On the pirates` trail in the British Virgin Islands.

CARIBBEAN
On the pirates’ trail in the
British Virgin Islands.
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VOLUME:2 ISSUE:3 2005
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Who has never dreamt of being a pirate with an eye patch, a parrot on their shoulder and
cutlasses at their hip; of desert islands with white sand and long-legged palm trees; secret
coves, caves and treasure maps where X marks the spot? And of the bursting treasure
chest with jewel encrusted goblets and gold doubloons spilling out?
T
he inspiration for Robert Louis
Stevenson’s classic novel Treasure
Island is said to have come from
Norman Island in the British Virgin
Islands; a sparkling archipelago of
some sixty-odd Caribbean islands
situated fifty miles to the east of Puerto Rico. They
first came to the attention of the western world in
1493 when Christopher Columbus sailed through
and named them the Islas Virgines because of
their untouched beauty. He didn’t stop though,
being as he was on his way in search of gold in
Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. Ironically, it was that
very gold that often ended up in the holds of pirate
ships.
The first Europeans to settle here were the
Dutch in 1648 and later the islands were occupied by the Danes and the British. The British
stayed on whilst the Danish sold the islands of
St. Thomas, St.Croix and St. John to the US in
1917. Always a bit of a backwater, the area was
the perfect hiding place if you needed to lie
low and deposit your booty somewhere safe.
Captain Kidd, Blackbeard, Henry Morgan, Anne
Bonney and Mary Read are all reputed to have
‘banked’ here. Most of the actual plundering
took place off the South Carolina coast around
Charleston, further north around Rhode Island
as well as New Orleans, Mexico and Puerto Rico,
with pirate ships pioneering the trade routes
and making remarkable voyages often amounting to thousands of miles. Henry Morgan was
particularly successful. Unofficially sanctioned
by the British, he was eventually knighted by
King Charles II and made lieutenant governor of
Jamaica. However, all was not romance and those
who retired to wealthy respectability were few
and far between; many met their end at the gallows or at the hands of their
compatriots, hence the possibility that their savings are
still where they left them.
Today, the British Virgin
Islands (BVIs) are as popular
with yachtsmen as they once
were with the Caribbean
pirates of the sixteenth and
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seventeenth centuries, and for many of the same
reasons. As one of Dream Sailing’s clients said
after a recent charter “We have indeed had dream
sailing.” Sailors are spoilt by the vast choice of
sheltered coves and hidden bays with safe anchorages and, with most places only accessible from
the sea, a yacht is essential transport. The BVIs’
tiny population of 19,000 is spread around only
15 of the islands, leaving the rest uninhabited and
untouched by the hands of men with concrete
mixers. With the exception of Anegada, a coral
island which lies about 15 miles to the north
east of the main archipelago, the rest were once
volcanic; the result is a varied and often dramatic
landscape with many unusual rock formations
and caves.
“And thereupon we all entered the cave. It was
a large, airy place, with a little spring and a pool
of clear water, overhung with ferns. The floor was
sand.” In his book, Stevenson might well have been
referring to the caves at Treasure Point on Norman
Island. After about an hour’s sailing south from the
main island of Tortola you can explore them for
yourself. But take your snorkel as the real treasure
is underwater; jewel-colored fish, yellow tails and
sergeant majors, flash between the corals. The sea
is bursting with life and with visibility around 19 ft,
the crystal waters of the BVIs are ideal for snorkelling and scuba diving. As well as The Caves, there
are shallow reefs at Benures Bay and Sandy’s Edge
which offer fantastic snorkelling, along with The
Indians, a looming rock formation just to the west
of Norman Island. For many visitors, the highlight
of their trip is swimming with the turtles.
If you want to spend more time amongst the
fish, scuba specialists Blue Water Divers will meet
you at your yacht and escort you around some
of the Islands best dive sites. With names like
Angelfish Reef and Painted
Walls you can begin to
imagine the glittering hoard
to be found beneath the
waves. Amongst the recommended dives are the pinnacles of Blonde Rock and
Santa Monica Rock, or the
lush, sloping reefs of Coral
Underwater Treasure
The real treasure is underwater; jewel colored
fish, yellow tails and sergeant majors, flash
between the corals.
VOLUME:2 ISSUE:3 2005
UNDERWATER PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF RAINBOW VISIONS. OTHER PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF THE BVI TOURIST BOARD.
WRITTEN BY MICHELLE BLORE AND ALAN OLIVER
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CARIBBEAN
Coral Reef
The sea is bursting with life and with visibility
around 19 ft, the crystal waters of the BVIs are
ideal for snorkelling and scuba diving.
The Baths
Huge granite boulders tumble
together to form a labyrinth of
pools and grottoes ideal for
aquatic hide and seek and,
with the water temperature
at about 83 degrees
Gardens and Alice in Wonderland. An abundance
of reef fish along with stingrays, eagle rays, nurse
sharks and barracuda in exotic scenery amongst
vivid sea fans, sponges and corals are waiting to
be discovered. And what treasure hunt would be
complete without a shipwreck? The wreck of the
RMS Rhone, just off Salt Island, is one of the most
complete wrecks in the Caribbean and was used
as the underwater location for Peter Benchley’s
film ‘The Deep’. The pride of the Royal Mail Steam
Packet Company, she split in two and sank in
a hurricane in 1867. Petrified in coral and now
home to a multitude of fishes, you can make out
her foremast and crow’s nest and, in the aft section, her enormous propellers.
After such thirsty work, pirate wannabes can
party beneath the skull and crossbones aboard
the William Thornton (otherwise known as the
Willie T). This old, 98ft schooner is permanently
anchored in the Bight at Norman Island. Open
every day for lunch and dinner it’s the scene of
much modern day drunken debauchery. There
may not be any ‘walking the plank’ but it is said
that you’ve not been aboard the Willie T unless
you’ve jumped off it – in some stage of undress!
Later in the evening you might hear the words
of old Billy Bones’ favorite sea shanty echoing
across the Bight from the Pirates beach bar:
“Fifteen men on the deadman’s chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!”
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum.”
Next morning, as you sail past Dead Chest on
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your way between Peter Island and Salt Island,
take a closer look. A deadman’s chest was his coffin and the peculiar rocks of Dead Chest are said
to resemble a coffin – especially if you’ve had a
few drinks the night before! More fanciful still
is the legend that Blackbeard marooned fifteen
mutinous sailors on it with nothing but a barrel
of rum between them. Some time later, fourteen
sets of bones were discovered there – the fifteenth
set were found on a beach at nearby Peter Island,
since named Deadman’s Bay in honour of the only
swimmer amongst them. Presumably, they drank
the rum!
They certainly would have enjoyed it. The
Royal Navy, where many of them started their seafaring careers, issued a daily ration of ‘Pusser’s’ (a
corruption of the word ‘Purser’ who was responsible for its distribution) to all sailors for more
than 300 years. The initial ration was half a pint
a day which was drunk neat. Before battle they
got a double ration and after victory another
double ration to celebrate. At 95.5% proof it’s
amazing the cannonballs ever found their targets! In recognition of the difficulties caused by
drunkenness, the ration was gradually reduced
to a ‘tot’, or an eighth of a pint, and finally abandoned altogether in 1970. Until then, Pusser’s
rum was never sold to the general public but it is
now produced to the original recipe on Tortola.
So “splice the main brace” and award yourself a
double ration. (Historically, the main brace was
the largest and heaviest sail trimming line in the
rigging and could measure up to 20 inches in
diameter. Splicing it was one of the most difficult
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tasks aboard and clearly warranted the customary reward).
The island of Virgin Gorda is home to one of
the most popular natural attractions in the BVIs,
The Baths. Here, huge granite boulders tumble
together to form a labyrinth of pools and grottoes
ideal for aquatic hide and seek and, with the water
temperature at about 83 degrees, it really does
feel like taking a warm bath. At the opposite end
of the island, the well hidden anchorage of North
Sound lies inside Calquhoun Reef, surrounded by
the islands of Prickly Pear, Mosquito and Eustasia.
Here you’ll find the resorts of Biras Creek, which
has an excellent restaurant (although you must
reserve in advance as only one table is available
to those not staying there), and the aptly named
Bitter End Yacht Club. As you sip your rum ration
blended into a ‘Painkiller’ cocktail with coconut,
pineapple and orange juice, imagine the square
riggers lying in wait in the Sound; it’s here that the
most ‘respectable’ pirate of all concealed his fleet
before attacking the Spanish.
Sir Francis Drake was a privateer, or state sanctioned pirate, whose backing came from the very
top – Queen Elizabeth I. He was also one of the
most profitable; Her Majesty got a return 47 times
her investment following his circumnavigation
and she knighted him on the deck of his ship the
Golden Hind when he arrived back in Portsmouth
in 1581. The entire trip had been a catalogue of
plundering and it was typically the Spanish who
were relieved of their gold, jewels, wine and silver.
Pirates and privateers such as Drake and Henry
Morgan actually played a key role in defeating
the burgeoning Spanish empire in the New World
- an interesting collaboration between state and
private enterprise!
When giving chase, privateers generally
sailed under their King’s colors. However, if
the victims did not submit, a red flag (the
‘jolie rouge’, better known as the Jolly Roger)
or a black flag would be raised in addition,
indicating that no lives would be spared. Most
pirates had customised versions of the black
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or red flags. Blackbeard’s for example had a full
skeleton spearing a red heart, complete with
droplets of blood. However, he was more of a
colorful character with a taste for cruelty than a
particularly successful pirate. When asked if his
wife knew where he had buried his treasure he
replied that only he and the Devil knew “...and
the longest liver shall take all”. Given that he was
slaughtered by the Royal Navy only two years
into his career, one can suppose that either the
Devil took it or maybe his fortune is still buried
somewhere on the islands of Great and Little
Thatch, named after his real name of Edward
Teach - Thatch in old English.
The Dutch settler Jost Van Dyke was also reputed to have been a pirate but apparently gave it all
up for a quiet life in the BVIs. The island named
after him is particularly rugged and has perhaps
the most stunning beach of all, White Bay, which
ranks amongst the top ten in the world. But for the
ultimate ‘desert island’ experience head over to
nearby islands of Sandy Cay and it’s even smaller
neighbour Sandy Spit, which is almost completely
haloed by a white sand beach.
If you’re looking to make an escape from the
stresses of the twenty first century, the British
Virgin Islands continue to provide the perfect setting. Aboard a luxury sailing yacht there’s no better
place to let your imagination run away with itself,
as the rich natural environment, close proximity
of the islands and constant gentle breezes make
them ideally suited to the romance of sail. “...there
is still treasure not yet lifted.” wrote Stevenson
in the opening paragraph of Treasure Island and
you’ll find it here in abundance. YVC
About the Writers
Michelle Blore and Alan Oliver both quit successful
careers in London to move to the French Riviera. They
now run Dream Sailing (www.dreamsailing.co.uk), a yacht
brokerage specialising in luxury crewed yachts, including
their own 55ft sailing yacht, DreamCatcher of London.
“For many
visitors, the
highlight of
their trip is
swimming
with the
turtles”
Information
Dream Sailing specialize in luxury,
crewed sailing yachts. Their flagship,
DreamCatcher of London, is available
in the British Virgin Islands during the
winter season from $9,639.00 per week.
[email protected] or
www.dreamsailing.com
[email protected]
VOLUME:2 ISSUE:3 2005
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