VIRGIN GORDA, CONT.

We had snorkeled close to an hour, exploring watery tunnels and caves, a trifle dismayed because the reef beneath us was worn and lacking from too much tourist traffic. The most memorable fish we saw was a three-foot long barracuda, who with his most serious underbite, followed us like a pet dog, influencing a detour that took us way beyond our area of concentration. We became lost.

We finally came upon a narrow beach a few hundred yards south of where we had entered the water. Then the fun began, tracing a path through the giant rocks, into cathedral-like “rooms”, encountering dead ends in narrow tunnels, with shafts of Caribbean light stabbing from above. For some of the more difficult ups and downs, someone thoughtfully had hammered pitons into the granite, with dangling ropes; in other places they placed home-made wooden ladders. It took close to an hour to find our way back to the little beach shaded by towering palm trees where our snorkeling adventure had begun. The exertion continued with our climb uphill from the beach, leaving us hot and sweating, a miserable condition that vanished with a plunge into a cooling and exotic swimming pool, attached conveniently to the Top of the Baths Restaurant. With our appetites roaring, we dined on a veranda, its walls and ceiling painted a soothing pastel green. A cool and welcome breeze flowed from the sea.

From this cliff-top perch we beheld the largest British Virgin island of Tortola, seemingly afloat on the western horizon, and way beyond the Sir Francis Drake Channel, speckled here and there with sailboats, lay St. John and St. Thomas of the U.S. Virgin network.

Except for the tinier island of Anacada 16 miles to the north, Virgin Gorda is the easternmost of the jagged clusters of larger land in the Virgin chain, islands with both exotic and dangerous histories, of slavery, piracy and colonialism, set in a tropical splendour so heavenly and seductive it makes your head swoon.

For a relaxing, stretched out week we savoured the breezes and the sun, the water and the flora, in a private villa located mid-island, where the land is squeezed so tightly, a strong-armed man could heave a rock from the Caribbean Sea in the east to the huge channel off the west coast.

Our villa, obtained through the internet from CaribbeanWay.com (phone toll free 877-953-7400), was the Sartoris II, consisting of two sand-colored buildings terraced on two levels against the sharply rising hill above Mahoe Bay. A long sheltered porch with cushioned chairs caught the sea breezes. The modern kitchen-sitting room was easily 30 by 20 feet, with one large air-conditioned bedroom and spacious bath attached. A second bed and bath, also with a/c, was in a pool-side cottage on the lower terrace. The sea was about 150 paces away, with warm water lapping gently on a crescent beach. Though there were about 15 landscaped villas in the neighborhood, with green lawns, colorful plants and swaying palms, our beach front seemed private, and off its shoreline about 200 yards was a small reef which we claimed as our own.

The disturbed coral we found at The Baths was made up for in Mahoe Bay. Barely 10 yards across and only a few blocks long, the reef nonethless showcased plenty of parrot fish, sergeant majors, blue tangs and yellow jacks, amid some very attractive barrels and fans.

When not bathing in the sea, we floated for hours in the warm-water pool at our villa, and from either the pool or the porch watched the sun drop each night in the western sky.

On occasion, an orange-colored feral cat sat politely on his haunches and, as we did, watched the sun. He or she probably was an object of the island’s Feral Cat Program operated by Tufts University Veterinary School. Students have trapped cats, tested them for feline AIDS and other ailments, then speyed or neutered them before releasing the kitties back into the wild.

Though we could have spent our entire week sunbathing and swimming at Mahoe Bay, islands are made for exploring.

Less than 10 miles of rugged road connects The Baths at the southern tip to Gun Bay, near the northern part of the island, a trip custom-made for four-wheel drives. As the sea and beaches are serene and relaxing, Virgin Gorda’s roads --- like most of the others in the Virgin Islands --- demand pulse-pounding, pay-attention expertise. English rules apply --- drive on the left side of the road, even though steering wheels are on the left also. One careless turn drops you and your passengers over a rocky bluff or into a chasm-like ditch.

You learn that the ultimate in travel ease is done on the water. There are plentiful and well-maintained harbors and anchorages, and for every car rental available, there are multiple sail boats, dinghies, kayaks and yachts for rent, for from $20 an hour to thousands of dollars a week.

Whenever we dined in one of the seaside restaurants on the island, it was easy to notice that probably half of the diners arrived there by boat.

Gorda’s over-all major attraction is its ragged western coastline, pocked with rocky points and sandy crescent coves. I found the island’s mountainous interior --- dry, stony soil with scrubby cacti --- to be less attractive than St. John or St. Thomas, which I had also explored at length.

That the foremost scenery of the island lies to leeward, including most of its many fine restaurants, is not to say that its eastern face is forbidden. From Spanish Town, we drove out to Copper Mine Point, where at several hundred feet, we looked down to where the pastel green water of the coastline gave way to the deep, blue sea.

In 1837, miners from Cornwall, England, set sail for the Caribbean to extract copper, lying in rich lodes beneath our feet. The BVI National Parks Trust has rebuilt the brick boiler house, engine and flue to how it appeared in 1860. Lizards and hermit crabs prowl about the reddish rock, while above them an occasional frigate bird hovers into view. To the east, nothing but dark blue sea, a few white sails and infinite sky.

By conrast to the loneliness of the windward side, the leeward coastal resorts of Gorda abound in landscaped beauty. The Little Dix Bay Resort (www.littledixbay.com, phone 800-905-0962), which is upscale and laid back, is on the northern flank of Spanish Town, the most densely populated part of the island where the Virgin Gorda Yacht Harbor, shops and restaurants, plus the ferry to Tortola, can be found.

Opened by Laurance Rockefeller in the 1960s and now owned by Rosewood Hotels & Resorts in Dallas, Texas, Little Dix’s 400 acres set the style for other island resorts to follow.

In the northern part of the island are the Leverick Bay Resort & Marina (www.leverickbay.com, 1 800-848-7081), the Bitter End Yacht Club (www.beyc.com, 1-800-872-2392) and Biras Creek (http://www.b-v-i.com/virgin.htm#, 1-800-223-1108) resorts. Like Little Dix, all hug the shore, and with the exception of Leverick, are reached by boat rather than by land. Leverick’s brilliantly painted red roofs seem to catch fire in the sunlight and the water at the resort reaches to 70 feet deep just a few feet off shore. A reminder of the once strong British connection with the island is the bright red filigreed phone booth gracing the end of a pier. Here we found that at Leverick Bay Water Sports you can rent a dinghy seating four for $60 for a half day, $75 a day, $420 for a week or seven days; or go parasailing 600 feet high in a 10-minute trip for $55; water skiing for a half hour, $60; snorkel and gear, $8 a day or $50 a week. A 28-feet Swordfish cost $325 to rent; a 17-feet Bradley Angelfish cost $230; Sunfish, $20 first hour, $10 additional hours, day rate, $60; sea kayak two seater, $16, plus $10 for each additional hour; day rate is $50; one-seater $10 plus $8 an hour, $40 for the day.

A couple of days during our week on Virgin Gorda we visited the Bitter End Yacht Club and Marina, reached by a boat from a sheltered cove called Gun Creek.

A 15-minute in the free resort launch parks you at a pier backed with plentiful amenities of luxury-style survival --- beachfront villas and hillside suites, several restaurants and an English pub, sailing school and rentals, 25 yacht slips and 70 moorings. Besides enjoying the water sports and pool, we boarded a launch to Saba Rock (http://www.sabarock.com, 284-495-7711), two hundred yards from the Bitter End beach. Saba’s acreage --- less than one --- barely affords space for a restaurant and a few motel rooms.

While dining that evening in its airy restaurant, we were entertained by two young boys on windsails, traveling the water back and forth between the beach and our island. They stayed at it until the sun set and dots of lights began appearing from the villas and dockside across the water.

Diners arrived in dinghys from nearby yachts. One man who had been slumped at the bar for a long time took the trip the other way. He wore the boozy grin of a vacationing yachtsman, with lobster red face and puffy eyelids. Squinting, I could see him 300 years before, knee breeches, deep-cuffed velvet coat, silk stockings, sword slung from his hip, four pistols in his blood-red cummerbund, dirty hair tied back in a knot, patch upon his eye and malice everywhere.

But the uncertain gait of the gent I watched simply betrayed too much to drink. After dropping into his bouncing rubber dinghy that had been drawn up dockside, the tiller firmly in hand, the sailor in him went on automatic pilot. He appeared adept and facile, gently steering the craft toward a nearby catamaran. And so to sleep!

The scenario prompted reflections of how Virgin Gorda has changed from the distant past of cutthroats and colonialism. Long gone are the Quaker and Methodist missionaries and their crusade to eliminate voodoo. Long gone too is the slavery that marked the ancestry of present-day islanders. For the present, even the spiritual ritual dance the islanders call “Camson”, to communicate with dead ancestors, is performed only for show. The two-week long festival held annually to celebrate the abolition of slavery (1834) in the BVI is unfortunately held in July and August, the hottest months, when tourism is at the least peak.

The best time to visit Virgin Gorda? Any time! But the absolute best is winter and early Spring, when the trade winds soothe, and the sun and water are as one --- warm and enveloping, constantly the same.

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