Getting to Know Tortola

Envision awaking as chickens walk by your porch, walking for 20 minutes to the grocery store along a busy two lane road on which there are sometimes three cars abreast as you follow a herd of goats that has just smartly, in a single file, mastered their way around the iron grates on the driveways designed to keep them off the main road, flagging down a taxi on dusty roads to get into Road Town for a fee of $3, then having to pay $10 to get the same distance west of Road Town. These are just a few of the things I’ve learned in my first couple of weeks living here. All these things are taken in stride in the BVIs.

My life here has been simple. I dive at 8:00 in the morning, two tanks, helping out where I can in preparation for my upcoming internship. I’m learning the ropes so to speak, but this time is about diving, not sailing, though some of dive shop people do have sailboats. There seems to be a real division of ex-pats and locals. All of the people I’ll be working with are ex-pats. I encounter the locals at the grocery store, the laundry mat, etc. Apparently it’s normal to hitchhike here, but I’ve been using the taxi service.

Hodges Creek is on the east end which is not touristy, though there are some charter companies and another dive shop nearby (but that one doesn’t work with cruise ships). It’s fairly close to the airport, and lots of dive sites. My efficiency apartment is a five minute walk from the dive shop. It’s pretty basic, including large cockroaches which is not my favorite thing, but is standard in tropical locales. The electricity may or may not be on, the water may or may not be hot, the sliding glass door lock is really a stick to jamb it shut, but it has a lot of light since one full wall is windows. Starting in April, I get a roommate, so that will add a new twist to living down here.

I’ve dived the RMS Rhone several times now, but have sought out other sites when offered as I know I’ll be diving the Rhone a lot when I start my internship. A former intern has been my dive buddy for many of these fun dives, so I’ve just followed along, getting lost in all the fish and coral. Guess I really should be working on my navigation, but these are fun dives and the internship hasn’t started yet. I’ve seen scrawled cowfish, queen triggerfish, a baby shark, turtles, eels, schools of squid, and so much more. I must admit I have been spoiled by diving in Wakatobi last fall. The seahorses here are six or eight inches, not six or eight millimeters. No devastating crown of thorns though.