Yo-ho-ho and a Bottle of Rum

Cem called to ask us when we will be visiting him again. Those of you not lucky enough to know him, Cem happens to be a professional skipper and one of the most warm hearted and positive persons I’ve ever met. He also happens to live and work in British Virgin Islands which happens to be one of the top sailing destinations in the world.

British Virgin Islands, or BVI for short, are some 60 islands scattered around the Caribbean Sea. The area which was a hot bed for pirates between 16^th – 18^th centuries is now full of tourists, sailors and scuba divers. Oh, and the occasional smuggler.

The last time Cem called to ask this question it was a very cold winter day in Istanbul.  After we hung up, my husband and I looked at each other, said ‘why not ?’, found a charter company, packed our bags and spent two great weeks on a sailing boat at BVI.

Map of the BVI

The second worst thing about Caribbeans is going there.(The worst thing is coming back). It is a long flight with couple of stopovers. The plane takes you to Road Town in Tortola, which happens to be the largest island of BVI. The first night our boat was not ready so Cem mercifully took us to his motorboat harboured in Nanny Cay, a small marina with an incredible view. We spent the next day there with Cem and his friends to sample a bit of BVI’s beautiful beaches and night life and we ended up at Willie T’s, a boat that was turned into a floating restaurant & bar quite famous for its ‘jumping’ parties. It’s permanently anchored at The Blight on the Norman Island and serves decent pub food and strong cocktails. It seemed that it was a long standing tradition at Willie T’s to jump to the sea from the poop deck atop the bar area and if you do it naked you earn a free Willie T’s t-shirt!  How incredible, right? Wrong.

Cem with his hard earned T-Shirt

But sipping a Pain-Killer while listening to the beat and watching the jumping competition was definitely fun. Another not so pleasant aspect of The Blight was the rich Puerto Ricans who came to enjoy an afternoon at Willie T’s with their 1000+hp cigarette boats and cool girlfriends. For those of you land dwellers, this is a lot of horse power and a lot of noise. Although they were keeping the engines running at very low speeds while in the bays, they still sounded like thunder.

An ordinary sunset at Peter Island

The next day we got our boat and spent the following two weeks sailing our way around the islands. Sailing around the Virgin Islands is both easy and very difficult. It’s easy because except for the hurricane season the region is blessed with gentle trade winds that provide the ideal sailing conditions. It’s also very difficult because the whole area is teeming with shallow reefs and rocks popping from the sea. Night sailing is a no-no and mooring can be a challenge if you haven’t reserved first.

The Virgins are everybody’s idea of how Caribbean should look like, it’s almost unreal.

        / Beaches of white sand and palm trees? Check.

        / Small islands popping out of an azure sea? Check.

        / Sunshine,blue skies and ridiculously colourful sunsets? Check.

        / Friendly locals serving lobster and pina coladas? Check.

        / Privately owned islands for the uber rich? Check.

        / Pirates? Well, if you’re ok with Captain Blackbeard instead of Johnny Depp, Check.

Divers of the Caribbean

The history of the Caribbean is filled with shipwrecks and pirates. And nowhere is this truer than the BVI with their hidden coves and passages. Situated right on the treasure route from South America to Europe, the area was the playground for many notorious Caribbean Pirates such as Black Sam Bellamy, a fashion forward pirate who was known for his good looks and silk clothes, Calico Jack and his lady pirate lover Anne Bonny, Bartholomew Roberts who, on average, would capture fifty ships each year for ‘the love of novelty and change, not for plunder’ and the most famous of them all, Captain Blackbeard who would go into a fight with slow burning matches in his beard and hair to make himself look more devilish.

In 16^th century, Spain was the most powerful nation in the world and it was controlling the wealth of the Americas and West Indies. Other countries were afraid to challenge the mighty Spanish Armada directly but they were happy to see pirates siphoning the treasure ships full of Aztec gold intended for Madrid, as long as they could get their cut. So the English, French and Dutch started to give ‘letters of marque’ to the pirates offering pardons in exchange for a healthy percentage of the plunder. This was how the government sponsored pirating, in other words privateering (or bucchaneering for French) was born.

The most famous privateer of them all was Sir Francis Drake ( El Draque to his Spanish enemies), a pirate turned privateer who was so successful in bringing the Aztec gold to England, he was decorated with a special medal by Queen Elisabeth I and later defeated the Spanish Armada as an Admiral of the British Empire. Today the main sea channel between Tortola and the westernmost Virgin Islands is named after him.

He was also a bit of a poet.I came across the below among his notes, and it’s good enough to requote. (A pirate and a poet, no wonder why the Virgin Queen was swept off her feet!)

Disturb us Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,

When our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little,

When we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess,

We have lost our thirst for the waters of life, having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity, and in our efforts to build a new earth,

we have allowed our vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us Lord, to dare more boldly, to venture on wider seas, where storms will show your mastery, where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back the horizon  of our hopes, and to push us into the future in strength, courage, hope and love.

Well, I said I like pirates

When I was a kid, one of my favourite books was Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson. When I found out that he got his inspiration from the Norman Island and many of the other places in the novel are scattered around the Virgin Islands, my inner child took control. We snorkelled at the Caves (the treasure point X in the book ), sang ‘15 men on a Dead Men’s Chest’ at the top of our voices while sailing around the island where Blackbeard left 15 of his men with a single bottle of rum to die and spent a night at Soper’s Hole, the favourite anchorage of the great pirate himself.  

The Virgins are overall blessed by nature, but some places were a bit more special than the others:

View from the Soggy Dollar bar

Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost van Dyke island, although crowded could always be trusted for an afternoon of fun. The beachside bar got its name from the wet (soggy) dollar bills that its customers were using to pay the bills, for the bar could either be reached by dinghy or by swimming. It’s popular for being the inventor of the Pain Killer, a BVI speciality made of black rum, pineapple and orange juices, cream of coconut, fresh nutmeg and lots of ice. They prepare it in huge gallons and serve in big glasses. It’s about 5000 calories, very delicious and a couple of them are enough to put you in an extremely great mood. We spent a day swimming, playing ring & hook with complete strangers – a huge challenge after one or two pain killers- and relaxing in one of the seaside hammocks.

The Baths

We liked the Virgin Gorda, meaning the ‘Fat Virgin’. Christophe Colombus named the island as such, because the island’s profile on the horizon resembles of a fat woman lying on her side. We spent couple of days around the island’s beautiful bays and at nights we sampled the restaurants and jazz bars in Spanish Town. Our favourite was the Rock Cafe, a restaurant serving fresh fish and lobsters a la Caribbean. The food was great but the real surprise of the night was at the bar, where a jazz pianist was playing whatever came to our minds in exchange for an occasional glass of Jack Daniels. Lot’s of songs, lot’s of Jacks, great memories.

The Baths

In Virgin Gorda, there’s an area of pools and grottos formed by giant boulders called the Baths. It’s like a natural fun park. There’s a nice route formed by the boulders which starts at the Dinghy Beach, named such because it can only be reached by dinghies, goes through many small pools and over rocks and ends at another -slightly less crowded- beach called Devil’s Bay. It's a good opportunity for a bit of adventure. 

Necker Island, North Sound

Another unforgettable place was the North Sound, a marine playground surrounded by islands and shallow reefs. Reaching it was quite tricky for the passage was both shallow and narrow, but definitely worth the effort. We spent the day swimming, snorkelling and visiting the surrounding islands on our dinghy. At night we had a lovely dinner at a restaurant on a tiny island called Saba Rock, ended up making friends with our fellow diners. I don’t remember the food but the conversations, which were warm and fulfilling.

If one day I win the lottery, North Sound is the place I’ll go to buy myself an island.

Approaching Anageda

Our absolute favourite was Anegada, an island surrounded by shallow coral reefs all around. Getting there by a boat is tricky, because the island is extremely flat – its highest point is about 8 meters above the sea level – and the only opening to the safest anchorage is narrow & when the weather is cloudy or the seas are high, difficult to see. Naturally, we chose the only cloudy day to sail to Anagada. But once we arrived, we were in heaven.

Anegada is actually a flat atoll guarded by the Horseshoe Reef, one of the largest reefs in the world. The reef is famous for its shipwrecks, there are hundreds of them spread around making it a must-go place for divers. Other things the island is famous for are its lobsters and its white sand beaches, so it’s no wonder we divided our time between the three.

Lazing at Loblolly Bay

After a full day of wreck diving and swimming at the Loblolly bay, we had a wonderful dinner at a restaurant on the beach. The restaurant was not crowded, because they were only taking reservations according to the number of fish or lobster that they caught during the day, and they were cooking it all on open fires, which were the main light source apart from the stars. We were sitting at a table barefoot on the beach, eating the superb seafood and listening to a guitar that somebody was playing under the stars. It doesn't come better than that.

Soon afterwards we had to come back to the real world, but Cem is still there, working as a skipper and creating small miracles as a relief worker for the survivors of the earthquake in Haiti. And occasionally calling us to remind us the magic of Caribbean. 

Well, maybe next time.

Last Mooring at Soper's Hole

Visite des Caves

Since we love travelling and we like booze, we ended up doing a lot of tasting tours on various countries that we’ve visited. Although the practices may differ from country to country and producer to producer, the basics remain the same. A typical tasting tour normally involves a ride in some beautiful countryside, listening to information about the producer and the product which could be entertaining / interesting / extremely boring depending on your guide, and finally the tasting so that you can understand what the fuss is all about.  Since good alcohol and good food goes hand in hand, as an added benefit, generally there’s a lovely restaurant or a pub around. Add the occasional cute village or art gallery and you might be in for a real treat.

Below are some of our tastings that were worth remembering.

Champagne, France

Lagerfeld recreated the bol-sein for Dom Perignon , using Claudia Schiffer as inspiration

Who doesn’t like a glass of champagne? It’s the perfect drink for a celebration or at the start of an evening. It goes wonderfully with fresh strawberries and sometimes the mere sight of a flute of champagne can evoke mouthfuls of hidden delights.

But tasting the bubbly in Champagne, its original home in France is not just sipping from a couple of different bottles, it can even border on a holly experience.

First of all, you have to remember that the prestigious word champagne can only be used for the sparkling wine produced at the Champagne region in Northern France. All the other producers must use names such as Cremant (elsewhere in France), Prosecco (in Italy), or Sparkling Wine (in US) to brand their produce.  Every producer in Champagne repeats this at least twice, so that we can all appreciate:

• Champagne was originally produced by monks .The most well known of them is Dom Perignon , a 17^th cc Benedictine monk who had redefined the champagne making process and had his name given to Moet & Chandon’s prestige cuvee. He’s famously quoted as calling to his brothers one day ‘Come quickly! I’m tasting the stars.’
• Champagne was the favourite drink of gods like Louis XIV and Napoleon Bonaparte. Marie Antoinette enjoyed sipping her favourite bubbly from bol-sein, a cup modelled after her own breasts.
• The producers of the Champagne region are blessed to be making this heavenly drink worthy of royalty and they’re doing a huge favour by allowing mere mortals like us to drink it.

The caves at Mumm

Well, they are correct on all accounts but some of them just overkill while delivering the message.

Having said that, tasting is a great experience in Champagne and every major house tries to add a twist to make the experience even more attractive. The major estates are working or worked with artists like Lagerfeld, David Lynch and Andy Warhol to create images and objects to capture our imaginations as well as our taste buds. As a result, Moet & Chandon has great stories to tell ranging from Dom Perignon to Bonaparte; Mercier has the underground laser operated train; Veuve Clicquot has the designer goodies and Mumm has a great cellar and Formula 1.

After tasting champagne at a few of the great names, you can also visit a couple of the hundreds of small producers in the region who produce great champagne and anxious to introduce you to their world with very attractive prices.

Bordeaux, France

The vineyards of Medoc

In a typical wine tour at a chateau in Medoc, the guide first takes you the vineyards to talk about the soil and exact percentages of the different varieties of grapes and average ages of the vines. Then you move on to the Vat room where they explain how meticulously they clarify and mix the wines. Afterwards you continue to the cellars to learn about the precise age and origin of the barrels and the aging process. Finally when you find yourself in the tasting rooms, your head is bursting with all the information and you really need a drink.

Naturally after visiting a couple of Chateaux, we started to have very weird arguments with my husband, such as ‘No no, you never listen! It was 4% of Cabarnet Franc and 2% of Petit Verdot, not the other way around.’ Luckily, both of us were feeling quite happy from all the wine so the argument didn’t escalate to the best wine aging methods.

One of the main problems of wine tasting in Bordeaux is the other people wine tasting there. 

If you happened upon a Chinese or Japanese group (I say group because it seems they’re forbidden to travel alone), just step aside and wait for them to pass on. They would be extremely noisy and rude, and they have to take photographs of absolutely everything at least three times. If, in the process they block your path or step on your foot, tough luck. Luckily, they would not be interested in anything other than their cameras so they will not listen to their guides and move fast to the next photo opportunity.

If you share a tour with American wine enthusiasts, you might be in for a treat. I’m not talking about the average tourist or the true enthusiast. There’s another breed, rich and in-the-know, and they are a joy to watch from a distance. We recently shared a wine tour at a Grand Cru Chateau in Medoc with such a couple and they made my experience memorable. It was just us and them et bien-sure their own private wine expert. Poor guy.

Chateau Haut Brion - from inside

At the beginning of the tour, even before the expert of the chateau started her sermon on the precise age and varieties of the vines in this particular vineyard, one of them asked their expert about a recent article on Robert Parker’s web site on Bordeaux wines.  ‘Ah the web site’ replied the expert, giving us a knowing smile. Their continuing monologues were serving one purpose only, to show how much they know about ‘this wine stuff’.  In about two minutes later, the two French wine guides started to chat among themselves, my husband decided to imitate the Japanese with his camera and I was left to suffer and occasionally nod.

When we finally arrived at the tasting room, the woman asked the local guide why they were offering the wine in bottles instead of carafes.  Even before the guide could open her mouth (who would probably say ‘because this is not a restaurant, dumbo’), the husband commented rather rudely about his wife’s carafe addiction. Since I was the only one around, the woman went on explaining to me how she liked purchasing different styles of wine carafes and using them as decorative items in the house. Feeling slightly sorry for her, I told that I prefer serving reds in carafe as well. The husband then asked me:

'So you buy a different carafe every time you go to shopping?'

'Well, no.'

'Do you also put full carafes around the house, all filled with expensive wine from your husband’s personal cave ?'

' ...?'

#  

Bourgogne, France

One bunch out of a hundred

Since we had done the ‘Route des Chateaux’ very recently in Bordeaux, we decided to skip the ‘Route des Grand Crus’ in Bourgogne this time and decided to visit a wine cellar instead. We chose one of the biggest cellars of Beaune, the ‘Patriarch Pere et Fils’ which turned out to be a very different experience.  In exchange for 10 Euros per person, they gave us a couple of tasting cups and let us loose in the cellars. The Patriarch cellars turned out to be a 5-km long underground labyrinth filled with thousands of bottles around which we were free to wander without a guide. It was slightly thrilling to find our way in the dark maze of bottles, most of which were not even labelled.  We wondered if somebody was taking a bottle here and putting it there, just for fun.

When we finally found the tasting rooms, the experience got even more interesting.  We found out that they opened some bottles and put them on top of barrels in four or five different rooms which we were free to taste as we like. It was a refreshing experience to taste in the order and amount of our choosing, without an expert explaining how the wines were supposed to taste.

So we took our time and try not to drink all of the 15+ bottles left for our pleasure. Needless to say, we ended up getting drunk and buying more wine that we intended to, but we had a great time.

Hospice des Beaune

Another interesting thing in Beaune was the Hospices des Beaune, a 15^th century hospital and refuge for the poor and a beautifully crafted building. It offered treatment and comfort to the sick, elderly or the destitute non-stop from the Middle Ages to present day. Many rich people, including the Sun King himself, have made rich donations to the Hospice, farms, buildings and of course vineyards; therefore the Hospice started to produce it’s own wine, which is very good and highly prized.

The Hospice is also organizes an annual wine auction since early 18^th century, which is used to define the annual prices of the regional wines.

Chateauneuf-du-Pape, France

Sunset over Rhone

Chateauneuf-du-Pape is a lovely town surrounded by vineyards which produce some very good wines. There indeed is an old chateau, from which the little town – and the wine- get their names.

We’ve visited the town at a Sunday afternoon in late autumn and enjoyed an exceptional sunset over the Rhone valley. Afterwards we stopped at a small wine cellar for a bit of tasting and shopping and went to a bar for a bit more. Nice town, friendly people, good wine, a wonderful ending to an unforgettable weekend.

Napa Valley, California, USA

Couldn't resist putting this

First founded by the Italian and Swiss immigrants in early 1900s, Napa Valley today has become one of the most important wine growing regions in the world.  As in most things, when it comes to wine making the Americans are making their own rules and as a result they start to beat French and Italian wines in their own game in international competitions.

Years ago while driving around California, we’ve spent a day there visiting the Mondavi estate and listened to the tricks of wine tasting (you have to smell it before drinking!). There was also a rather lengthy comparison of New World Wines against Old World Wines, which sounded a bit like a preparation for WW3. We were quite young then and taking the tour with close friends, so it was a day of laughter and fun, accompanied with some decent wine and a picnic basket. I’m pretty sure their tours have improved in the meantime to catch up the quality of their wines.

Santorini, Greece

A typical wine tasting at Santorini

While spending a week in Santorini a few summers ago, we decided to visit one of the wine producers which turned out to be a very fun experience.  When it comes to wine tasting, the Greek have the rather admirable philosophy of ‘Cut the crap and let’s get drunk’.  They basically take your money, give you 3 or 4 very full glasses of wine with some crackers and invite you to drink them at the terrace. The wines were decent and the views from the terraces were breathtaking. We liked the experience so much; we did a lot of wine tasting at sunset on our way from the beach to the hotel.

Stellenbosch, South Africa

Africa is beautiful and the wine region of Stellenbosch was no exception. We spent an excellent day driving the Wine Root and stopping at the estates advised by our local friends. South African wines were shunned by the West because of the Apartheid and only in the last decade they started to become popular.  I loved their white wines, managing to be fruity and dry at the same time. The reds were also quite good with heavenly smells, but I’d pick a South African Sauvignon Blanc any day.

Wine tasting was a friendly affair, nothing pretentious, mostly about promoting their award winning wines rather than explaining the philosophy of the wine producer.  Most of the estates either have their own restaurants or offer picnic baskets with the wine of your choice in their lush gardens.  We opted for the second option and had a great picnic under the trees overlooking the beautiful countryside.  

Afterwards we spent some time in the town of Stellenbosch, which turned out to be a pretty little town with Cape/Dutch style buildings, art galleries and shops selling everything you don’t need but want to buy anyway.

                                               

Scotland

I started to drink whisky when I was nine or ten years old and it’s still one of my favourite drinks. My father owned a large collection of whisky & cognac that he obtained from all around the world and as a curious kid who was always looking for mischief I started to have my private tasting tours to his whiskey cabinet at a very early age. I was mainly tasting from the small bottles that were given as presents and filling them with tea afterwards so I didn’t go into a lot of trouble but I developed a taste for great whisky and learned the differences between a blended whisky and single malt.

My favourite method of whisky sampling in Scotland turned out to be finding a good bar with a friendly barman, preferably in a small village or town, and start ordering the local favourites. It would be a challenge to pronounce the brands like Dahlwhinnie or Bunnahabhain especially after a couple of rounds, but the pleasure of drinking those great malts will worth the effort.

Northern Ireland

Recently we visited Northern Ireland for a few days. A very friendly Irish barman (is there another kind?) told me that while the Scotch can produce some great whiskey some of the time, the Irish can do it all the time. He also told me that the Irish spell whiskey with an ‘e’ (the correct way) while the Scotch pronounce it as whisky (the poor way).  At least that’s what I gathered from his accent.  A few days later we visited the Jameson distillery to learn about why it’s triple distilled (I still have no clue) and to taste some of their great samples.

With all due respect to my friend the Irish barman, I still prefer to drink Scotch malt and order a Guinness at an Irish pub.

Belgium

Abbeye Notre Dame d' Orval

It’s impossible to live in Belgium and not to enjoy beer. There are over 450 different types of local beers, most of them served in their own special glasses which are supposed to enhance the flavour of the particular beer for which they’re designed. My personal favourites are the Trappist beers that are produced by the Trappist monks at monasteries and abbeys. There are six monasteries in Belgium which are producing this special beer, together with cheese and other local products. I prefer Orval and Westvleteren among others.

The Westvleteren 12 is regularly rated as one of the best beers in the world. It’s extremely good but almost impossible to find, there’s even a black market for it.  Drinking Westvleteren beer is truly a unique experience for two reasons; it tastes great and it’s very difficult to buy. It is brewed by a tiny abbey named St. Sixtus of Westvleteren, some 150 km outside Brussels.  The abbey makes only three kinds of beer (the 12, 8 and 6, the names are corresponding to the alcohol percentages – yep, Belgium beer is strong stuff!) and in miniscule quantities.

So why didn’t you hear about it before? The problem is the supply. The monks are producing beer only 72 days a year and sell it either directly to individual buyers or at the visitor centre just outside the abbey. Buying the beer directly from the abbey is almost as difficult as, say, going to heaven. They only sell their beer two days a month by reservation only and in limited amounts (two cases per car). Or you can always drive up to the Visitor Centre, which in fact is a huge bar in the middle of nowhere and order as much as you can drink. As bars go, it’s not too bad and always crowded. In the little shop inside the bar you can even purchase beer by the bottle, although the 12 is rarely on sale.

The monks of St. Sixtus are not interested in increasing the revenue or winning awards, because a- the money they earn is enough to cover the annual expenses of the abbey and b- their patron saint St. Benedict advises against greed and teaches humility.  In this capitalist era, they somehow manage to keep their faith as strong as the beer that they produce.

One thing I enjoy more than drinking these wonderful drinks is to share it with my loved ones. Whatever we choose to drink always tastes better than any Grand Cru accompanied with laughter or gossip or even tears, as long as I can share it with my family and friends.  

So this one is for you guys. Şerefe !