40 Fun Facts About Tortola

Which harbour settlement on Tortola's south coast is the capital of the British Virgin Islands?

Road Town takes its name from 'the roads', a sailors' term for a place less sheltered than a harbour that ships can still reach easily.

Tortola flies the British flag, but which currency is the official money used on the island?

The US dollar is official on Tortola because the island sits so close to, and trades so often with, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

Tortola's name matches a Spanish word for which bird, though a Dutch origin is also claimed?

Turtle dove is what 'tórtola' means in Spanish, but the name may really be an English twist on Ter-Tholen, after an island in the Netherlands.

The channel between Tortola and the islands to its south is named after which English privateer?

Sir Francis Drake gives his name to the strait, which can be seen from Tortola's ridge-top trails stretching from Virgin Gorda to St. John.

Which hurricane devastated Tortola in September 2017, days before Boris Johnson toured the damage?

Irma did its worst British Virgin Islands damage on Tortola on 6 September 2017, and Johnson said the wreckage reminded him of photos of Hiroshima.

An islet across the channel south of Tortola is among several places reputed to have inspired which novel?

Treasure Island is reputed to draw on Norman Island, where a mutinous crew buried a galleon's silver in 1750 and people from Tortola dug it up.

Melanie Amaro, raised on Tortola from the age of three, won the first US season of which talent show?

The X Factor made Amaro its first American winner in 2011, handing the singer who grew up with her grandmother on Tortola a $5 million recording contract.

Which singer, born and raised on Tortola, reached number 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 with 'Replay'?

Iyaz was found through his Myspace page in 2008, and his debut single 'Replay' went on to enter the United Kingdom chart at number 1.

What is the oldest building in Tortola's capital, standing on Main Street since 1774?

The prison, officially HM Prison, went up on Main Street in 1774, two years before the British fortified Fort Burt above the harbour.

Which plantation crop dominated Tortola's economy for more than a century, until slavery was abolished?

Sugarcane ruled Tortola until the 1800s, when beet grown in England and America offered a rival product and many landowners left the islands.

Tortola's airport sits on which small neighbour off its eastern tip, linked by a short bridge?

Beef Island is joined to Tortola by the short Queen Elizabeth II Bridge; the Queen herself opened the original in 1966, and a wider one replaced it in 2002.

Which peak on Tortola is the highest point in the whole Virgin Islands archipelago?

Mount Sage tops every summit in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands, and old-growth forest on its slopes is said to be untouched since the time of Columbus.

Tortola, the largest of the British Virgin Islands, was formed by which geological process?

Volcanic activity built Tortola's steep hills, whereas one flat neighbour in the same island group is made entirely of coral reef deposits.

Tortola's capital is a leading Caribbean centre for 'bareboating', the self-hire chartering of what?

Yachts hired with no skipper or crew are the heart of bareboating, and many charter firms run their fleets out of Tortola's main harbour.

Which rum brand, first bottled on Tortola, follows the Royal Navy's old daily-ration recipe?

Pusser's is Royal Navy slang for a purser, and the brand was born in 1979, nine years after the fleet poured its last daily tot on 'Black Tot Day'.

Which rum cocktail from the British Virgin Islands blends pineapple, orange and cream of coconut?

The Painkiller was first mixed in the 1970s at the Soggy Dollar Bar on Jost Van Dyke, and it is finished with a generous grating of fresh nutmeg.

Columbus named the Virgin Islands, Tortola among them, after the 11,000 virgin followers of which saint?

Saint Ursula was a martyr said to have had 11,000 virgin companions, and the sheer number of islands reminded Columbus of them in 1493.

Dutch privateer Joost van Dyk founded Tortola's first permanent settlement at which West End anchorage?

Soper's Hole was where van Dyk's settlers farmed cotton and tobacco, and the nearby island of Jost Van Dyke is thought to carry his name.

Ferries from Tortola cross to Charlotte Amalie and Red Hook on which neighbouring American island?

Saint Thomas, in the U.S. Virgin Islands, is linked by ferry to both Tortola's capital and its West End, so a short boat ride takes passengers from British to American territory.

Smuggler's Cove, Long Bay and Josiah's Bay line which side of Tortola, home to its best beaches?

North is the shore to head for on Tortola: besides those three, it holds Cane Garden Bay, Brewer's Bay and Lambert Beach.

Which religious group, firm opponents of slaveholding, kept a settlement around Tortola from 1727 to 1768?

Quakers were few and stayed only about four decades, yet their stand is credited with better treatment of the enslaved and a large free black population.

Tortola planter and politician Arthur Hodge was hanged in 1811 after a trial for murdering whom?

One of his slaves, a man named Prosper, died after Hodge had him flogged over a fallen mango, and a free woman of colour gave the main evidence at the trial.

Riots that burned most of Tortola's capital in August 1853 began as a protest against a new tax on what?

Cattle carried a new head tax passed in June 1853, and the rural labourers who marched on the capital that August went on to burn plantation houses across the island.

Africans liberated from illegal slave ships by the Royal Navy were settled in which area of Tortola?

Kingstown was unsettled until the freed Africans arrived, and St. Phillip's Church there became one of the earliest free black churches in the Americas.

Samuel Hodge of Tortola became the second black recipient of which British gallantry medal?

The Victoria Cross went to Hodge for an 1866 assault in The Gambia, where he hacked open two barricaded gates with an axe before being shot down.

William Thornton learned on Tortola of a design contest he went on to win for which Washington landmark?

The Capitol became Thornton's winning design: a trained physician, he heard of the contest on Tortola and was let in late because no plan had yet been chosen.

Tortola-born silversmith Richard Humphreys founded which school, now America's oldest historically black college?

Cheyney University began in 1837 as a Philadelphia school for African Americans, funded by $10,000 that Humphreys set aside in his will.

Tortola's community college is named after H. Lavity Stoutt, who was the first holder of which office?

Chief Minister was a post Stoutt held in three separate spells, and he pushed for the college even though his own schooling ended after primary school.

Fort Purcell, a ruined Dutch-built fort on Tortola, is better known by which nickname?

The Dungeon is a twist on 'donjon', the name the Spanish in Puerto Rico gave the fort, which has never actually been used as one.

Fort Burt, a colonial fort guarding the harbour of Tortola's capital, is now the site of what?

A hotel was built on the ruins after a naval commander bought them in 1953, then the only one on Tortola, and an original cannon still stands on its veranda.

On Tortola, open-air pickup trucks fitted with bench seats and canvas tops serve as buses called what?

Safaris are the local name for these converted trucks, a cheaper way than a private taxi to get from the airport to the capital or to either end of Tortola.

Fungi, the traditional band music played on Tortola, takes its name from what?

A cornmeal dish cooked with okra, onions and peppers shares the name, because the music is likewise a cook-up of many instruments, some of them homemade.

Wickham's Cay, the newest part of Tortola's capital and home to a marina, is land created how?

Reclaimed from the sea in two sections covering 28 hectares, the cay now holds the territory's newer commercial and administrative buildings.

Which Royal Mail steamer, wrecked near Tortola in an 1867 hurricane, is now a famous dive site?

RMS Rhone went down off Salt Island with the loss of 123 lives, and underwater scenes for the film The Deep were later shot in and around her wreck.

Whose grant bought the land for Tortola's first national park, created in 1964?

Laurance Rockefeller's grant let the government buy the ridge from private farmers, creating the first national park in the British Virgin Islands.

Ellis Thomas Downs on Tortola is one of three tracks in the region for which popular sport?

Horse racing is a favourite across the Virgin Islands, and Tortola has also been a regular host of basketball's Caribbean championships.

The Old Government House in Tortola's capital, rebuilt after a 1924 hurricane, now serves as what?

A museum took over the old residence after a new Government House was built next door in 2003, sparing a building once slated for demolition.

What does 'Vigilate', the Latin motto on the British Virgin Islands flag flown over Tortola, mean?

Be watchful sits beneath a woman holding a flaming gold oil lamp, ringed by eleven more lamps that stand for her thousands of legendary followers.

After Tortola, which flat coral island is the second largest of the British Virgin Islands?

Anegada is the only inhabited island in the group formed from coral and limestone, so it lies flat and low while its neighbours are mountainous.

In 1867, about three weeks after a deadly hurricane, Tortola was hit by an earthquake that triggered what?

A tsunami followed each of the quake's two shocks by about ten minutes, and the waves were some of the highest ever recorded in the Lesser Antilles.