The 2009 production from the British Virgin Islands.
Archive for the ‘British Virgin Islands’ Category
Sailing the British Virgin Islands
Tuesday, August 18th, 2009Update: New hardware, upcoming video premiere and the Rogue River..
Friday, August 14th, 2009After a relatively quiet summer, Wing and Wing are gearing up to present our latest video installation; “Sailing the British Virgin Islands”. Based on ten days spent sailing and diving in the Caribbean on a 57 foot catamaran. In addtition, we have added the new Apple iPhone 3GS to our inventory of vlogging tools and are working on a mash-up of video shot exclusively on the phone. We hope it will provide us with an additional lens to show you our experiences. We have also acquired a new 17″ MacBook Pro, which will enable us to vlog more efficiently while enroute.
New news:
We have signed on for a private rafting trip down the Rogue River in Oregon. We put in on August 19th, and will spend five days on the river, filming, taking pictures, fishing, rowing, cooking, eating.. You get the idea. When we return, we will begin work on the movie for our last rafting experience, the Grand Canyon.
So! Exciting times have returned to Wingandwing.com – tell your friends to check us out, and enjoy our content for the rest of the year, and, as always, please feel free to comment or give us feedback, as we appreciate your participation!
Q
Sailing the British Virgin Islands – Trailer
Friday, March 20th, 2009The trailer for our upcoming production “Sailing the British Virgin Islands”
BVI video in progress
Tuesday, January 27th, 2009I apologize for the lack of new material lately. The holidays are behind us, and Janis and I have begun working on “Sailing the British Virgin Islands”. We are adopting a new approach to the work-flow on this project, trying to stretch our creative legs… I hope to have a trailer up in February.
As for our next trip, we need crew! If interested, please drop us a line… We do not have a trip on the books for 2009, although we are tossing around a few ideas. In addition, we continue to do monthly day-sails on the San Francisco Bay, so don’t be bashful, get involved and get sailing!
Video of our first sail on Kristina
Thursday, June 26th, 2008This video was shot by Panini on the first day of our charter.
Short BVI clip
Tuesday, June 24th, 2008Partying Is Such Sweet Sorrow or, The Roadtown Blues
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008The only downside of such a fantabulous(sic) trip like this one is that it must eventually come to an end. The mood amongst the crew was somber and subdued, knowing that our 11–day BVI non-stop sailing/partying adventure would end today. But is it
really accurate to say the trip has definitively ended if it continues to live strongly in our memories when we relate our various adventures to friends and family, when we review the photos from our trip — each one sparking a distinct memory of experience, when years later someone asks where we got a certain souvenir or memento? In any case the crew split up today to go our separate ways. Moss Landing(*) went with Sadsack Rita and Dive Goddess back to Cane Garden Bay. Captain Cupcake, Twirly Wonder, Guava Bean, and Goat Boy boarded the ferry to Virgin Gorda — leaving me all alone in Roadtown, wandering around a bit dazed and already missing my fellow crew. Although Roadtown is the largest city and the capital of the BVI, it still lacks one thing common to almost every city — traffic lights. That anomaly is about to be corrected, apparently. I found this sign amusing as it seemed to be positively boasting about getting a new traffic light!
My trip continues solo for a another 2 weeks. Tomorrow I plan to visit St. John in the USVI, and then on to other Caribbean islands yet to be determined. My schedule is open and I will play it by ear. You can follow my continued adventures on my personal blog here:
I’m not nearly as diligent as the Captain was with posting daily blog entries and I’m currently several days behind, but I’ll catch up soon.
Panini
(*) We each had (multiple) nicknames imposed by the rest of the crew. The crew itself had nickname, of which I can only give the acronym: FPCC
Diving the Rhone
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008The highlight of the diving portion of the trip was the wreck of the RMS Rhone. Built in 1865, the 300+ foot steamship was one of the first two ships to use a propeller instead of a paddlewheel. She did the mail run from Britain to the Americas and back, using the Virgin Islands as a hub. In 1866, the island of St. Thomas went under quarantine because of an outbreak of yellow fever. As a result, the Rhone began stopping at Peter Island and using a tender boat called the Conway to deliver to St. Thomas and refuel the Rhone with coal.
In 1867, on October 29th, the Rhone and the Conway were anchored in Great Harbor on Peter Island when the barometric pressure began to drop, indicating a severe change in weather. The captains of the two ships had to decide what type of storm was approaching, and they agreed it was an early season norther, which made a run north to Road Town on Tortola the prudent choice for shelter.
What the captains did not know (nor could they have) was that the pressure was dropping because of a category five hurricane! The Conway, a paddleboat, barely made it across the Sir Francis Drake Channel to safety. The circumstances for the Rhone are less certain. What is known is this: the Rhone’s anchor, and all the chain rode, are on the floor of Great Harbor. In such violent conditions, abandoning the anchor would have been safer than attempting to free it from the coral heads. After cutting free, she ran for the safety of open water through the Salt Island channel.
The fact is that as the eye of the hurricane passed overhead, the Rhone was dangerously close to Black Rock on the western tip of Salt Island. As the eye continued on, the wind shifted and drove the RMS Rhone onto the rock, piercing her hull and exposing the overworked boilers to the relatively cold sea water, causing an explosion which tore the ship in two.
Of three hundred passengers and crew ( over one hundred passengers were transferred to the Rhone from the Conway because the Rhone was one of two ships deemed “unsinkable” by the British Royal Navy (the other was the Titanic)) only 26 survived, some by clinging to the aft mast of the ship, which settled in shallow water. Of the survivors, only one was a passenger, and it is his account which most often quoted. In those times, it was standard practice to tie passengers into their bunks in rough weather to prevent injuries which may cause complications while at sea with limited medical help available.
Today the Rhone is remarkably well-preserved. Her bow section lies on its starboard side in 80 feet of water. Divers surround the ship during daylight hours, and you can swim through the breached hull in numerous places. There are the resident barracudas Fang and Fred as well as numerous other fishes and animals. The scale of the early design of the propeller and rudder are enormous.
The Rhone is considered the most spectacular wreck dive in the Caribbean, and her story, to me, is one of the most compelling. Unlike the bucanneers of old, the Rhone remains to tell her story, incomplete as it may be.
Q
Soper’s Hole
Sunday, June 22nd, 2008Soper’s Hole was our anchorage for our last night aboard. A tropical wave of thunderstorms came through the islands while we were ashore at Diamond Cay. By the time I had the crew ready to dinghy back to the boat, winds were blowing 30 knots and there were four foot waves trying to swamp the dinghy! Everyone made it aboard safely, although a few crew were visibly shaken. We cast off the mooring and ran for shelter at Soper’s Hole.
Like every anchorage in the BVI, Soper’s Hole has a famous bar. The Jolly Roger Inn is a harbor-side BBQ joint with a mean rum punch. Their dinghy dock is part of the outdoor dining deck, and the view of the surrounding islands, including the USVI, is spectacular.
We did some final souvenir shopping before a nice dinner aboard with wine from home.
Great Harbor, Jost Van Dyke
Friday, June 20th, 2008
We left Cane Garden Bay after a long morning spent refueling after the Bomba’s Shack full moon party. The shack is another legendary location in the BVI’s. It was built from the wreckage of hurricane Hugo in 1988, right on the beach in Cappoon’s Bay, on the north side of Tortola. There was live music, and hundreds of people from all over the islands. The monthly party is the place to be under a full moon.
Just north of Tortola is the small island system of Jost Van Dyke. Home to the famous Soggy Dollar Bar, the birthplace of the painkiller. The bar got its name from the fact that there is no dock in White Bay, so patrons from afloat swam to shore for the tasty cocktail and a round of the ring game (swing a ring on a string and land it on a hook), and their wet money is hung on a clothesline to dry. 
We anchored in Great Harbor with the intent to eat dinner at Foxy’s, yet another famous location. Foxy is a soulful calypso singer who improvises lyrics based on where his customers are from, but he was not performing last night, and the wait was too long, so we ended up at another restaurant, Corsair’s. The food was excellent, the best of the trip thus far. 
The owner, Vinnie, spends the off-season at his summer home in Colorado. He told us about some local spots and was a very gracious host.
Today we visit the bubble pool in Diamond Bay and Green Cay for some snorkelling before mooring in Soper’s Hole for our last night aboard. The trip has been fully realised, and was more rich than I imagined. We are at that point in our trip when our origins are far away, yet we are closing in on our return to “normalcy” rapidly.