The first time we saw The Baths, those incredibly large and beautiful rocks at the southern end of Virgin Gorda, was in 1963. It was the last day of a windjammer cruise that took 16 of us around the eastern Caribbean, from Tortola to St Maarten to St Barts and Saba, then over to St Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and finally to Virgin Gorda and St. Thomas.

This was our first windjammer cruise and it was a memorable ten days, but the most lasting memory of all was sailing the British Virgin Islands around Virgin Gorda and into The Baths.

There's a very expensive Rockefeller resort nearby called Little Dix Bay, and one of their weekly highlights is a sail over to The Baths for a few hours of swimming, snorkelling, and just enjoying the beauty of the place.

Twenty six years after we first landed on Virgin Gorda with our windjammer shipmates, we returned to Virgin Gorda for a week. We stayed in a little house ($65 per night including a kitchen) atop one of these rocks, and right there at The Baths was our very private beach.

Private , that is, until the boats started arriving around 11am from the resort or from Tortola or St Thomas or some other nearby island, bringing passengers over to enjoy 'our ' Baths. But then, about 3 or 4 in the afternoon, one by one the boats would leave and we'd reclaim our private little beach and those Baths.

Then, as the sun slowly sank in the west, we'd have a rum cocktail and enjoy the view. One final toast: here's to our returning to Virgin Gorda and our little house on top of one of those fantastic rocks that that are known as The Baths.