Prickly Pear Island and Leverick Bay (North Sound Virgin Gorda)

Here's a view of the Northern shore of Prickly Pear Island.

Walking along the shore, Karen and I came upon a very rare mocko jumbie, but was only able to get a fleeting shot of its shadow. This one is especially unique, as it is probably a decendant of the jumbies from India. They probably came over in one of the British trade ships during the 1800's.

Karen and I walked up through a lot of brush to get over to the shoreline and then along the beach, then back up over rocky outcrops, then back down to the beach, then waded through shallows along the shore to get around the mangroves, then back up behind the mangroves through the mosquito-infested brush, and then finally through the cactus to make it back to the dinghy. I had a great time! It kind of reminded me of hunting with my best friend EK. I especially like this photo of Karen...it's the only one I got of her when she wasn't giving me the evil eye.

Karen took this of me right before the rock climbing adventure...we were still on speaking terms then. You probably noticed the rocks were rough...they are volcanic and have lots of sharp edges. Did I mention Karen had a lot of scrapes and scratches on her legs?

This is our sailboat, Outta Control, looking down from the trail on the island. If we haven't shared with you where the name for this blog and our boat comes from, here it is: when I was finishing up the final days before retiring from the control tower, my coworkers and I were chatting about Karen and my boat plans and keeping everyone informed of our adventures. One of them, Jeff Ake, said we ought to name our boat Outta Control as a acknowledgement to my ATC career. Karen added that it would be great, and to name the blog the same thing, so there you have it! The name kind of works on a couple levels, especially because a lot of friends and family initially thought we were nuts (selling off almost everything and the home too). To be honest,...talking to airplanes is fun and I highly recommend it as a career, but I really only miss all of the people I worked with. Some of them I have known and worked beside for almost 20 years. And I miss cleaning the leaves off of our little pond, but that is for another story.

Leverick Bay, on the other side of North Sound, was a fun place to visit...I found myself taking lots of flower pictures for Karen.

And not harassing her for wanting to take stoopid CAT pictures! I'm not sure if this one was alive. As a side note, one of my absolutely favorite scenes from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation involves a cat.

There is a weekly party at the bar, featuring live music and mocko jumbies. We are pretending to be them here. We planned on pirating time in their pool but the weather was a little cool and it started getting late. For all of you suffering through the bitter, bone-numbing, wayyyy below freezing weather, I want you to all know that we, too, have some "crosses to bear". It's still occasionally humid and windy with some showers during the days and nights. Oh, I almost forgot...the temps have been getting a little chilly...the overnight lows are now averaging the mid-70's.

These are a couple of pictures of the resort at Leverick Bay. This may be one of the places to recommend for folks visiting us that don't want to spend overnights on the boat. We will have lots of interesting sights to share with all of you!