Junebug's Visit - Day Three

Day three was Saturday, and we were up early once again to catch a boat - this time it was a catamaran owned by our friend Joe. The Man bartered a cat trip for a website with Joe, so we called up eleven of our closest and all met up on the dock in Red Hook around 8:30am. Our destination? Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands (passport required).

Some background on Jost - pronounced Yohst - via Wikipedia (I'm just getting familiar with this island myself...): A few hundred people live on Jost Van Dyke. The island is accessible by private boats and ferry service from Tortola and Saint Thomas (via Saint John). The most frequent mooring destination is Great Harbour. The popular Foxy's Bar and the other bars in Great Harbour now host a modest crowd year-round and are filled with thousands of partiers on New Year's Eve (locally known as "Old Year's Night"). Located in nearby White Bay is the Soggy Dollar Bar, another famous beach bar on the island. The Soggy Dollar is reputedly the birthplace of the popular drink known as the Painkiller. The Soggy Dollar bar is appropriately named because of the difficulty of navigating one's boat over the coral reef to reach the beach where the bar is located. It is a common practice for boaters to anchor beyond the reef, swim to the beach, and pay for their drinks with wet money.

This was our second trip to Jost and JB's first. I was excited because we were going to Foxy's, a first for the Man and I. Foxy's is the destination of the infamous New Year's party; one of the biggest New Year's parties in the world. Needless to say we're dying to ring in a New Years there.

Anyways, with our passports in hand we all boarded our bud's boat and set sail. Here's a shot of JB and our bud T on the front of the cat as we left American Yacht Harbor in Red Hook (the same place the car ferry to St. John leaves):



The trip over there took a little over an hour, having had breakfast before we set sail we all started boozing pretty much as soon as we got on the boat. Joe was opting to sail over vs. motor over, so we enjoyed conversation and the view on the way. Here's a shot of our buds D&D taking a pic of me taking a pic of them (she and I waitress together):



Here's a shot of JB and I on the boat (I'm covering up her Lakers hat, don't ask me why I'm being a brat, I don't even follow basketball!):



Here's a shot of Jost as we sailed in. Joe moored and we took a couple of dingy trips to get on the island:



We snapped this while Joe's mate took our passports in to clear us:



A shot of the ferry schedule (in case you're in the area):



After being cleared we picked our bags up and trudged across the soft sand into Foxy's for lunch. Foxy's, which sits right on the beach, is a huge open-sided pavilion with tables and chairs everywhere. The bar area is way in the back, and around the corner from the bar are the restrooms. Here's a shot from the back of the restaurant (the bar's on the left):

The bar menu:

And another shot from in front of the bar:



As you can see the ceiling is COVERED in t-shirts, hats, flip flops - all bearing signatures and comments from past-partiers. I wasn't prepared to nail anything up, but I can promise you when I return I will be securing some sort of Pats/Sox/Boston wear onto that ceiling. If I can find a Yankees shirt to cover up that would be a bonus ;)

We hung at Foxy's for lunch and drinks, we were probably there a little over an hour. It's a cool place, and I can only imagine how it must look on New Year's. I wish I could tell you what I had for lunch; I do know I had a couple of Painkillers with my meal. Here's a shot of myself, JB, our friend Leslie (above me) and Joe's girlfriend Ashley (in the middle). Ashley was our wedding photographer:


After lunch a few of us went into a little shop just outside the restaurant to grab some t-shirts, and then it was back on the boat to sail around to Soggy Dollar beach.

As we hadn't been in the water yet just after I snapped this pic of Soggy Dollar I put my Heineken down (way to mix the booze NJaney!) and jumped off of the boat into that luscious ocean water:



I think I swam to the beach with a couple of other people while the Man took my beach bag and camera over on the dingy with another group. I think. Painkillers and Heinekens are making the rest of this day a little foggy.

Soggy Dollar beach is a way chill area; there's a bar (of course), a little t-shirt shop (of course) and the people there are either tourists from the states on a boat excursion or a yacht, 'tourists' from another island on a private boat, or Jost locals. We grabbed more drinks, found some chairs, and settled in for a couple of hours of just limin' around.

A shot of my Painkiller on my chair arm looking into the water:



A shot of JB and T in the water:



Me buzzed and mugging for the camera:



Some dude playing the most addictive game ever:



I don't know the name of the game, but here's a brief description: you nail an upwards-facing hook onto a tree or wall. You then tie a wooden circle-shaped piece of wood to a long piece of string and secure it on a ceiling, or upper tree trunk. Standing about 10 feet back you gently swing the wooden ring and try to land it on the hook. The guy in the pic swung it as I took the shot, you can see the end of the string almost touching the tree on the left. It's totally addictive and we're trying to figure out a place on our deck to put it. So I can drive myself nuts at home as well as Soggy Dollar.

A shot of our group on the beach:

A shot of a local walking into the bar with two leashed goats (I'm guessing she's local, who brings goats on a boat?):



Last beach shot, these five white chairs that were so perfectly postitioned I took about 15 pictures of them:



We wrapped it up at Soggy Dollar late in the afternoon and dingied back to the boat. As we sailed around to a restaurant for dinner (don't ask me where we went...no clue) we were a rowdy drunk crew in the boat singing along to the radio and taking stupid pictures. Here's a shot of JB and I:



...and another one (I so pretty!):



I did manage a sunset shot:

We got to the restaurant and all piled around a table. The buzz was starting to wear off and most of us were drinking water. I think I had some sort of pasta dish, a bunch of people had lobster. It was tasty, but we were weary and ready to start on our way home.

This is the last shot on my camera from that day; me quietly waiting for my meal:

When we got on the boat after dinner we all found a spot and shut our eyes. Joe was sailing back and it was going to be a couple of hours. I believe it started raining about 20 minutes into the trip, and although I was laying on an uncovered part of the boat I pulled my towel around my shoulders and pretended not to feel the raindrops until our pal Billy (I think it was him) came over, woke me up and told me to go inside where it was dry. Which I did. There was a half-circle couch wrapped around a coffee table, and nine of us were passed out around it, a jumble of legs, arms and bodies. We all slept the whole trip home, and when we got back to the dock we piled out of the boat, mumbled 'Thanks' and 'Goodbye' to each other, went home and went to bed.

An awesome day for sure. I can't wait to go back.