Jost van Dyke
At sunrise, Sea Cloud II entered British waters once again as we made our approach to the entrance of the Sir Francis Drake Channel that runs through the archipelago that comprises the British Virgin Islands. We had a morning under sail through the channel, full of interest from passing vessels and close views of the various island communities.
The channel is named after the famous sixteenth-century English buccaneer, famous for having been rewarded by Queen Elizabeth I for services against the rival power of Spain. With the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Elizabeth established England as a global power. Representing the Protestant cause, she did feel obligated to respect the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) wherein the Pope, arbitrating between two rival Catholic powers, had divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese. The English embarked on a quest for colonies in the new world that brought them to the Caribbean and to the Atlantic seaboard of North America, enriching themselves in the process with the plantation system of agriculture with African slaves as its labor force. In the case of the British Virgin Islands, named after the Virgin Queen, the plantation crop was cotton.
Today, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, the islands trade on sun, sea and sand, three commodities that we took full advantage of in the afternoon at White Bay. Swimming snorkeling and limin' on the beach were the order of the day, with drinks at sunset at Gertrude's Beach Bar. In the evening we rounded off the day with a special Maritime Dinner hosted by the ship's officers.
At sunrise, Sea Cloud II entered British waters once again as we made our approach to the entrance of the Sir Francis Drake Channel that runs through the archipelago that comprises the British Virgin Islands. We had a morning under sail through the channel, full of interest from passing vessels and close views of the various island communities.
The channel is named after the famous sixteenth-century English buccaneer, famous for having been rewarded by Queen Elizabeth I for services against the rival power of Spain. With the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Elizabeth established England as a global power. Representing the Protestant cause, she did feel obligated to respect the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) wherein the Pope, arbitrating between two rival Catholic powers, had divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese. The English embarked on a quest for colonies in the new world that brought them to the Caribbean and to the Atlantic seaboard of North America, enriching themselves in the process with the plantation system of agriculture with African slaves as its labor force. In the case of the British Virgin Islands, named after the Virgin Queen, the plantation crop was cotton.
Today, as elsewhere in the Caribbean, the islands trade on sun, sea and sand, three commodities that we took full advantage of in the afternoon at White Bay. Swimming snorkeling and limin' on the beach were the order of the day, with drinks at sunset at Gertrude's Beach Bar. In the evening we rounded off the day with a special Maritime Dinner hosted by the ship's officers.
