a choice spot of sand, we walked around a few minutes to make photos before Melanie and I got ready for our first snorkel of the day. As it turns out, that first snorkel was the best one on the trip, and I once more rued not replacing my underwater digital camera.

I had last snorkeled at Spring Bay back in 2007 with one of my granddaughters, who is an intrepid snorkel fiend and I was looking forward to getting back there amongst those sun-dappled boulders again. Melanie, as it turns out, had never snorkeled in water that deep (maybe 20 feet? I'm not a good judge) and thus was a little uncomfortable. She also had *tons* of frustration with her flippers. But here's what you do to get out to those waters beyond the boulders: walk south along Spring Bay beach until you're in front of a couple of beachfront villas and there's a sandy place to enter the water. At about waist-deep you have to start swimming to avoid the rocky bottom and sea urchins, but it's plenty deep enough to swim out.

There were a few of the tiny jellyfish (I don't know what they were, but they were transparent and about 2-2.5 inches across) in the water, but not a ton of them, and one small-to-medium sized moon jelly washed up on the shore where we entered the water, and these made Melanie a little nervous, too.  We were both wearing snorkel shirts so I felt fine about it and I think Melanie basically just followed my lead, and as it turned out, neither of us got stung.

We didn't see anything large, like a sting ray, barracuda, shark, tarpon, or even a turtle, but lots of smaller fish life.  Maybe it's the way the sun filters through the rocks there, but things seemed healthier (or at least more colorful) there than other places on the island in terms of coral and sea fans. Since I couldn't take any pictures this time, here is a photo from the same location, two years ago, when I was snorkeling Spring Bay. I'd guess the water clarity was *slightly* better at the time the photo was made.

Spring Bay snorkeling

I estimate that we'd swum about half a mile by the time we got back to land again. Negotiating the way *back* to the beach can sometimes be tricky, too.  We came back up on a sandy part but then had to pick and crouch our way through some fairly dense underbrush to get back to a place where we could walk upright on the sand. By the time we toweled off and reapplied some sunscreen, a local family had set up next to us and their young boys started the boulder jumping that is so much fun to watch (I even did it once myself, evidence of which you can see here). I asked their mom if it would be okay to post some photographs and she agreed.

It was getting warm, so I coaxed everybody into the water to cool off and to take some photos. For this I did use my old waterproof camera since I didn't plan to immerse it:

DH, Melanie, Mom

Mom & DH, looking towards shore

Melanie

Just another shot of Spring Bay

After that, Melanie and I took another snorkel; Mom was going to join us, but her mask kept leaking water and we didn't have a spare one with us. We basically repeated the same path again, but this time Melanie felt much more confident in the water--I think she also might have left her pesky fins behind this time.  I rarely use them myself, and almost never for a shore snorkel, though I do have a nifty pair of short, split flippers that have come in handy once or twice.

By now, it's well past 1:00, and though we'd brought water and Ting with us in the cooler, it was time to think about lunch.  We packed up and I demonstrated to everybody just how easy it is to change into a dry bathing suit underneath a large sarong. Not to venture too far into TMI territory, but it gets difficult for me to sit around for very long in a wet bathing suit bottom, so in this case, necessity was the mother of invention.

The sign at Mad Dog

We hiked back up the path to the parking lot (after I exhorted everybody to drink more water so that I wouldn't have to carry it back up) and drove straight to Mad Dog, which became the go-to place on this trip.  We split the nachos and the Cubano sandwich special, plus a couple of rounds of Bushwhackers for everybody except DH, who ordered a banana daiquiri instead. We sat around our "usual" table, enjoying the breeze and the shade and the chickens.  Ms Lillia took great care of us, and as we chatted with her, we discovered that she hails from Grenada, which is one of our favorite islands--and the one we've most visited besides Anguilla.

Lillia in action, making our bushwhackers

DH and Lillia

After we had cooled down sufficiently, we headed home. DH was making dinner that night and he needed time to get his spaghetti sauce's flavors to meld on the stovetop before serving.  Which freed up Mom, Melanie, and me to use the pool and take a nap before dinner.

I neglected to take pictures of the meal, but we had yummy garlic bread, green salad, and a super spaghetti. We didn't find out until later that DH had to improvise on the sauce a little bit.  What he had taken for olive oil in the cupboard turned out to be balsamic vinegar instead, so he used bacon fat to saute the garlic and other ingredients.  No wonder it tasted so good!

We dined relatively early, so after cleaning up, we watched another movie.  We'd brought along a handful of them in case the weather turned difficult, but the villa came well-stocked with books, games, and DVDs, so we were all set.  Rum poured over cookies & cream ice cream turned out to be a pretty good dessert and we all went to bed very sassified indeed, ready to embark on tomorrow's adventure.

Euphoria Villa, seen from above