01.03.06
See how Tortola has changed in 30 years
The moment Ed Hamilton sailed into The British Virgin Islands in the early dawn, October 1972, and watched sleepy Road Town Harbor come to life, he knew this was the place he wanted to live.
He packed his bag and with the firm belief that it is difficult to starve in a civilized country, he left the boat.
It was rare to see a white person on the beach and ever rarer to see more than one sailboat in the bay. The days were spent looking for a job in the morning and swimming in Cane Garden Bay in the afternoon. It took 3 weeks to convince Charlie and Ginny Carey to give him a job in their fledging new charter company, ‘The Moorings‘.
‘The Moorings’ is now an enormous empire with hundreds of charter yachts in bases all over the world, but it started with 4 Pearson 35’s and a small Dufour. Charlie had just added several new Morgan Out Island 41’s that had arrived with many problems. Bob Woodrow, Bill Hirst (now a surveyor), George Forster (Road Town port pilot) and Ed took turns with charter check outs, area briefings and skippering jobs. Charlie and Ginny were great employers and pioneers in the charter industry. Several years later, all but one of the charter companies in Tortola were run by managers trained by them. Ed has fond memories of Charlie walking down the dock on Fridays, paying the crew in cash from a fist full of notes! A far cry from the multimillion dollar company ‘The Moorings’ became.
These before and after photographs of Road Town tell quite a story. The lower picture was taken from ‘Horse Path’ in 2002. The other was taken from a private residence in the late 60’s.
When Ed first sailed into Road Town he saw 4 bedroom houses for sale in prime locations for $15,000 that would be worth millions today. And until the late 60’s, Road Town was primarily built around a single lane road tucked into the hillside, with the stores backing onto the water. A loophole in the law allowed any entrepreneur to own land he reclaimed.
The character may have changed but now hundreds of people take their vacation in these islands, which still have more beds on charter yachts than in hotels. It’s still hard to beat as a yachting cruising ground, but I bet it was beautiful in in the days before the people came!
View more pictures of Tortola’s change.
