Seventy-five years ago, last Thursday, July 26th, 1926, a tragedy hit the British Virgin Islands that would touch almost every family. The ship Fancy Me was making its way to Tortola with 89 passengers, most of them from Tortola and Anageda, returning home from Santo Domingo, when it encountered a severe tropical storm.
The mountainous seas and crashing waves tossed the vessel hither and thither, darkness hiding the murky depths. Despite courageous efforts by the captain and crew, it was impossible to secure the vessel; the anchor had been stored under a shipment of sugar. Fifty-nine of the passengers perished. Many had familiar names, Connor, Leonard, Donovan, Malone, Hill, Martin, and Dawson among them.
Sugar plantation
Santo Domingo, with its huge sugar plantations had become the destination of a lot of British Virgin Islanders for seasonal work. Many of those lost were returning home at the end of the season. A story that was familiar to Ireland, with our armies of seasonal workers heading to Scotland and England for the tatie season.
Nowadays some islanders still travel to Dominica to work, but with the highest per capita income in the Caribbean the islands are becoming more self-reliant. The population of the islands is only about 20,000. The main industry after financial services is tourism. Not surprisingly as the islands are exceedingly beautiful.
A collection of anywhere between 33-50 islands and cays, depending on who you ask, in the Leeward and Windward Islands, the islands have a Boy's Own history. Formerly the haunt of pirates and buccaneers and home of thousands of Amerindians, they were "discovered" in 1493 by Christopher Columbus.
He decided to call them the Virgin Islands or Santa Ursula y Las Once Mil Virgenes after the followers of St Ursula. These unfortunate 11,000 beauties met their deaths at the hands of the Huns when on a pilgrimage to Cologne - or so the story goes.
Pirates and buccaneers became the next Huns of the islands, ideal places for stashing booty and terrorising the Spanish Main. The local people swear the spirits or jumbees are those of dead sailors left to guard pirates' treasure. Apparently it was tradition to bury the beheaded body of a pirate with the treasure to guard it.
Over the next 200 years the islands yo-yoed between the Dutch, French, Spanish, Danish and English. Finally the English gained the upper hand and in the 1670s ended up with what we know as the British Virgin Islands. Throughout the 1700s the plantation system was the backbone of the local economy, the black population outnumbering the white settlers. Slave labour provided a cheap way of extracting wealth from the islands. However, the late 1700s were marked by slave rebellions and the economy received a fatal blow when Britain abolished slave labour in 1808.
Emigration
After emancipation the downward trend of the economy accelerated by neglect, and the government resorted to increased taxation. Economic depression forced many of the islanders to emigrate, decimating the population.
Through the 20th century the economy began to recover and build. The government passed a number of legislative measures designed to make the region more attractive to investors. Now the British Virgin Islands are home to more than 400,000 registered companies.
However, it is as a tourism destination that most people will know the islands, especially if sailing is a hobby. Bare-footing and bare-boating are the best way to describe what to do on the islands. The tropical climate all year round means a pleasant 80 degrees of heat and the trade winds ensure that you are never becalmed.
The collection of islands and cays are the ideal location place to spend lazy days sailing around. No journey between islands is too difficult and each has its own special attraction.
Tortola, the main island and home of the majority of islanders, is a hilly place. It has no traffic lights, traffic control is easy, and you just put in lots of speed bumps to slow vehicles at junctions. If you happen to be in Tortola on the night of the full moon, you can join hundreds of people at Bomba's Beach Shack party. Interior design is provided by hundreds of pairs of underwear. Don't ask how he got them.
Shipwrecks
All the islands are volcanic in nature apart from Anageda, the lowest lying, which is derived from coral. At only 28 feet above water it appears on the horizon as a luminous greeny-blue. It is surrounded by shipwrecking rocks and has become a popular diving destination. Anageda, with a population of about 150 is distinctive too for having three churches and the best lobster in the islands. No so much a lobster as a crayfish.
Jost Van Dyke was named after a Dutch pirate and is home of the Soggy Dollar Bar. Not a bar as we would recognise, more a shack on a beach that one swims to. Hence the name Soggy Dollar.Also on Jost is Foxy's Bar, where you can moor at a jetty and if Foxy himself is in he might sing a song just for you. Both Bomba's and Foxy's have been voted the best 10 bars in the Caribbean.
Peter Island, formerly San Pedro, is one of the most beautiful destinations for powdered sugar sand, palm trees, deserted beaches and a fabulous background for weddings. Blackbeard, supposedly buried his treasure here., Life's prehistoric reminder, the iguana, has an ideal retreat here, where they are regarded as pets.
Other islands in the groups include Necker Island, the famous sybaritic haven owned by Richard Branson. Norman Island is said to be the setting for Treasure Island. Virgin Gorda has the Baths, a natural attraction where exotic pools and grottoes are formed by giant boulders strewn across a beach.
Wherever you go in the islands you will be overwhelmed by the sheer beauty but, like the wreck of the Fancy Me, nature reminds us mere mortals that there is more to life than beauty and she can take away as quickly as she bestows.