The Virgin Islands

No area in the world offers tropical sights as grand as those of the Virgin Islands, with some hundred islands and cays sprinkled over an area 40 miles long and 10 miles wide in the northeast corn of the Caribbean Sea.

The western third of this patchwork of islands belongs to the United States, the remainder is under British rule.  The islands are rugged, mountainous, and rise sharply from the sea.  The climate is relatively dry and the land boasts few towering trees and even fewer cascading streams.   Much of the beauty of this region is found in the islands' outlines -- in the many peak, ridges and cliffs contrasted against clear blue skies and skidding white clouds buffeted by the warm tradewinds; and in the shorelines of small bays and hidden covers as they meet the clear turquoise waters. 

When Columbus first saw these islands on his second voyage to the New World he called them Las Once Mil Virgenes, named for the 11,000 virgin companions of St. Ursula, martyred in the fourth century.  Since their discovery, rule over these islands has been traded between the Spanish, British, Dutch, French, Knights of Malta, Danish, and the U.S.  Reminders of this varied and occasionally tumultuous past still exist, and lend to the unique and fascinating culture of each island.

        The U.S. Virgin Islands

Formerly the haven for some of history's most famous sea marauders, the U.S. Virgin Islands are now acclaimed by the tourist who arrive in the thousands each day.  The major islands -- St. Thomas, St. Croix,  and St. John -- are part of the archipelago know as the Lesser Antilles, and more or less mark the spot where the Atlantic Ocean ends and the calmer and more tranquil Caribbean Sea begins.  St. Thomas is less than 30 minuets by air east of Puerto Rico, and the islands are about 1,100 miles southeast of Miami. 

St. Thomas

St. Thomas was the first Danish settlement in the Caribbean, established in the mid 1600's, with its primary harbor and town named for Queen Charlotte Amalie of Denmark.  Charlotte Amalie Harbor was and remains the most prosperous harbor in the West Indies, due to its free trade status.  The Danes managed to stay neutral during the European wars of the 17th and 18th centuries, thereby providing a safe harbor for all the nations to utilize on their way to and from Europe.  That free trade status has remained even through the island's transfer to the United States in 1917. 

The harbor is nearly always filled with the cruise ships and private yachts that sail these waters year  'round/  Ashore you can see the many resort hotels that host the hundreds of thousands of travelers who visit St. Thomas each year.  One of these resorts, on the point just outside the harbor, is Frenchman's Reef Resort, complete with restaurants and activities -- even its own Heliport.  Near Frenchman's Reef are the remains of another rest hotel, one that didn't survive Hurricane Hugo and has not been rebuilt.  Still; extreme weather such as Hugo is uncommon here--  instead sun, sand, warm tradewinds and magnificent sights combine to create the perfect tropical getaway for travelers the world over. 

The island of St. Thomas encompasses 32 square miles, and the official census puts its population at 73,000.   However, if all the "down island" people from Dominica, St. Lucia, and St. Kitts are included, the population is estimated to be more than 90,000.

Buck Island

Just south of St. Thomas is a small island called Buck Island.  This is just one of the many so named islands through out the Caribbean.  Typically these small islands, just offshore of the major plantation islands, were used as depositories for the more rebellious slaves-- often younger males--- thus the name "Buck" Island. 

Private Tropical Idylls

The Virgin Islands include a number of exclusive "private " islands--- owned by individuals of corporations and answering only to the wishes of their owners.   These islands are often a tropical getaway for the wealthy or the corporate retreat of a chosen few.  One such island is Little St. James, purchased by a gentleman for his wife for $4.5 million.  A $2 million European villa was built for her on the northern tip of the island.  No expense was spared-- with the large courtyards and building constructed from hand-cut sandstone.

Another private island, at the far end of the British Virgin Island chain, is Necker Island.   Owned by Richard Branson, who also owns Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Records, the island was purchased for about $400,000.  Originally the island boasted nothing but scraggly trees and desert-like land, but a few million dollars later now exists as one of the worlds more exclusive resorts.  Rate are around $9,000 per day, and notable visitors include Princess Diana, Mel Gibson, Madonna, and a variety of rock stars, actors, and heads of state.

Also of note is the private island known as Peter Island, owned almost entirely by the Amway Corporation.  Peter Island and the resort on it are used as an incentive or "prize" for some of the corporations most successful salespeople.

St. Croix

On a clear day, looking to the south of St. Thomas you can see St. Croix, the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands.  Although St. Croix was one of the landing spots Columbus visited on his second voyage to the New World, it quickly was abandoned.  The band of cannibalistic natives known as "Caribs"  who inhabited the island were there to attack Columbus' landing part as they arrived at St. Croix's Salt River on November 14, 1493.  The explorers pulled up anchor and set sail, leaving St. Croix and heading of to explore the other islands that now make up the Virgin Islands chain.  With St. Thomas as their anchorage, Columbus' group of explorers continued on, later in the voyage discovering the island of Puerto Rico.

If visibility is poor, you can note the location of St. Croix the same way ancient mariners and today's wandering sailors do -- look for a cloud of information on the horizon to the south, caused by warm, moist air rising above the land mass of the island.

St. John

St. John Island is the site of the earliest settlements in the Virgins Islands.  archeological digs in the area of Cruz Bay have yielded artifacts that date back to 400 a.d., remnants of a tribe called the Arawaks, who migrated from the coastal areas of South America.  For more than 500 years the Arawaks subsisted on farming and fishing, although they were eventually driven off by the warlike Caribs who slaughtered--- and ate--- their enemies.  The word "cannibal" is derived from the Carib Indians, and the Caribbean Sea is named for them. 

St. John Island is 80% national parklands-- nearly 15,000 acres of untouched, undeveloped  land.  this huge reserve was started with a 5,000 acre donation of land by American financier and philanthropist Laurence Rockefeller.  Another 5,000 acres were added to that by private land owners on St. John, and the U.S. government complete the national park  with the designation of 5,000 underwater acre.  the underwater portion of the designation included miles of coral reef, teeming with a cast array of sea life.  This makes Virgin Islands National Park home to more species of wildlife than Yellowstone.

But St. John wasn't always so well preserved.  Scattered along the shoreline and throughout  the park are ruins of early plantations that thrived here.  St. John offered better land for cultivation-- more flat areas and fewer rocky out croppings-- which made it more attractive for farming to the Danish who settled the island.

The good climate and hospitable landscape for sugar growing on St. John didn't go unnoticed, and the British attempted several times to take the island for their own.  Fighting raged on for years, however the Danes eventually won out.  By 1700, St. John had gown into one of the most successful sugar plantation islands, with 160 sugar plantations thriving here.

St. John also was the site of one of the first and the bloodiest slave revolts in the islands.  The fort at Coral Bay was built in the early 1700's and was the primary Danish  settlement on the island.  Although the plantations thrived here, that success came at the expense of several thousand African slaves.  In 1733, several slaves began a revolt that resulted in the deaths or banishment from the island of all the plantation owners and, most notably resulted in the slaves gaining control of the island for six months.  This revolt also touched off slave rebellions on the other major  plantation islands eventually bringing about the abolition of slavery in the islands by the mid 1800's.

The British Virgin Islands

Just over 50 islands comprise the British Virgin Islands archipelago.  Tortola, at about ten square miles, is the largest, and Virgin Gorda, with eight square miles ranks second.  Scattered around are the islands of Jost Van Dyke, Norman, Peter, Salt, Dead Chest, Anegada, and others.

Norman Island

While the history of the Virgin Islands is colorful with stories of exploration, warring and slavery, none is more colorful and interesting than the tales of the pirates who roamed these waters.  Norman Island, one of the first islands at the British end of this island chain, has a spirited pirate history.

Robert Lewis Stevenson used Norman Island as his inspiration for the novel Treasure Island, and Norman Island is often referred to as "Treasure Island" by those who live in or visit the British Virgin Islands.  There are numerous caves and harbors on Norman Island and snorkelers flock to the caves for spectacular sights.  Over the years the caves of Norman Island also have been rumored to house "buried" pirate treasure.   One legend has it that local fisherman who took refuge from a storm in the island's largest cave found treasure, returning to his village  to become a wealthy merchant. 

Sir Francis Drake Channel, between Norman island and Tortola, was a shipping route for vessels loaded with valuable cargo from the New World, Mexico and South America.  This also made Sir Francis Drake Channel a key location for pirate activity.  Extending from St. John east to Virgin Gorda, this channel was protected from the rougher open waters of the Caribbean, but the pirates did their best to liven things up. 

Peter Island

Great Harbor on Peter Island was a favorite anchorage for pirates.  The small finger of land extending out to the north offered protection from prevailing winds, and provided higher ground from which the pirates could spot ships.  The pirates could then dart out from behind this finger of land and surprise their quarry as they moved along the channel.

Dead Chest Island

Dead Chest Island boasts one of the most colorful pirate legends of the region.  Back in the 1700's the notorious pirate Edward Teach-- also known as Blackbeard-- terrorized the ships sailing to and from Europe with cargoes from the New World.  Legend has it that after a successful raid on a Spanish galleon, arguing ensued about the division of the spoils.  Blackbeard settled the matter by marooning 15 of his men on Dead Chest Island with their sea chests and several cases of rum.  When he returned as a later date, all Blackbeard found were the skeletons of the men, empty rum bottles and the treasure as he had left it--- leaving more for everyone else.  Perhaps from this incident comes the old pirate refrain:

"Fifteen men and a dead

man's chest

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum.

Drink and the devil have done the rest,

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum."

Salt Island

Pirates weren't the only thing mariners had to worry about back in the early days of exploration-- if the high seas bandits didn't get them, the weather often did.  It was a perilous business.  Salt Island is the site of one of the most famous shipwrecks of the region, the mail steamer the HMS Rhone, which carried cargo and mail between South America and England.  Still quite visible beneath the water off the south end of the island, marker buoys in the water indicate the resting place of this ship, which sunk during a hurricane in 1867.  Although anchored at the time the hurricane hit, the mail ship accidentally lost its anchor as the eye of the storm passed over.  When the winds picked back up the ship was dashed against the rocks and sunk in about 50 feet of water.  All hands were lost, except one man who made it ashore to recount the harrowing tale.  The Rhone is  a popular dive site, made famous by the movie "The Deep."

Salt island also is just one example of the colorful-- and sometimes very literal-- names used throughout the Virgin Islands.  Salt island was just that-- an island notable for its brackish ponds that yielded salt, an important preservative in the days before refrigeration.  The few inhabitants of  the island still collect the salt from the ponds for sale as an ingredient in "British Virgin Island's Caribbean Seasoning."

Other colorful, literal, or otherwise unusual names used in the islands include Round Rock Island, which is so named for obvious reasons, and two very scenic islands-- Fallen Jerusalem and Virgin Gorda. 

Fallen Jerusalem

Fallen Jerusalem was named for the boulders strewn about the island.  A hundred years or so ago, a British naval surgeon who saw the island from a ship thought these huge boulders looked like the remains of a city after a battle.  He called it "Fallen City," which later was transformed to Fallen Jerusalem.

A Hot Start

Between St. Thomas and St. John is Pillsbury Sound, thought to be the location of a large volcano that had a massive explosive eruption tens of millions of years ago.  The entire Virgin Island chain was created this way, by volcanoes that surfaced around 120 million years ago, just as the dinosaurs were becoming extinct.  Over the next 60 million years successive eruptions and lava flows built up the islands, as well as creating the underwater shelf that runs from Puerto Rico and down along the Virgin Island chain.  Just over the shelf to the north 30 miles lies the Puerto Rican Trench.  At 30,000 feet deep it is the second only to the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean. 

Virgin Gorda

Once the capital of the British Virgin Islands, Virgin Gorda is the second largest island in the BVI chain.   With a population of 1,500, goats on Virgin Gorda outnumber the human inhabitants. 

The haunting ruins of a copper mine on Virgin Gorda's east coast serves as evidence of the Spaniards' aborted search for the yellow ore in the BVI's.  Settled by the Spanish in 1555, they worked the copper mine for nearly 50 years.  The British continued operation of the mine for another 27 years, and it is estimated that more than 10,000 tons of copper ore were mined.     The ruins of the smelter are still visible along the rocks at the mine site, and the green streaks in the rock formations of the island indicate existing copper deposits. 

The tumbled boulders strew about the beach at "the Baths" have mystified geologists and enchanted visitors for centuries.  Named for the geological term "batholiths," these huge granite boulders extend into the water and have created trails and excellent snorkeling pools.

Anegada

This low lying, coral and limestone atoll is aptly named , as Anegada translates to "Sunken Land."  Unlike the rest of the Virgin Island chain, Anegada is formed from coral rather than through volcanic action.  At its highest point, its landmass reaches a height of only 28 feet; Anegada hardly appears on the horizon when sailing to it, which is why it has been so notoriously dangerous to sailing craft. 

The most northerly and most isolated of the British Virgin Islands, Anegada has more than 500 submerged wrecks lying off of Horseshoe Reef.  Many Anegada's 250 inhabitants have looked unsuccessfully for the legendary hidden treasure on sunken ship such as the Parmatta, which as rested on the sea bottom for more than a century.

Tortola

The largest of the British Virgin Islands at 15 miles long and 3 miles wide, Tortola also boasts the highest peak in the island chain-- Mt. Sage rises 1,726 feet to its lush, rain-forest pinnacle.  Originally settled by Quakers in 1726, the population of Tortola is now more than 9,000, with Road Town, its largest town and also capital of the BVI's.

Soper's Hole, on the west end of the island, was a popular  base of operations for pirates and today is just as popular with less dangerous sailors.  One pirate who called at Soper's Hole was Gustav Wilmerding, one of the most feared and successful pirates of his day.  Wilmerding was known for bringing a musical band in to battle with him, but rather than beating drums and blasting bugles Wilmerding's men rang bells-- earning the pirate the moniker, "Ding Dong Wilmerding."

Jost Van Dyke

Named after a Dutch pirate, Jost Van Dyke is accessible only by boat and so remain for the most part unseen by tourists.  One of Jost Van Dyke's most famous early resident was Dr. John Lettsome, founder of the London Medical Society; also known as the doctor who "bleeds and sweats 'em," as was sometimes customary in his day and age.

About 200 people call Jost Van Dyke home, and the island is known by charter yacht sailors for its relaxed and friendly atmosphere.  East of the island is a coral islet called Sandy Cay, which has some of the most beautiful Elkhorn coral reefs in the Caribbean., also, the home of Foxy's Beach Bar and white Bay, Playground for the rich and famous.

A Fearsome Sight

Throughout the Centuries the Virgin Islands have been the destination to a variety of travelers, due in part to the wealth of riches traveling through the area by ship.  The region quickly became a center of legitimate trade for the West Indies, as well as a rendezvous for the buccaneers and pirates supplied their trade in these safe waters. 

One of the most well-known-- feared-- was Edward Teach, better known as "Blackbeard."  He was a massive man, noted for his boldness, fiendish, appearance, and ruthless ways.  His notorious long black beard was thickly matter with blood and food, and sometimes braided with brightly colored ribbons.  Slow burned cords were often tucked under his chin and wreathed his head with a demon smoke.  Together with his fierce wild eyes , the beard, and smoke combine to make him "such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of the fury from hell to look more frightful.