Scotts On The Rocks Blog

[pics incl] As we were docking we passed several boats that were painted black and pink and had variations of pirate pig logos on them. I had seen a few as w we were leaving last weekend and said “I need a pirate pig boat… or my dad does!” (andI had to explain why… 😉) So I was ready to snap a couple photos as we returned. No one I asked knew anything about them but there were several of all shapes, styles & sizes.

I took a picture of the sailing certificate and we all exchanged phone numbers & created a group chat to keep in touch!

As we were headed ashore for dinner, a nearby boat had their bottom lights on and had attracted some tarpin.

He was at it during dinner putting mayo on everything… including his pizza. Since I sat next to him you get to share my experience😉

After dinner, the crew were excited to teach us some of their games. During Scabby Queen… we (the Americans) realized… it’s Old Maid.

We left the boat by 8 am and went to breakfast… joined by… the chickens, of course.

The ferry ride back to St. Thomas was completely full. Our shipmates had been told different things regarding their ferry ticket purchase and ended up on standby… but they had flights to catch. We weren’t sure how to help. Fortunately, they were the last 3 passengers allowed on standby so all was well. Jeff and I couldn’t get flights until the following morning so we stayed at Bluebeard’s.

Unfortunately, this area was still closed to tours during restoration & repairs from the hurricanes.

Jeff had a creamsicle and said it really does taste litter the popsicle… I don’t like the popsicles so I didn’t try it 😉

We arrived home and it was COLD and snowy… so I txt our group from the boat “miss ya’ll ”

After everyone cringed at the sight of our snow & traffic… a couple days later, I sent them better snow pix.

That concludes the trip we took to BVI in January 2022. Thanks for sharing your own experiences with me! I’ve enjoyed hearing about how things have stayed the same or have changed because of the hurricanes. Jeff and I plan to goto Antigua in late April… holler if you have any advice or suggestions!

[pics incl] We spent 01/28/22 snorkeling in Little Harbor, BVI. There is plenty to do in the area and we all had decent cellular service here, giving us all the opportunity to take our “proctored at home Covid tests” so we can catch the ferry tomorrow. If one of the group tested positive, we would have all been quarantined for 10 days…. shucks 😉

After learning to squeeze all the air out of the waterproof bag, I actually got some decent videos. I learned that i had to prevent my phone from auto lock and use the buttons vs tapping the screen but otherwise I was able to mostly capture what I wanted. Often a wave or underwater current would throw me and cause the video too abruptly” swerve ” but hey… that’s what happened and the viewer gets to experience it too!😂 Often, I have to pause the video and show it in slow motion so the viewer can watch the intended target…. some things moved slow, others in the blink of an eye.

I was told this is a sea cucumber.

There is an eel under this rock but it’s moving too fast to point out so… here’s a photo of an interesting rock.

The octopus is moving FAST. I have a couple videos but the waves kept tossing me and I had to swim away from the large spiny urchin (or prevent others from hitting it). Here’s a shot of the octopus with no edits.

These next few are zoomed in on the video and I have slowly moved video forward to show the octopus movement… the entire video is only 20-25 seconds. I am swimming toward the octopus which is bolting from the right, down to the rocks in the center or left center of the screen. It’s only 1-2′ long and squished down into a pile of goo with the eye showing at the top.

This is the same as the first photo, I’ve marked the octopus & eye for you.

We turned and found ourselves looking at several bright blue fish. When I realized that Jeff was motioning that he intended to follow a large one, I snapped a photo of a smaller version.

A member of our group snapped a live photo of Jeff and me snorkeling near the boat. I am far left center edge and Jeff is near the center to the lower left of the boat.

Jeff wanted to go kayak and as I was returning to the boat, a school of fish passed beneath the ladder. only one came up close to me. Sometimes trying to video and swim made me a little dizzy so I opted not to attempt the kayak.

While we were waiting on our tests results, we played a quick game.

He kept putting mayonnaise on EVERYTHING… including taco salad. Yup, even last week, we’d goto restaurants and there would be ketchup, mustard & mayo sitting out on all the tables.

Unfortunately, we all tested negative and we had to return to the dock for our last night.

As we were leaving, someone pointed out a yacht they said was owned by Blackberry (ie as in the blackberry phones).

I think I have one last day or two of photos left.

enjoy!

[pics incl] We spent a good part of 01/27/22 sailing and snorkeling. The sunrise and sunset were gorgeous again.

Jeff enjoyed being in the captains chair again!

I took my phone with me snorkeling but learned a lesson… you have to make sure ALL THE AIR is out of the bag or it causes distortions. I followed some giant (and baby) sea turtles for a good while but all of the photos & videos are blurry. They were about 35′ down and I had even figured out how to dive down a few feet… sigh. Here’s one of the “better” blurry ones where you can at least tell its a turtle.

we stopped for the evening and had a late snack on the flybridge.

… and watched the gorgeous sunset!

Dinner tonight included zucchini soup and we all laughed when someone pointed out that the roasted garlic cloves looked like the barnacle that injured her elbow!

enjoy!

[pics incl] After all the swimming today, I needed to rest my head/neck, so I did not go ashore to The Bubbly Pool. Jeff took photos for me. He uses the “live” setting which is like a one second video. I haven’t decided if I like this setting or not. It’s great if you are showing photos in person and can explain😉, otherwise, it’s just a still photo. It is super easy to get a still photo from a live one so that may be something I start doing?

Soon there 😉

When the waves crash against the outer rocks… a burst of water shoots thru and soaks everyone.

Thanks for taking photos for us!

Afterwards, Jeff was in the captain’s chair for a while…. his happy place.

I brought him a cold drink and the captain appeared and handed him a beer, said “Now you’re double parked!” and walked off.

Tonight’s sunset was AMAZING!

We stopped for the night.

Dinner included this french onion soup and chocolate pie.

Later, the guys put a light out in the water to see if they could attract anything. I think they had fun not catching anything😉

enjoy!

[pics incl] We stayed in the cove that we had eaten dinner ashore and anchored overnight.

We went nearby to a small island and took the dingy ashore for photos. I do have video of almost everything I’m posting still photos but the videos take up a lot of bandwidth. It’s taking me a while to go thru and add dates and take screenshots/still off the videos. In some cases, i have to watch the video a couple times myself to figure out what I was doing😉 I know I was wiped out most days after snorkeling but I’m thinking I should have tried to at least date the pics and quick captions. Lessons learned. I was also learning how to use my iphone under water at the same time… took me a couple of days to figure it out. Everyone says I need a GoPro….

The saying in the BVI is “you can’t drink all day, if you don’t start in the morning.” I did NOT!

While we were in this area… Ashley txt’d

No words were needed for either of us 😂

saw this shell while snorkeling.

then turned around into this school of fish.

Jeff swam past this fish. i’m calling it a “rock fish” but they told me a different name that I promptly forgot.

This is actually the second one I saw. THIS… is what made me realize the first day of snorkeling, that Jeff couldn’t see everything underwater that I could see because he cannot wear his glasses with the snorkel. I decided to try taking my phone with me but I’m a beginner at snorkeling and at underwater photography. I tried keeping my video’s about 30 seconds so they wouldn’t be massive. Sometimes waves would drag me away from my intended subject matter! We are discussing going to Antigua in late April. Hopefully before we go again, Jeff can order prescription goggles and maybe I can get ya’ll’s advice on whether to get GoPro 😉 or if there is something else I should consider??? Bring on the suggestions!

This afternoon we plan to go over to a place called The bubbly pool.

enjoy!

[stay tuned! I’m still working on photos. Our trip lasted thru 01/30/22 and as of this post I’m halfway thru 01/26/22]

[pics incl]. Our captain is Scottish and they celebrate author Robert Burnes Day (01/25/22) by eating haggis and whiskey and reading Burnes poems.

He told us that we needed a wee dram of whiskey with our haggis. We spent a good part of our trip trying to understand English. The captain is Scottish, first mate is British and another crew is from South Africa. They each somewhat understood each other’s “slang” but it greatly varied from “American.” It would take a few minutes to convert something said to “the other English.” Even the can of haggis says”wee dram!” We took that to mean “a shot.”

The one that “got us” all and took us a while to translate was when I asked what we should wear when going out to dinner ashore. The answer was “Your glad rags.” None of us knew what they meant. Please convert that to American. How do you say glad rags in American? I dunno, that’s why I’m telling you to do it. “I hear the words and they are in English, but you aren’t making any sense.” Glad rags = dress up to go out (ie… don’t wear a swimsuit).

The guys ordered lobster. This is local BVI lobster… it’s HUGE!

On our way back to the boat, they had to explain that “no naked light” means “no open flame” (this was posted near a propane tank)

While we were at dinner, one of the crew left on vacation and the other two, cleaned our rooms with fresh linens and remade the beds. They even decorated for Robert Burnes night.

I offered to download Burnes poetry from my library app so the captain could read poetry… haha that didn’t happen.

I don’t remember the story behind the Frangelico but it was part of the celebration.

[pics incl] After our visit to The Baths, we visited other coves for snorkeling and moored for the night in Long Bay. I have to say that I’m LOVING snorkeling 😁

Sunset in Long Bay.

We brought some card games with us. After Uno, Jeff taught the group “The Mind.”. It’s a cooperative game where you try to play cards in order from 1-100 without talking. You can only raise your hand to help the group focus. I went to go rest my head after all the swimming/snorkeling and when I got up… “the group” had turned this card game into a drinking game?! Like that’ll help with focus😂

Again, I was up for the gorgeous sunrise! Jeff was up for the coffee 😉

At one point I was lying on the trampoline looking up the mast at the moon. It was actually harder than it sounds to get a photo of the moon, while on a rocking boat, with a flapping sail…. and not throw up!

I drew a circle around it (duplicate photo).

I told him that somewhere in my kitchen I have a similar sign…

I was out snorkeling and they pulled up next to me in the dingy “you wanna go find a shark?!”. Jeff had gone back to the boat and I had no idea he was taking photos. I attempted to get in the dingy unassisted…. that’s as far as I got before my left arm gave out. I might have been able to if I hadn’t already been snorkeling. After they hauled me in, we were off…. to find a shark!

Nope. I never saw a shark. But I had a blast “not finding” it.

The food has been FABULOUS!

Still have a few more days of photos to sort thru…

Enjoy!

[pics incl] To get to The Baths, you have to anchor and take a dingy to where they have it roped off, then swim to shore. To beat the crowds, we did all this, shortly after sunrise. [NOTE: I have no idea if I’m spelling some of these places correctly, if you know otherwise, holler].

At this point in the trip, I had not thought to put my phone in a waterproof bag & swim. All these photos were taken on one of our group member’s phone.

What’s wrong with this picture? As I’m swimming too shore, my watch lit up. YUP, forgot to take that off! I learned that my watch has an “expel water” feature 😂.

The moon seen over The Baths, Virgin Gorda, BVI 01/24/22

The tide is pouring in from the right.

The photos don’t do this scene justice. As the sun came up the water changed colors and the colors were brilliant!

As we were leaving, we passed by this shack and I told them I needed a photo of something called “on the rock”… and I’ll explain later.

This is On The Rock Beach Tique.

During the swim back to the dingy, one of the girls barely brushed her elbow against the swim bouy. It turns out, it had barnacles on it and her arm immediately swelled up and looked like a bite & rash. She had to soak her elbow in vinegar a few times a day for a few days. Up until this point I hadn’t decided whether or not I preferred swimming in the long sleeve shirt I have on. Now I know it’s called “rash guard” for a reason!

enjoy!

[pics incl] We anchored for the night 01/23/22 in Valley Trunk Bay because it’s near The Baths (sp?) on Virgin Gorda that we planned to visit in the morning.

While we were taking these sunset photos a nearby Club Med yacht started raising the sails.

On the 01/24/22 I was up early taking sunrise photos 😉 During breakfast, we motored over to The Baths at Virgin Gorda.

There was a storm in the distance that produced a double rainbow.

enjoy!