With the car, i’m getting around alot more. Made it back up to Sage Mountain National Park a week or so ago. Wandering about in the mahoganies, figs, and cedars (totally unrelated and unlike a temperate cedar tree), looking for critters and flowers. Found a decent amount of both. Stopped to watch a tiny glittering jewel spider weaving a web at face-height across the trail. Looked around and spotted an incredible jumping spider, about 1/2″ long, very fuzzy black, but with opalescent green stripes on its head, red/gold stripes on its abdomen, and blue patches on its knees.
Got me to llooking around a little more. Soon saw a rather plain brown jumper, about 1/4″. Holding the leaf up to see him better, and a mosquito landed on the back of my hand and dug in. The tiny spider leapt over from the leaf to my knuckle, snatched the mozzie (almost as big as itself!), and leapt back onto the leaf! Pretty cool. Turned over anoth leaf oly 6″ away, and was shocked by another incredibly beautiful jumper, this one about 3/8″ long; completely translucent electric green, except for the glittering black eyes set into a coral-red cap on its head.
Also saw more Orb spiders, mostly the black ones with blue and purple spotted abdomens, but a few of the larger (1 1/2″) golden leopard-spotted ones. Sadly, i didn’t spot any of the largest of that latter type, which i’ve seen nearly 6″ long, in massive, trail-blocking webs.
This hike, i ascended to the highest point on Tortola, some 1700 feet, taking trails i hadn’t the last time i was up there in the spring. New signage identifying trees and flowers has sprung up, but the park is still pretty run-down. i’ll have to try and find out if there are any local naturalists in the area who can tell me more about all the nature up there.

Today’s Book O’ The Week is Peter Nichol’s “Sea Change”. i’m just partway through, but really enjoying it. Interesting parallels with my own love- and life-style. Been thinking in similar terms lately myself, as have been some other friends. A fellow carpenter/sailor friend’s girlfriend just left him on St. John, and was feeling pretty exhasperated with the whole deal.
As he said, “Here, we have the boat, the work, the sun, the sea; we’re living the dream! But it’s never enough for the girls who always want something more, but never know what they want!”
Peter Nichols seems to feel much of the same exasperation, especially as he reads his ex-wife’s cast-off diaries and comes to understand how she was so quietly dissatisfied all along.
Oh yeah, it’s also also about a long-distance solo passage on a small engineless wooden boat. Gotta love that angle too…

Yeterday was the occassion of the WEYC’s 14th annual Firecracker Regatta. i took out a group of KATS kids aboard our newest IC24 “First Caribbean KATS” (gotta love the corporate sponsorship, eh?). In 5 races, we finished 1st twice, 2nd twice, and 3rd once, and came away with the overall class win. The kids sailed really well, coming together at a few close moments. The races were held around Little Thatch Island, where i frequently sail my own little dinghy, and it felt like we had a “home water advantage” over the other boats, who seldom, if ever, sail here in West End. The currents and winds suffer strange interactions in these channels, and it certianly helped to have some familiarity with them!
The kids are really geared up for the Chief Minister’s Cup next weekend, where the BVI hosts youth racing teams from around the Caribbean, and with the improvement they’ve shown over the last few months, they have a good shot at winning!