We spent the rest of the day putting everything back in order at the Pink House and packing for the trip to the Tortola airport the next day. By sundown, we were sitting on the deck again, drinking white wine, toasting the sunset, and retelling stories of our 28 days in the pink (house).

Epilogue

We steamed out past the yacht harbor, and then saw the perfectly sculpted gardens and thatched beach shelters at Little Dix Bay, where we waved at the snooty bartenders. Then we passed Savannah Beach, where we had enjoyed some of the best snorkeling on the island, as well as a free depilatory treatment from the blowing white sand. On past Mango Bay Resort and Georgio's restaurant, we waved at Grant and Kathy made hand signals explaining how he could keep his Winkles to himself next time. Next, the ferry picked up a couple of additional passengers at the dock next to Spice at Leverick Bay, where we had spent many hours lounging in the beach-side grill and watching the yachters. All the way around the island, we went past Gun Creek harbor, which is actually just down the road from the Pink House, where we had boarded the ferry to Bitter End. And then there was another stop at the Bitter End Yacht Club, the site of a most amazing brunch and a long, leisurely nappy in the shade. Finally, the ferry took off toward Tortola for the 45-minute trip across the three-mile-deep Sir Francis Drake Channel. It was a great way to revisit and recall our many adventures on Virgin Gorda.

We arrived on Beef Island just after lunchtime and lugged our overstuffed luggage about a quarter-mile down a sandy path to the Beef Island Guest House, adjacent to the Loose Mongoose beach bar and grill. The guesthouse is a laidback, four-room cottage just a few steps from the shore at Trellis Bay. Unfortunately, because of the way the B&B is situated, it is not blessed with the constant cooling trade winds that we had enjoyed at the Pink House. It is also not blessed with air conditioning. So it was hot. We grabbed some delicious sandwiches (Mahi and chicken sandwiches on toast with sautéed red and yellow peppers) for lunch at a nearby bistro, watching the naked English children frolic in the surf, and then immediately collapsed into the hammocks stretched between coconut palms directly in front of the B&B. It had been an unusually strenuous morning, and nappies were definitely in order.

We didn't do much of anything until the sun started to get low in the sky, finally dropping the temperature by a degree or two. Then we kicked off our sandals and took a long walk on the beach, all the way around the bay. The surf was filled with odd-looking baby puffer fish, just like the one Kathy had caught a few days ago, but much smaller. There were hundreds of them, each about an inch and a half long, swimming around with their little tail fins all the way up to the sand, and then retreating with the waves. Sadly, many of them didn't time things just right and ended up high and dry and wishing they'd paid more attention. Later, we asked some of the locals about them and learned that this was a brand new phenomenon to them as well. The puffers had shown up two days before our arrival and started exhibiting the strange behavior. An inquiry to some local marine biologists revealed that this sort of thing had happened before, about ten years ago! Even the local wildlife didn't know what to think of the plague of puffers. The chickens would peck at them on the beach and the prehistoric-looking Frigate Birds with their six-foot wingspans would swoop down, pick up a puffer, and then quickly drop it when the fish suddenly transformed into a spiky little ping-pong ball. It was fun to watch.

The guesthouse was beautiful and friendly. Marianne and Chris, owners of the restaurant and B&B were polite and courteous. Unfortunately, it was just too hot to really enjoy the place, and as soon as the sun went down, the mosquitoes and no-see-ums (invisible stinging bugs that live in the beach sand) made it pretty miserable inside and out. We did the only logical thing to avoid the discomfort, retire to the screened porch of the Loose Mongoose and drink cold Caribs until the bugs were no longer interested in the chemical composition of our blood. The ladies who worked there were great fun, and fantastic cooks! Kathy ordered the broiled Wahoo (a tender whitefish), which came with a butter caper sauce, and was probably the best tasting fish dish we'd had on our trip. Several different parties came in from their yachts anchored in the bay to the Loose Mongoose for dinner. We compared notes on other dishes, and they all were just terrific. I got a relatively boring chicken burrito, but even that was tasty and well prepared. A couple of the other guests ordered conch with lime butter sauce, and they raved about it as well.

Neither of us slept well that night. Between the biting bugs, the heat, and the fact that we had a cab arriving at 6am sharp (or so the girl at the guesthouse had assured us) to take us across the highway to the airport, we just couldn't sleep. Next morning, we were standing at the end of the little dinghy dock watching the sunrise. Not surprisingly, the cab wasn't there at 6am, or 6:15, or 6:30. In fact, it never showed up at all. After we'd waited as long as Kathy's patience would allow, we grabbed the incredibly heavy bags and rolled them through the sand and up to the highway. Luckily, a cab did drive by just as we reached the road, I flagged him down, and he drove us the remaining 200 yards to the terminal building and charged us $5 for his trouble. It was worth it.

It seems like every departing flight we've ever taken out of the tropics always ends up the same way. We're late, it's crowded, it's stifling hot, the flight is overbooked, and we're scrambling to locate cash to pay the departure tax. The lady at the security checkpoint commented politely on my sweat-soaked white shirt ("Honey, you are sweatin' like a pig!"), we walked across the white-hot tarmac and boarded the little propeller airplane. Before we even realized it, we were speeding away from our most enjoyable, relaxing, and fascinating vacation at the Pink House on Virgin Gorda, leaving behind the amazing places and friendly people, but taking the memories with us, safely packed into four, one-ton carry-on bags.