Tortola

Feb 25th
Tortola

Another day, another brand new island. Before getting off the ship, I had heard good things about Tortola in regards to it’s scenery, but that there wasn’t much going on in the city. Half the band had decided to stay on the ship, and seeing as this was my one and only visit, I was struggling for a good idea to get the most out of the island. I ended up leaving the ship with a couple band mates to head towards a bar, never my preferred sightseeing activity, and it wasn’t till I got to the bar that I remembered I didn’t bring a bathing suit, cutting out a major option for things to do. I didn’t stay long before I got too impatient to see the city and headed off on my own, and my new goal for the island was a good one…get a scooter.
I walked around for a bit, stopped at a dive shop to enquire about the local trips, and eventually got pointed in the direction of a scooter rental place. The going rate was $20 per hour. I had about 2 hours to kill, but $40 was way more than I could justify for a scooter ride. I offered $20 for the rest of my day, the guy shook his head and said $25, and I told him he had a whole line of scooters in his lot no one was renting, and he took my $20. After working for my Dad selling snowmobiles all winter, it’s kind of nice to be on the other side of the negotiation.
Let me back up for a minute though and explain how bad of an idea this scooter rental actually is (just so that I can make Mom worry). First, scooter rentals are risky simply because it’s a rental unit you have no knowledge of, in a city where you have no experience, and with a time schedule that’s unforgiving (the ship won’t exactly wait). I got past that issue and went on to issue number two: I was all by myself. Well, after doing some riding last summer and falling back on some 24-year-old over confident tendencies, I got past the all alone thing. I figured I had something to prove anyway, had to show I don’t need my friends to enjoy a port. And the third obstacle I had in front of me was the slight problem that people drive on the left side of the road. This made me the most nervous, so my solution was to drive around the island, avoid traffic, and only make left turns so I wasn’t crossing traffic. I thought it was a brilliant solution. Oh, and then there was the problem that I didn’t have sunglasses, which is illegal in the states, but seeing as my renter didn’t mind, I figured I’d be OK.
I left some info with the office renting me the scooter (not a driver’s license though, he didn’t even ask to see it), the guy (Kip) showed me how to use a scooter, I told him I was a pro, and took off with an ill-fitting red helmet on my head, my backpack, and a map of the island that didn’t list road names, what could go wrong?
I pulled out, got confused by my first left turn, went in the direction to get out of the city, and was soon out of traffic and bonding with my “hog”, or so I call it in all my videos (not taken while driving). It was odd driving on the other side of the road, and not being familiar with the island, speed limit, road quality, or laws, any time a line of cars started to form behind me and pulled off and let them pass. I had a route planned by the office that took me around the east side of the island, up the mountains, around some beaches, and then back through the mountainous center towards the port. And I do mean mountains, these weren’t just hills. I can honestly say I’ve never driven on roads this steep, ever, and I’m doing it on a 125cc Yamaha Zuma. These roads were narrow, and about as vertical as I can imagine being feasible in any sort of vehicle. The roads would zig-zag up the hill, and if you took the inside corner too sharp, you’d literally flip the scooter backwards over your head, it was that steep. But no problem, I’m a pro, right?
Luckily, there weren’t any major problems. I did however almost hit a cow on the side of the road (he came out of no where!), came across 8 goats on a road that I failed to take a picture of, and almost had my scooter roll off a cliff when it came off it’s kickstand from being parked on a downhill slope. But that aside, I quickly adjusted to the hill climbs, the left hand driving, and the descents. Going down hill was worse than going up, because going down your forearms would actually get sore from holding the brakes for as long as needed to descend the entire mountain. This was when the majority of cars passed me, but there was no way I was going to try to keep up with a 4x4 truck. But that being said, I had plenty of opportunities to stop, take pictures, and enjoy the island I set out to see. I wish that I had had more time so that I could have gone swimming or gotten some food, but I saw what I wanted to see. And actually, saw it all in relatively good time, Kip expected about 90 minutes for me to run his route, I did it in 60. So, with another hour to kill, I decided to drive back through the city and towards the ship, see if I could maybe find some friends to impress with my excessively-masculine yellow Zuma. One problem though, it’s impossible to get to a ship to your right when you’re only comfortable making left hand turns. Before I knew it I was way on the other side of the city and harbor and had long since passed whatever exit took me to my ship. Didn’t matter though, my method of blindly following the car in front of me and using his tendencies as hints for how to drive in traffic successfully got me through the city. I ended up ascending another mountain just to kill the time, and then returned to the city on the other side of the road, where left hand turns WOULD get me back to the ship.
I took my time, blew the extra hour, and returned to the rental office without any damage to myself or the Scooter. All in all, everything was good, the near death experiences were kept to a minimum, and I was able to walk back to the ship knowing that I had a successful day in Tortola.
The rest of the day was uneventful, the show that night was a comic that didn’t really use the band, and that was about it. Thanks for reading and thanks for any prayers that made my Zuma experience a good one! Seeya