Diamond Cay, Jost Van Dyke

Tuesday, June 7th, Diamond Cay, Jost Van Dyke, British Virgin Islands

I'll be your guide today whether you like it or not!

Diamond Cay is home to Foxy's Taboo and the Bubbly pool.  After spending the night on a mooring ball in the harbor here, we decided to take a walk to one of the local attractions on Jost Van Dyke, the Bubbly Pool.




The Bubbly Pool is a naturally formed Jacuzzi-like formation of rocks on the north shore of Jost Van Dyke, and is a favorite hike for most boaters that make it over that way.   Once you figure out how you got lost following the several different ways to get to the site, it's a nice hike along some pretty scenic BVI panoramas.

Follow the blue arrows

The trail leads you past some of the largest Manchineel trees I've ever seen.   These trees are reported to be wildly toxic, including touching the tree, burning the wood and bark, and eating the small, apple-like fruit that they bear.  Needless to say, we avoided them, and made sure Iris didn't stop to taste their fruit.  We didn't take any pictures of them because we were afraid they would somehow poison us if we did!

Janet and Iris dare the Bubbly Pool

The hike to the pool is pretty easy, about a mile total from the beach bar at the trail head.  Janet and I fell for the same fake-out that I always seem to succumb to when we're going to the pool.  There's a fork in the trail that looks like you're going through a mangrove swamp, but in fact, it's the way to the trail.  Sigh.   Been fooled before.

Public Service Warning seems pretty scary.

If you make it past the valley of the death trees (just kidding) then you come onto the little beach that is the Bubbly Pool.  Very calm this day, since the north Atlantic swells weren't running very high.  Kinda just a little gassy pool instead of bubbly.  I'm being a bit silly though, since there has been at least one fatality at this beach in the last couple of years, and actually it looks like it could be pretty dangerous when the surf is high, like during the winter months.

Go ahead, make my day you bubbly mofo!

Janet was impressed that there were tons of little fish in the pool behind the rocks.  Since there was no way for the big fish to get them in the pool, we decided it was like a "gated community" for the little fish.

This cactus is like two stories tall.  I'm not kidding.

On the way back, we tried to get a picture of a "yuge" cactus.  Unfortunately, we weren't able to get Steve and Iris for scale....