"Sipping Foxy's Fire Water" Virgin Islands Sail Trip Part 1

"Though shall eat, drink and be merry, you're a long time dead."- The William Thornton Ships Articles on the floating pirate ship bar.


I have sooo much to say about this trip, it's hard to even start. I think I'm going to split my post up by days, maybe give you some history of the places we were at, what we did at that specific spot, and so on. Warning, the posts might be long!!!

We've been planning this trip for a long time, we saved our money up for this trip, we talked about it, went over grocery lists, itineraries, Hell, we even had a sailing trip practice weekend, testing out which rum drinks we liked best. I guess you can say we weren't just looking forward to this trip, nothing else mattered, we knew after, we would have nothing to live for, okay, maybe that is pushing it, but you get the point. Point is, we were excited.

We went with our family best buds the Hill family. They used to own a boat and sailed the Virgin Islands for six months meaning, they knew all the cool places to go. Can you guess who planned the itinerary? We flew on a red eye Tuesday night and course my son cried the entire flight to Atlanta. I was insanely exhausted during our layover, had a full cup of coffee expecting the same story on flight two. Thankfully, before we even took of, Sawyer and I both were sleeping. I woke up every so often to drool running out of my open mouth. Man, I'm sexy.

Then we land. The trip begins at a hotel on the water.


An hour later in the pool, Corona in hand:

Our new pool friend introducing his nephew: "Hees nhame es Luh-mah"

Us: "uhh, llama? Hi Llama, nice to meet you!"

Him: "No, in English LAMAR, island luhmah"

Still butchering his name, "Ahhh, Lahmaaaa, hey dude!"


This was when I realized how much I miss the islands, the people, the kindness, the love, the welcoming, the music, the drinking, the dancing, the island time, did I mention the drinking? I miss the islands.



The sun beat down and the planes flew over head. We weren't in the best hotel on the island, actually, far from it, but I was in love. The water off of the beach wasn't amazing, slightly murky, a little wavy, but you could still see the ground and our toes from above while swimming. Becky was the first to jump in and waved me over.

"You know what I love?!?!" she yells.

"What?!"

"You know what I LOVE?!?!"

"No, I heard that, but WHAT do you love?" I swim closer.

"That YOU know what this is all about. You KNOW this. You know island, you lived here, well, not here, but you lived on an island, you know the culture. I love that!"

I realized instantly that it didn't matter where we were, where our vacation was located, where we were going, what mode of transportation we were taking. I knew that no matter where we were or how we got there, we were going to have fun. We were with the best people and with THEM we would have fun anywhere. Caribbean, or Death Valley, I would look forward to a vacation anywhere with this family any day.

The next morning we walked around St. Thomas, ate breakfast, visited the local market where the ladies sang out to us, hoping it lured us and other tourists to buy their necklaces, the baby chicks followed their mommy chicken around the streets, the taxi's honked out and everyone tried to sell you anything. We were sweaty and the babies were on our chest sleeping, clearly exhausted from the flights the night before. St. Thomas wasn't my favorite so far, it was busy, it was noisy, but the locals, the islanders, the bartenders, the servers, everyone was amazing. Service was slow, "island time mon" but it was with a smile or a song. We headed back, drank some rum at the bar, packed out bags and left for the ferry.



Each hour passed was an hour closer to being in the boat and we couldn't wait. Every so often Geoff would look over at me and whisper, "Almost there."

The ferry took us from St. Thomas to Tortola where we would do the grocery shopping, pick up our boat and meet up with the sitter.

This is where things get fuzzy.

I admit, we had some rum...and took a lot of pictures.








The next morning we were off. The girls inside working on breakfast and the boys working on the sails, I didn't get to enjoy the fist push off as much as I would have liked, hey, we're moms with mouths to feed, but soon after we were outside, wind in face, experiencing the sail being hoisted up for the first time on our vacation, the first day out on our sail boat, the fist day out on Annies Toy. Was this real? Were we really on our vacation???





The moment we anchored, it was on. We motored to sandy cay, swam in the warm, crystal clear waters I was so used to, and remember so well, Sawyer couldn't of been happier. Swim lessons really paid off. He hated the sand but loved the water, every ounce of it. He kicked and laughed, he swam to me and swam to daddy. Besides the water, I was already in love with the various islands we passed. The Virgin Islands had mountains, trees, lots and lots of green, stark contrast from the island I've lived on.



We were back in the boat exhausted, made dinner and headed to Jost Van Dyke to anchor and check out Foxy's. We heard a lot about this crazy place Foxy's, and their so called 'Fire Water'.

Any Country fans out there?

Kenny Chesney:

Oh I wish I was there tonight on Jost Van Dyke
Sipping on some Foxy's Firewater rum
Or kickin' back with Ivan
With all my friends down in the islands
Wouldn't take much for me to up and run
To another life somewhere in the sun

Here's a toast to you on the coast and the sailors out at sea
Drink your ales, hoist your sails
Ride the winds and think of me.

I'm not the biggest country fan, but listening to Kenny while sailing the Virgin Islands is almost required. Inspiration is all over the islands in so many forms, it's no wonder this guy made millions singing this very place we were sailing.



Geoff and I were pretty exhausted that night and he wasn't feeling well, so we laid pretty low, but dang, this place was cool. We ordered Dark and Stormies all around.

Dark and Stormis::

Dark rum as in BLACK rum
Ginger beer.
Stir and enjoy.


And danced. Oh, the music, I love island music, jamaican music, it hits home to me. It so often reminds me of my very few days working as a bartender on Turks and Caicos. Flex, one of the locals who worked there with me and his friend would close with me each night. They would turn up the music and do these dances. Each move had a name. Thunder cat, shark attack, scooby doo and so on, one would call out these moves and the other would dance. They were so good at dancing and each night they designated a specific time to teach the white girl (me) lessons. Flex would demonstrate the moves in slow motion, watch me imitate, then tweak an arm out of place or a foot that wouldn't obey until I was Thunder Clapping with the best of them. I miss those days, I miss my friends, I miss the islands, and here I was at Foxy's, THE very place to relive the old days, but instead we laid low, we sat back and enjoyed the scenery, the people. Man, was there good people watching.

There were the group of five or six girls, no older than 18 with a dad (or porn boss) of some sorts. All the girls were in bikini's and belly dancer jingly things on their butts. Instantly the mom in me thought, NEVER we would allow our young daughter to go to some island with her friends for a vacation. NEVER will our daughter be caught wearing jingly doodas on her butt dancing around. NEVER! These girls danced in full makeup and perfect hair, which I don't know HOW they did it. Did I mention how HOT and HUMID it was? Did you notice in about EVERY picture I'm wearing a HAT?! These girls danced, this 'dad' took pictures while other male tourists rubbed their junk all up and down over them. Like I said, NEVER will our daughter be one of them.

There was the islander who danced with poled like the pole was a girl. He talked to her, woo'ed her, sang to her, danced to her, rubbed up on her, and would take one break per song to hold a beer in his mouth without hands and arch backwards, hands in air until the top of his head touched the ground right next to his heels. Really, it was amazing and really, it was odd.

There was the super tall girl, dancing with the super short guy, every so often hoisting up her skirt until it was panty/eye level.

I'm kind of bummed we were so tired that night, even the other day I thought, can we have a Foxy's re-do?

I think we will have that chance, the opportunity next year for a Foxy's re-do if you know what I mean....