February 3, 2016: Tortola

We took the tour, Best of Tortola by Land and Sea.    There are 24, 000 inhabitants on the island.  Christopher Columbus found this island in 1493 and found turtle doves, hence it was named Tortola.  Virgin Gorda is one of the sister islands.  Richard Branson who owns Virgin Records and Virgin Airlines owns one of the Virgin Islands. He has a resort on the island that you can rent for $75,000 a night.

Dead Man's Bay is on the grounds of a resort owned by Amway.  We saw Treasure's Island which only has 1 restaurant on the entire island.  

Stopped at Pusser's Landing and checked out the shops and then got on safari buses for a ride around the island.  It looked like a poor island but it was very mountainous with gorgeous views of neighboring islands.   The people here only pay 1 1/2 percent tax on the the assessed value of their homes.    

We did a little shopping in town but it wasn't as easy to find them as it was in St. Thomas.  Luckily, I was able to find stamps for postcards I sent to my friends, Josh and Olivia.   I hope they get the postcards.  It will be interesting to see how long it takes to get the post cards delivered to them.

There is a shopping area at the port that they are still working on, but it won't be opened until February 16.    

There were two Norwegian cruise ships at port and you could see the difference in the size of them when they were side by side.    The Norwegian Escape was by  far the longest and tallest of the two ships.   There are 18 floors on the Escape.

Had dinner tonight at O'Sheehan's Restaurant with Marianne, Joy, Margaret and Paul.  Kim and Wendy's fang all went snorkeling today in Tortola.  Marianne and Joy took a cab ride around the island.  Paul and Margaret went on a tour called Paradise Views which they enjoyed.

Went dancing and ran into my cousin Wendy, Todd and Owen.   Got a drink and had fun dancing to 80s music.