Virgin Gorda

The island's earliest known settlers were Taíno, or Arawak, people who arrived from South America between about 100 and 300 CE, and traces of their settlements have been found in Spanish Town. In the 15th century they were displaced by the Caribs. Christopher Columbus sighted the island in 1493 on his second voyage and, the story goes, called it Virgen Gorda, the "fat virgin", because its profile on the horizon resembled a woman lying on her side. Spain claimed it but never settled it, while English seamen used North Sound as a strategic anchorage: John Hawkins visited in the 1560s with a young Francis Drake aboard, Drake anchored there in 1585, and in 1595 twenty-six ships gathered in the sound before their attack on San Juan.

In 1631 the Dutch West India Company funded a settlement on the island, led by Joost van Dyk, to mine copper. The island came under British control, and its old name, Paneston or Peniston, was a corruption of "Spanish Town". Mining returned in the 19th century: the Copper Mine was built in 1837, its first shaft sunk in 1838, and over two periods 36 Cornish miners and about 140 local workmen dug ore that went by road to Spanish Town and then by ship to Wales. The mine was abandoned in 1862 and never reopened, and some of the miners' descendants still live in the islands.

In the 20th century the island turned to tourism and sailing, with marina services at Spanish Town and the sheltered waters of North Sound at the centre of it. Hurricane Irma devastated the territory in September 2017.

Virgin Gorda shares the territory's Belonger identity — English-speaking, Christian and descended from enslaved Africans and post-emancipation smallholders — in a smaller, quieter form than Tortola. Its own church, St Ursula's in The Valley, carries the name of the saint after whom Columbus named the whole archipelago. The island's main celebration is the Easter Festival, held every Easter weekend, and islanders join the territory-wide August Festival that marks emancipation in 1834.

The traditional music is fungi, played by "scratch bands" on calabash, washboard, bongos and ukulele as well as guitars, banjo and saxophone, with songs that often carry humorous social commentary and island history.

Life here is shaped by the water. North Sound, enclosed by islands and reefs, is one of the great watersports harbours of the Caribbean, and moorings and marinas draw yacht crews and charter guests. Visitors are welcome on every beach, all of which are public, but villa owners' privacy is expected to be respected, and the island's pace is slow and its manners conservative.

Virgin Gorda is the second most populous island in the territory after Tortola, though its population is small. Most residents live in the Valley in the south-west, in and around Spanish Town, where the businesses, shops and services are; the north and east are thinly settled apart from small communities around North Sound. Children attend Robinson O'Neal Memorial Primary School or the Bregado Flax Educational Centre, a combined primary and secondary school opened in 1982.

Tourism is the island's living: visitors arrive by ferry and boat for The Baths, yachts fill the moorings and the Yacht Harbour, and villas line the hills and beaches. The airport takes only small aircraft, in daylight, so most visitors come by sea. The airport was restricted to a short list of airlines in January 2010 by the territory's aviation regulator until it was brought up to international safety standards, reopening that December.

Daily life follows the ferry timetable and the tourist season, busiest from December to April and around Easter. Like the rest of the territory, the island spent years recovering from the damage of Hurricane Irma in 2017.

The island eats like the rest of the territory, with the sea at the centre of the plate. Fresh fish and conch, "fish and fungi" — fish with fungi, a cornmeal-and-okra dish rather like polenta — callaloo, salt-fish pates and johnnycake, a fried bread, are the everyday classics, and roti, a flatbread wrapped around curry, is a popular lunch. Lobster, much of it from Anegada to the north, is the special-occasion dish, and some restaurants hold buffet nights built around it.

The Yacht Harbour in Spanish Town is the hub of eating and drinking for both residents and sailors, with a bar that has local entertainment most nights, and a supermarket and a wholesale market on Tower Road supply villa kitchens and yacht galleys. Around North Sound, waterside bars and restaurants serve crews who come ashore by dinghy, and on the hill above Leverick Bay a restaurant looks out over the water.

Rum is the drink. The Painkiller — rum with pineapple juice, orange juice and cream of coconut, dusted with nutmeg — was created in the 1970s on nearby Jost Van Dyke.