But was that even possible these days in the BVIs?
Jeff, one of our marine biologists, laughed. ‘You’ve gotta admit it, Lori. This is so Ethan!’
So Ethan had become a popular adage with all the scientists onboard for when anyone had a crazy idea. Never crazy to Ethan, of course, who was still enthusiastically strutting his stuff on deck. I roll my eyes as I consider yet another desert island where we can live like castaways.
I know how cynical and ungrateful that sounds, but I’m kind of fed up with shifting sand.
I’m missing solid ground. I’m missing being in one place for a while.
But more than all of that I’m really missing my family.
Chapter 2
At Road Town, Tortola, The Freedom of the Ocean is now safely docked in the harbour and no one has wasted any time getting onto dry land. Ethan has wasted no time either in securing a small boat to take us – just the two of us – on what he describes as a romantic voyage of discovery. So, I’m now standing on a wooden jetty in a very busy part of the marina, with my cell phone firmly clamped to my ear, while I’m trying to reach my family back home.
Ethan is chatting to a very distinguished looking man who is wearing a linen suit and a panama hat. I’m casting my eyes over some incredibly impressive yachts and catamarans in what is known as the boating capital of the Caribbean, and as I can already feel my long wavy hair becoming even crazier in this ridiculous humidity, I’m regretting not bringing along a hat myself. I’m already perspiring profusely in my white cotton shirt and shorts that I’m wearing over my swimsuit. The tops of my flip-flopped feet are being scorched by the hot morning sunshine.
I watch the two men gesticulate over a very sleek looking motor boat. It’s expensive looking with white padded seats and two powerful outboard engines and I can’t help but to wonder why, when I have a full signal on my phone for the first time in absolutely ages, is no one answering my calls? I then realise 10am here is 2pm in London. My boys will be at work and my mum will no doubt still be at her afternoon pensioner’s bingo session.
Then I see Ethan and the distinguished looking man shaking hands and there is a set of keys being handed over. Suddenly he is waving at me with great enthusiasm. ‘Okay, Lori. Let’s go!’
I dash over to untie the mooring rope from the cleat and jump into the boat that Ethan has procured. We set off into the sparkling sunshine and soon made good progress through the stretch of water between the islands that is known as the Sir Frances Drake Channel. As we leave the harbour and the bay, I can clearly see the verdant shapes of the larger islands across the straights from us. In the far distance there is Norman Island, said to be the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island, and Peter Island, with its broad curve of white sand beaches and exclusive high-class hotel resort.
I do know a little about the Virgin Islands from my own days as a travel agent. Many moons ago, while I was also a housewife and mother bringing up two little boys, my ex-husband and I had our own very successful travel business. Only, in those days, I used to plan other people’s adventurous itineraries and could have only dreamed of the life I have now.
The Virgin Islands are split into American and British territories. The largest of the British owned islands is Tortola. The second largest is Anegada - also called Drowned Island - as it’s flat and low lying and often flooded by high tides. Although, I know next to nothing about the smaller islands except that there are lots of them – over fifty – and that’s just in the British Virgin Islands or BVIs as everyone calls them for short.
I point a finger across the straights towards a small islet. ‘I know those are Salt and Cooper and Ginger Island, but do you know what that little round one with no trees on it is called?’
‘Aye. That’s Dead Chest Island.’ Ethan answered. ‘There’s nothing growing on it because there’s no freshwater. It’s where Blackbeard the pirate once abandoned fifteen of his crewmen with one keg of rum and a pistol with one shot between them. I suppose he’d assumed they’d all get drunk and then fight over the pistol to commit suicide.’
‘Couldn’t they have just all swam over to Peter Island instead?’ I asked, thinking it didn’t look too far away.
‘It looks close enough but there are dangerous currents between the islands. The story is that they did all try to swim for it but only one of them made it. That’s why there’s a Dead Man’s Bay on Peter Island.’ He remarked.
I stared over at Dead Chest Island and tried to imagine the horror of being stuck in a place where nowhere actually looked too far away and yet everywhere was impossible to reach.
Ethan then boldly opened the engines and began to heartily sing at the top of his voice.
‘Fifteen men on the Dead Man’s Chest, yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!’
I sat back and enjoyed the warm wind blowing through my hair and took in the dramatic shape of Virgin Gorda, the third largest island in the BVIs off our starboard or right side, looking like a giant woman reclining in the shimmering Caribbean heat.
We are heading towards the outer islands now. I know that some are still uninhabited, but others are now the exclusive hideaways of the rich and famous; rock stars, movie moguls and rich entrepreneurs. I decide to look out for Tom Cruise because I’m sure someone mentioned that he’d recently bought one of these outlying atolls.
Ethan saw me peering ahead with eagerness.
‘We’re heading northwest towards The Dogs,’ he informed me.
‘What kind of dogs are they?’ I asked cautiously, wondering if we’d needed rabies jabs.
Ethan laughed. ‘There are no dogs. It’s a group of islands named so because sailors once thought the barking they could hear came from dogs on the islands.’
‘And, if it wasn’t dogs, what was it?’
‘Caribbean Monk Seals,’ he clarified. ‘Sadly, they’re now extinct.’
He looked gloomy for a little while as he considered this awful loss.
We soon approached a group of five small rocky islets that made up The Dog Islands.
They looked wild and rugged against the calm deep blue of the surrounding sea.
‘Now we’re truly in virgin territory!’ Ethan proclaimed.
He sounded excited as he stood proudly at the helm, inhaling deeply, as if the air around here was purer too. ‘Many years ago, the sailors who came here thought this was the very end of the world, and they imagined the horizon line that you see now was the drop off point. All these islands around here are privately owned. But some are also protected wildlife sanctuaries for creatures that can be found nowhere else in the world. See that island up ahead?’
I peer through my sunshades at the shape of an irregular mound in the distance.
‘That’s Mosquito Island. It’s where I first learned to scuba dive. My instructor, Booty Bill, was known as the last pirate in the Caribbean. He was a real character. There’s so many rumours about him finding shipwrecks and treasure around here. No one ever really knew fact from fiction. When I first came here, at eighteen years old, Booty was like a father to me.’
Ethan sighed happily as he remembered those times.
‘He sounds like an amazing man. Is he still here? I’d love to meet him.’
‘No. He retired to Florida. But now, of course, Richard owns the island.’
‘Are you talking about Richard Branson?’ I gasped.
‘Aye, in 2007, he swiped Mosquito from under my nose for just twenty million.’
Ethan shook his head as if 2007 was just yesterday and twenty million was small change.
‘But I thought Richard Branson owned Necker Island?’
‘Aye, he does. He bought Necker way back in ’79. Although, interestingly, on one very old map of the BVIs it’s shown as ‘Knicker Island’. As you might imagine, Richard, with his sense of humour, thought that was downright hilarious!’
I laughed. ‘Yes, I expect you’d have to be British to appreciate that joke.’
I’m guessing he and Richard Bran
son have an interesting alliance.
‘So, is that why you know this area so well? Because you lived here as a young man?’
‘Aye. I spent a whole summer down here before I started university. I love these islands. I know these waters like I know the back of my own hand. It’s long been an ambition of mine to buy a boat and an island here and make my home in the BVIs. A dream, actually’
‘But I thought Scotland was your home?’ I said in some surprise.
‘Nah. Not really. I’ve gone soft in my old age. Scotland’s too damn cold. I’d rather follow in the footsteps of my fellow Scot, Robert Louis Stephenson, and live in warmer climes.’
And, I suddenly realised, that although I do know certain things about this man – his recent history, his passion for conservation, his determination to save the planet, and how much I love him – there is still so much that I don’t know about him. His childhood in Scotland. His earlier life. How he single-handedly built up the Goldman Global Foundation. And this dream of his.
I suspect Ethan is as deep as these waters all around us and as equally intriguing.
‘And, this island we’re going to see today,’ I said. ‘Do you think this might be your dream?’
He turned from the helm to grin at me. He had such a handsome face in any regard, but when he smiled, Ethan looked movie star handsome and my heart did a little flip.
‘Lori, my love, believe me when I tell you this is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Unfortunately, this island’s not for sale or I’d be snapping it up. It’s held in an ancient trust. One hundred years ago, it was leased to someone who died with a hold over on the lease agreement, so the island was left to inheritors for the remainder of the lease despite them having no plans nor interest in the island. My guess is they forgot all about it until the lease finally expired this year. I got my lawyers straight onto securing it for the next hundred years.’
‘And that’s why no one has lived on it in all that time?’
‘Aye. It’s a rare find. The last private island with an untouched eco-system in the Virgin Islands. That’s just like finding a virgin in a brothel!’ He chuckled at his own joke.
‘So, what you’re actually talking about is another research facility!’ I remarked a little sourly. I couldn’t help it. I loved his enthusiasm. But how could an abandoned island possibly be our permeant home? How could we possibly thrive, never mind survive, out here on a small rock? I imagined the two of us sitting on a deserted island beach together, sun scorched and dehydrated, with nothing more than one bottle of rum between us – like those poor abandoned pirates – and fighting over one gun with one bullet in it with which to end our awful misery.
As we made our approach, to what I could easily understand being thought the very edge of the old world, Ethan’s untouched virgin island rose dreamily from the sea and it was breath-taking to behold. At first glimpse, I see white crested waves crashing into rocky inlets and small sandy coves. But then I spotted a small heart-shaped cove with a tiny curved beach and with swaying palm trees and a labyrinth of boulders forming natural pools and seawater-flooded grottoes. I hear the call of seabirds, egrets, herons, pelicans, frigates, and drag my eyes upward over sheer rugged cliffs to see undulating hills covered in misty jungle, as Ethan steered us straight into the heart-shaped cove, where the shallow waters were teeming with colourful fish.
He puts down the anchor onto a sandy bed. ‘The boat will be safe here. This is the only safe way to approach the island because the lagoon on the other side is protected by a coral reef.’
Then carefully he pulls out an old battered map from a folder he’s brought along, and we stand together on the gently swaying deck to study it carefully. It’s deeply creased and faded with age. It looks exactly like a treasure map with its star shaped compass drawing and little illustrations showing landmarks. In excitement, I spot an outcrop marked ‘Treasure Point’ at the most northerly aspect.
Treasure Point: so called by ye freebooters from the gold and silver supposed to be bury’d thereabouts after the Wreck of a Spanish Galleon.
‘Oh, it’s a real treasure map!’ I gasp. ‘But who are the freebooters?’
Ethan looked amused as he passed me a bottle of cold drinking water from the cooler.
‘I’m guessing any treasure buried here would have been lifted a long time ago by my mate, Booty Bill. Freebooters, hence booty, was a name for pirates in the old days.’
My eyes flitted across the rest of the map. I see the island is long and shaped like a figure eight, or a symbol of infinity, with two distinct volcanic ranges and a narrow middle area.
‘Oh, look, there’s a house here!’ I shake my finger in excitement at an illustration of a dwelling. I immediately imagine us living there overlooking the beach and the lagoon.
‘I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much. I doubt it’s still here. Not after all this time.’
Ethan tapped a finger at the top of the document where it said: Map of Waterfall Cay by Thomas Jeffreys, Surveyor and Geographer to The King. The Virgin Islands, 1775.
‘This island is called Waterfall Cay? How beautiful. But surely it will still have a waterfall?’
My imagination conjured up a romantic scene in which Ethan and I were swimming naked below a tropical waterfall with rainbow coloured mists all around us. Ethan, who might have been imagining the same thing, slung an arm around me and pulled me closer to kiss me slowly on the lips. As we touched, our skin was hot and damp through the light cotton of our shirts.
His lips tasted of sea spray but in a nice way. More mythical merman than dirty pirate.
When he spoke, his voice was low and sexy. ‘Shall we go exploring to find out?’
We left the boat in the little bay and we slipped into thigh-high warm clear waters with soft sand underfoot and waded ashore. Once ashore, we made our way east through the steamy interior and then began a climb through steep and rugged jungle terrain. We stepped carefully along what appeared to be remnants of an ancient trail of flat rocks that must have been laid down and trodden smooth by many feet so many years before us. Pirates, castaways, sailors, explorers, wanderlusters—who knew?
We leapt across narrow rushing streams that cut through our path and in all the places where the path had collapsed. Ethan, being a gentleman, held my hand and guided me as we traipsed along muddy banks and through the deep forest foliage.
We quickened our pace once we heard the thundering sound of a waterfall ahead.
Then we fought our way through a curtain of hanging vines, to emerge breathless and dirty and sweaty, and to find that we were standing inside an open-air grotto filled with cool misty air in which countless shiny reflective green butterflies fluttered in streams of filtered sunshine.
It was breath-takingly beautiful.
Inside this grotto, there was also a large round emerald green pool of water, surrounded by many other smaller round emerald pools, separated and interspersed at differing levels by giant granite boulders. Some of these giant boulders were shiny volcanic black. They were round and flat and smooth from centuries of rising and declining water levels washing over them. Others were white, limestone or marble, and also flat and smooth.
Ethan took my hand again as we leapt from one to another, like we were playing a game of giant checkers, to reach the deep main emerald pool beneath the tall and writhing and thundering white-water stream that fed it from high above.
In the smaller pools, the water was as still and smooth and reflective as a mirror. I peered down at my reflection. I’d like to say that what I saw was the face of a gypsy wanderer. Someone with the heart of an adventurer and the spirit of a mermaid. But what I actually saw was a middle-aged woman with a happy face, sparkling bright eyes, and long and messy and dirty wild hair. I decided I liked what I saw. This was Lori, the world explorer.
Not Lorraine, the ex-housewife from London.
Lori was a happier and more fun person than the anxious always unsure version of herself.
An
d then suddenly the mirror became a window into what lay beneath. Large translucent fish suddenly appeared as if by magic. They’d been completely invisible until the sharp rays of filtered sunlight revealed them. ‘Look—’ I called out to Ethan.
He was suddenly beside me and when our eyes met, my thoughts of love were clearly reflected in his eyes too. Our lips crashed together. Our breath quickened between our hasty kisses as we tugged and pulled at each other’s clothing. Not that there was much in the way of our bare skin. I dipped my fingers into the waistband of his shorts, flipping open the button fastening with one hand and boldly pulling down his zipper with the other and soon they were discarded, flicked away onto a nearby rock. In response, with a practiced dexterity, he lifted my vest top over my head and pulled down my shorts in one swift move. My bikini soon went the same way. Then we were together as one, turning and twirling, in the cool emerald pool.
At one with nature and with each other in what appeared to be a paradise.
Happily, after making love, we lay back in the wonderfully cool rippling water, listening to the rhythmic background of the cascading falls and gazing up at the small patch of blue sky that could be seen high above the walls of tall verdant vines that reflected in the pools of water.
It looked unreal. It was like being wrapped up in swirling northern lights. Like in a dream.
‘This place is magical. This island is incredible. Look at all these butterflies!’ I gasped.
I lifted a hand out of the water, sending tiny droplets of rainbow glazed water into the air.
I splayed my fingers wide apart under the wings of a hovering and shimmering and glimmering green butterfly. To my astonishment it settled itself down onto the tip of my thumb.
‘Oh look. It’s tame. I’ve never seen anything quite like this!’
‘Many years ago, this island was a butterfly sanctuary.’ Ethan told me, as he also lay back relaxing in the water. ‘One of my heroes, Alfred Russel Wallace, who was a 19th Century Scottish biologist and explorer and a direct descendent of William Wallace, discovered a unique species of giant butterfly right here on this little island.’
The Next Adventure Page 2