The Virgin Islands

For many years I have envied the lucky people who are able to escape the gloomy British winter and spend some time in the Caribbean.  This winter I was one of them, and spent two weeks staying on three of the Virgin Islands.  We stayed in AirBnbs and hired a car on each island so were able to get around easily. Actually a car was essential as the islands are mountainous with EXTREMELY steep hills, numerous hairpin bends, and narrow tracks in places.  On one hairpin bend it was so steep that each time we drove down and around it, one of the wheels was in mid-air for a few feet!   Here are some of my favourite photos.

I never tire of seeing this colour water.

St. Thomas is the island that we flew into, (taking ferries and a sea plane in between the others) and the main town has characterful buildings set just one street back from the water.  It’s not a big area and the back and side streets can be wandered around in a couple of hours at most.

Many people visit the Virgin Islands by boat, and we saw hundreds of mostly catamarans anchored just offshore.

I like taking ‘clean’ images with a lot of negative space around one smaller feature, as shown in the couple of photos below.

Many large cruise ships dock each day, and colourful open sided taxi/busses take tourists around the islands.  They were always packed full of people and we were very glad we had a car, especially so that could go exactly where we wanted, and stop for as long or as little as we wanted.

One day we came across a tiny village that looked as if we’d been transported to Barbieland !

Just look at the colour of that sky!  My favourite, and I find it so uplifting.

Below is the view from our second Air Bnb.

Whilst on Tortola, which is in the British V.Is, we took a day trip to Virgin Gorda, specifically to visit a place named ‘The Baths’.  It’s an area with giant boulders, some of which have shallow, still, protected water which you can just wallow in.

Our fourth and final island was St. Croix, which was just as colourful as the others but less touristy. Below is the outside of our Air Bnb and we had the most fantastic host who picked us up from the ferry and took us to the airport to collect our hire car, waited (ages) to ensure that we had a car, showed us the way to a supermarket, and took us back from the airport to the ferry when we dropped the car off at the end of our stay.   Thanks so much Misty!

By coincidence our host is a professional photographer and as I kept seeing great light and backgrounds in the main town, I offered to do a portrait shoot for her as thanks for all her help whilst there.  I found that I hadn’t lost my touch since retirement from portrait photography, really enjoyed doing it, and despite always being behind the camera instead of being in front of it, Misty was a great model!

The largest town on St. Croix is Christiansted and that’s where we were based.  Again, it’s not very big and we could walk from our place down into the main area, taking advantage of the shade in the covered walkways.

One day I was photographing a yellow and red wall with a white doorway when a man in a yellow t-shirt and bright trousers walked past.  I asked him if he would pose for me and he happily obliged, giving me a great smile.

Many of the locals were happy to be photographed if asked nicely.

This local resident was very obliging too.

Below is the ‘busy’ waterfront.

 

One day we hiked up a hill to photograph the lighthouse that we’d seen on a map. It wasn’t quite what we expected !!  Let’s just say that it had ‘character’.

Below – the aliens have landed?

Below are The Guardians, otherwise known as Moko Jumbies.  A moko jumbie is a stilts walker or dancer. “Moko” means healer in Central Africa and “jumbi”, a West Indian term for a ghost or spirit that may have been derived from the Kongo language word zumbi. The Moko Jumbies are thought to originate from West African tradition brought to the Caribbean.

I have a ‘thing’ about photographing doors, windows, shutters and staircases.  I couldn’t resist the newly renovated wall below with beautiful stonework and left the bright red cone where it was as I thought it added something to the photo.

Yep – more shutters and some colourful barrels outside a bar, but I won’t bore you with the many hundreds of others that I have!

Some of the many beaches that we found. Some were more suitable for swimming than others!

A beautiful lunch spot one day.   Each day we found somewhere new to eat, and the criteria was always that it had to have a sea view.

The beach below was tiny but we had it all to ourselves.

Finally – I was delighted to see a sign with my mantra. (Although a visit to the Virgin Islands is not out of my comfort zone at all. )

The Virgin Islands didn’t disappoint and it was wonderful to be able to have some sunshine, blue skies and heat at the end of January/beginning of February.  I consider myself very fortunate 🙂