Swimming Baths with a difference

One of Virgin Gorda's touristic highlights is a national park called "The Baths" on the northern coast. Here, granite boulders form massive caves and caverns at the water's edge. A marked trail guides you through towards Devil's Bay. The boulders continue out to sea and so take enough energy from the swell to leave clear and calm seawater pools to swim in.

Pool in a grotto at The Caves, Virgin Gorda

The children thought this was fantastic, and we spent an entire day here playing in the water and scrambling over rocks. James commented on how one formation would be fantastic for bouldering, and then spotted a bolted route running up the layback. Best of all, Matthew discovered how to swim without any flotation aids, and really enjoyed it.

Devil's Bay National Park, Virgin Gorda

Virgin Gorda appears to have a more diverse avifauna than many of the islands we have so far visited. An early morning run took in red-necked pigeon, smooth billed ani, thrashers, kingbirds, doves, turnstones, sandpipers, kildeer, grassquits, bananaquits, finches and, of course, the hoards of feral chickens. I'm getting tempted to slip one in a rucksack as they can't be any harder to prepare than Conington pheasant (no shot in chickens) and I'm sure nobody would miss a few.

Finally, we seem to have entered a regatta..... We had to do something whilst we wait for our replacement ensign to be sewn and couriered out here.