15th
Dramatic Escape to Paradise On A Boat, Part 5: Jost Van Dyke, BVIs
Legend has it Jost is named after a 17th century Dutch privateer, though apparently there is not much actual “evidence” to support this history. Currently the island is practically uninhabited, with a mere 250 residents; to all of us Manhattanites it is essentially a desert island. Desert or not, it is still under British rule, and we must go check in at customs before we can legally spend a dime on Painkillers at the Soggy Dollar bar (so-named because at some point in the not-so-distant past, sailors would swim up to the bar from their ships, so their money would be damp). Breakfast is finished, and we’ve taken our morning dip in the clear warm water, dodging equal numbers of sea turtles and snorkelers. Time to go ashore.
Climbing in and out of a dinghy buoyed by waves is a bit more challenging than the graceful gazelle-like leap one can do when the boat is docked in port. Fortunately we are all seasoned salty dogs, and we arrive at shore barely dampened by the waves crashing around our little tender. To get to the street, we walk through the Stress-Free Bar, which is entirely decorated with giant conch shells and shell fragments, and already has some decidedly un-stressed looking patrons lounging in hammocks along the beach. A taxi pulls up soon- a large painted jalopy with open sides- and we drive over hill to Great Harbor. The driver, a laconic man with a lazy eye, takes the hairpin turns at about 1 mph, a nice change from the crazed Frenchmen of St. Bart’s who viewed each taxi-trip as their own personal Formula One.
He drops us at customs, which doubles as the police station and, we suspect, the center of government for the entire island. No one is there, and a frustrated tourist ahead of us informs us brusquely that she’s heard they wont be back for an hour. She could use a Painkiller at the Stress-Free bar, I think idly to myself, as we wander down the street to Foxy’s, a bar owned by the eponymous Foxy, which Alex informs us, is THE place to go on Jost. We’re on the main drag of the island. We pass a grocery store and three or four bars on our left, and to our right there are palm trees and a beach, where a smattering of naked island children play in the surf. Chickens and dogs meander around, seemingly too hot to move very fast or bark. It is the most relaxing place I’ve ever been.
Foxy’s is practically empty, with only a few tables of lunch customers scattered about. Memoirs of good-times past are everywhere; past revelers have stapled t-shirts, hats, business cards, pennants, and ladies’ underthings to the columns and ceiling (there is only one wall to speak of). Every object bears multiple signatures and a date- the earliest one I see is from the mid-nineties. At the bar, Alex encourages everyone to order a Painkiller. This is not a group that takes direction well however, and only Claire follows his lead, while S. orders a Mojito and I scan the menu, overthinking my selection. Suddenly my eye falls on the best drink ever- which I am familiar with from Cyril’s in Amagansett- the legendary BBC! I am overwhelmed with excitement and start jumping up and down and clapping my hands as I order it. This attracts undue attention. A man I’d previously not noticed, sitting at the bar next to us, zeros in on me. Are you from Tennessee? he asks. A perplexed moment later I realize he’s talking about my straw cowboy hat. No….NYC I say. This further encourages him, as being a big-city type I am apparently a good-time girl. I like your dress, he volunteers, though you would look better without it! Alex puts his arm protectively around Claire, and I edge behind S., politely mumbling “thanks…” into my new BBC. It is awfully early in the day for such forward advances, though one has to give him points for enthusiasm. My BBC (Banana Baileys Colada, with delicious dark rum) is the BEST DRINK EVER, and unlike Cyril’s, Foxy’s brilliantly tops their BBCs with fresh-ground nutmeg. I am going to start topping EVERYTHING with fresh-ground nutmeg - it is the awesome.
Drinks finished, we check in at customs, and find a taxi back to White Bay (which we’ve re-named as White Boy, laughing at our own uncoolness amongst the laid-back islanders). Back at the Stress-Free Bar we discuss where to find lunch. Claire is pulling for the Soggy Dollar, as the name is just so compelling. Suddenly a dreadlocked actual (though very tanned) white boy emerges out of the palm trees behind us. You want to go to One Love he says, its right next door. Surprised, we thank him and head down the beach. One Love is not actually next door (island geography is a little vague), but we find it about fifty yards down the beach. It is a lively scene, already populated with tourists and doing a bustling lunch trade to the strains of the first of many Bob Marley cover bands we will hear that day. As we sit and order it dawns on us where our fellow patrons hail from, as the band leader changes every song to incorporate the words Puerto Rico, which engenders loud cheers from the small crowd on the dance floor. The Puerto Ricans are feeling no pain, and we laugh approvingly at the show as bikini-clad girls and their companions gyrate on the stage; a flashback to our lunch at Nikki Beach. There are a lot of lower-back tattoos on men and women alike, and swimwear ranges from the small to the microscopic. I enjoy the best shrimp-wrap ever, filled with mango salsa and fresh seafood, and we repair to the Soggy Dollar for some after-lunch cocktails. By this time White (boy) Bay is filled with day-trippers, who have rafted up their stinkpots in the harbor, and are now all standing in the surf drinking out of plastic cups, stumbling up to the bar for refills at regular intervals. I speculate about how great a percentage of the water is now actually pee at this point, and then the heat overcomes me and I go swimming. Fortified by rum, Caribs, and lunch, we return to the boat for pre-dinner naps.
Dinner that night is at Foxy’s, where they serve barbeque every Saturday night. We feast on ribs that fall off the bone, and enjoy more rum drinks and Caribs. The crowd is older than the St. Bart’s bright young things, and amusingly, the 50-something crowd seems far more inebriated than the smattering of college kids covertly smoking joints. We identify our friend from our pre-customs drink as hired local dance talent, who’s job seems to be entirely composed of dancing with a pole with a rope attached to it, which he treats as though it is a woman. He caresses the pole, and sings to it, twirling the end of the rope over his head. He alternates this pole-move with a series of acrobatics involving drinking a Heikenen from a deep back-bend without using his hands. Everyone stares at him transfixed. A hubbub arises on the other side of us as about 30 tourists, most of them wearing keffiyehs around their necks, arrive on the scene. They immediately splinter into two groups, as the women head for the dance floor and the men attempt to hang an Italian flag between two columns. This latter task proves to be almost impossible, and takes over an hour to complete. One man stands on a chair attaching the ends of the flag in various ways, while seven or eight of his compatriots stand around below him shouting instructions. They break two out of three staple guns provided by management. At one point the flag is tied in a knot around one column, with other end trailing flaccidly. Once they get one end stapled the other one is invariably at the wrong height or comes unattached somehow. Between this and the pole-dancing man and the Caribs, our little group is soon weeping and helpless with laughter. There is so much to see wherever we look. The elder statesman of the Italian group, Papa Scarf, drifts over to join the women on the dance floor. He is fantastically drunk, and seems confused about where he is. At one point he collides with the pole-dancing man, and an expression of sheer panic crosses his face. It’s all too much. Our stomachs hurt from barbeque and too much laughter and we stagger into the street to hail a taxi home.
Our driver is drinking a powerful rum drink, and as we slowly weave over the hill to White Bay we pass an energetic group of athletic, aged Germans, hiking over the hill single file. They arrive back at the harbor at the same time as we do, and we soon realize that they are the inhabitants of a large Catamaran anchored next to us. It has a large glass window in the main cabin, and as the septuagenarian Germans arrive home for the night they all strip off most of their clothes and mill about the cabin. Oh great, says S., now we have to watch a bunch of 80-year olds screw. We fall over each other scrambling to get below deck as quickly as possible, and sleep soundly until the next morning, which is appropriately, Easter Sunday.
