New Magic In An Ancient Sea

Virgin Gorda, our destination, was easy: gorda means fat in Spanish, and the peak to the north made it a very obese island indeed. Carval was a rock which someone long ago probably thought resembled a ship—15th or 16th century nomenclature. Salt Island had a central pond, perhaps where seawater entered to evaporate. Cooper and Ginger were hard to guess, but as we neared Fallen Jerusalem the derivation was apparent. Some strange freak of nature had created huge squarish boulders and rock pinnacles and then tossed them around to look like a ruined city.

A similar formation rises dramatically at the southern end of Virgin Gorda. Enormous rocks, smoothly rounded as though by glacial action, were heaped on one corner of the curving beach. A triangular gap led to an inner cave, somewhat like the Blue Grotto at Capri except that the water was pale green over the hard sand bottom. These were the Baths, frequented by generations of sailors, and so labeled on British admiralty charts.

At the opposite end of Virgin Gorda lay Gorda Sound, almost land-encircled, fairly deep in the center, with clear water and scattered ledges in the shallows near shore. Claude, our cook from the French island of St. Barthélemy, promised good spear-fishing. He also promised with the proceeds of the day's sport to concoct for us a luscious fish stew—"a kind of bouillabaisse we eats here."

In the water, with face mask and snorkel, it was clear that Claude was making no idle promises. But despite the appeal to the gourmet side of my nature, the hunter was stilled as I looked around me. Nothing in nature quite compares to a tropic reef. For a long while I hung with a curious weightlessness, occasionally kicking down, noting how the sand was ridged into tiny hills and valleys by the action of the sea, and the strange semaphore of sea urchins tucked in rock crevices. Then a margate fish just right for the pot moved slowly over a" bright patch of open bottom, and my thoughts changed. I dived and missed. As I floated on the surface, reloading, a grouper swam from one coral head to another, going into a tiny cavern. I went down. Nothing. A fish can put on a better disappearing act than any Houdini. But on the third dive a handspan of mottled brownish skin showed for an instant. One for the pot. Add a crawfish whose feelers had poked from under the bottom coral ledge as I stalked the grouper. Enough—especially as I saw that Claude was towing a string of smaller fry.

Back on Barnabus, sitting in the cockpit admiring the sunset through the liquid amber filter of another of the products of St. Croix, I watched Claude fashion his West Indian bouillabaisse. It was a dish worth recording: Brown 2 sliced onions and 3 diced garlic cloves in 1 tablespoon butter and 1 tablespoon cooking oil; add½ small can tomato sauce, a "touch" of curry powder, salt and pepper, and about 3 pounds of fish—including the heads—scaled and cleaned but unboned, cut in chunks. Pour in hot water to cover and squeeze in the juice of 2 limes. Cook covered until the flesh of the fish begins to flake from the bones. Lift out the fish onto warm plates and pour the liquid from the pot into separate bowls. The broth is served as a first course, although I recommend saving some to moisten the rice which accompanies the fish; it is rich, dark reddish-brown in color and very savory. The fish will be moist and perfect. A superb combination with a salad on the side, especially eaten in the cockpit under the stars after a day of sailing and swimming.

Gorda Sound was my planned turning point, as it is for most cruising the Virgins. Beyond lay only Anegada, a lonely flat island surrounded by a maze of coral reefs which look like barbed wire entanglements on a chart. Now Barnabus would be scudding off before the trade wind, the happiest time of tropic sailing.

Leaving to port a group of rocks with the lovely names of Seal Dog, George Dog, Great Dog and West Dog, Barnabus rolled gently along outside Great Camanoe to round the west end of Guana Island. Still guarding the approach to the harbor was the rock formation from which the island takes its name, looking exactly like the outthrust head of a giant lizard. It had been 10 years since I last dropped anchor in the inner cove, facing a beach of blindingly white sand. High above on the saddle of the hill was the manor house, built on the foundations of a Quaker plantation of two centuries ago; to the north it commanded a view of open blue ocean; to the south the pale blue and green water of the harbor, with Tortola beyond.

Guana Island is a club, operated by Louis and Beth Bigelow, which may be entered on introduction by a member, but it is only one of a number of places where visitors may get away from it all for days or weeks on an outer island. Some of these same guesthouses are happy to have visiting yachtsmen come ashore for drinks or a meal to vary the shipboard routine. While the Virgin Islands is a place where privacy still exists and miles of deserted beaches and uninhabited coves remain, during the past few years escapees from colder climes have found here their own ideal place to live, and many have provided guest facilities to supplement income.

That same evening in Trellis Bay on Beef Island I found an example of amenities which now exist for visitors, unknown a decade ago when I sailed through the same waters in Carib. As Barnabus crept into the completely protected harbor an outboard-powered runabout left shore to indicate a mooring which we could use. Behind the dock was a boatyard complete with marine railway, and along the curve of the beach a row of cottages for rent. On a tiny cay in the center stood a pleasant small hotel with outdoor bar and dining room.

From Trellis Bay there was a choice of sailing eastward along the Atlantic Ocean side of Tortola, passing inside Jost Van Dyke and cutting into Pillsbury Sound through the Windward Passage; or beating the short distance around the windward tip of Beef Island to run Sir Francis Drake Channel. Unhesitatingly I chose the latter. There is much ocean in the world, looking pretty much alike, but nothing to compare with Drake's Channel.