Tortola - Road Town.

25 November 2023

For the first time in the Caribbean island visits, we arrived at Tortola with rain but it was still hot. Fortunately, the rain eased as we set off on a tour in an open-sided minibus. Tortola is the largest of the 60 British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean which the guide simply called BVI. It was the most mountainous of all the islands It features several white-sand beaches, including Cane Garden Bay and Smuggler’s Cove. Road Town, the capital of the British Virgin Islands, has a harbor dotted with sailing boats and is known as a yachting hub. In the island's southwest, forested Sage Mountain National Park offers trails and sweeping views over neighboring cays. Sir Richard Branson owns Nector Island here which you can rent for around $3000 per night per guest. Some parts of Pirates of the Caribbean were filmed here.

Road Town harbor entrance with the rain clouds beginning to clear

Our open-sided minibus that managed to get us around the windy mountainous roads

A brief stop to see St. Philips Anglican Church also known as the African Church, which was built in 1840 by a community of Africans who had been liberated from illegal slave ships. Local historians claim it is the oldest free black church building to survive in the Americas. Although free African Americans established churches at the turn of the 19th century, in Pennsylvania, in the United States, those early church buildings have been replaced.

One of the many coves on the island

Our mountainous tour gave us many views of the settlements below

The roadside had many of these historical pictures illustrating local life