Blog / British Virgin Islands

HIHO isn't just a Caribbean clothing brand, it's also a world-renowned water sports adventure held here in the beautiful British Virgin Islands each summer.  As a young windsurfer, I competed in the HIHO race for many many years, winning it in 1986.  

The Highland Spring HIHO combines windsurfing, stand-up paddle boarding, and yacht racing into an action-packed week-long adventure.  Living aboard captained catamarans provided by The Moorings, the world's largest charter boat company, participants compete in windsurfing or SUP classes alongside pro & amateur races from around the globe.  

Highland Spring HIHO is as much fun for non-competing participants who can enjoy great sailing, the pristine beaches of the BVI and the nightly sponsored parties.  Check out this video from last year's race...

Highland Spring HIHO 2011 from Ryan Reede on Vimeo.

We make sure the participants are looking good with swag bags full of HIHO gear.  The race jersey is available for purchase here on our site.  If this looks like something you'd enjoy, which I can almost guarantee, registration is still open for the 2012 race.  We'll set sail from Tortola on July 1st.  Join us, won't you?  

Cheers,

The Highland Spring HIHO is less than five months away. Come join us!

Sunset in the British Virgin Islands 

Cheers!

Like any good company we try and make a point to build long relationships with our suppliers.  To that end we travel to Peru at least a couple times a year to meet with our suppliers.  We’ve been working with Neyer Solis for some time.  Sensing opportunity Neyer left the large knitwear company where he worked and set up a small sewing line dedicated to our production.  His line has grown to 10 men & women working sewing our T-shirts.  

Here’s a peek at a color chart we are working on for our men’s linen shirts.  Color plays an important part in the HIHO line.  We spend hours selecting colors and testing variations trying to get them exactly right before assigning them to the various clothes in the line. 

We send color swatches to our suppliers and they return us “lab dips” for us to approve. These approved colors are included in orders we send to our factories.  Naturally, we focus on colors that surround us in the Caribbean.

 

A little known secret is that Tortola offers some of the best surfing in the Caribbean.  The island offers a good dozen wave riding spots, and there are as many others on the outer islands including Virgin Gorda, Anegada and Sandy Cay.  

 

 

 

It’s generally acknowledged that Cane Garden Bay is Tortola’s best surf spot.  Offering a point break, Cane Garden can serve up a wonderfully large & long wave to ride.  Tortola’s most popular break is Apple Bay or “Bombas” where surfers can choose from two right breaking waves, and a left break.  Music from the eponymous island bar wafts across the water to surfers in the lineup.  Other popular breaks include Josiah’s Bay which, when the swell is small, offers excellent beginner waves along with Lava Flow, Cooten Bay, Josh’s, Schoolhouse and Smugglers Cove.  

 

 

 

Sure, each break doesn’t work every time the surf is up, but when there is a convergence of a good size swell, offshore wind and favorable tide you can catch waves up and down the islands North Shore.  

 

There are just a few of the original island-built boats still in service. This boat, seen fishing off the Eastern tip of Little Thatch, is kept tied up to the mangroves in Sopers Hole. When I was a boy growing up in Tortola boats were still built by hand by shipwrights who practiced their craft in almost the same way as their fathers and   grandfathers. They used some power tools but they still went into the bush to find cedar trees that were correctly shaped for the boats ribs. Caulking was done by hand and the boats launched by a team of people. In East End they would still build the odd island sloop while in Towers near the West End of the island I remember the yard where they turned out 18 or so foot open boats that were used by fisherman and by the North Shore residents who gunned off to work at Caneel Bay Resort on St John. By the 1980’s the Tortola boat building tradition had succumbed the ubiquity of the fiberglass boat. 

 

 

The Caribbean offers a wide range of cuisine which is as diverse as the island chain is long with islands all offering their take on meat, fish, stews, soups and so forth.  Several food dishes have “legs” by which we mean you will find them almost everywhere.  One of favorite dishes or meals are rotis.  Brought to the Caribbean by indentured workers from India the roti is a stew wrapped in an Indian flat bread.  It looks a little like a large burrito.  A roti comprises potatoes, garbanzo beans, vegetables and usually chicken or mutton.  Veggie rotis are common.  Rotis can be spicey or not.  They are usually accompanied with chutney.  Compliment with a cold Red Stripe or Ting. 

 

 

The BVI’s are a gorgeous collection of Caribbean islands and cays.  Beaches large & small are etched into the coasts.  One favorite beach is Valley Trunk Bay, which is located between The Baths and Spanish Town on Virgin Gorda’s South West end.  About the length of two football fields, Valley Trunk is anchored on either end by giant boulders.  The perfectly white sand is thick like unrefined sugar and the water is as clear as glass.  Towering coconut trees line the top of the beach.  There are no moorings off Valley Trunk so it’s easy to anchor.  Swim ashore or jump on a SUP for a leisurely paddle down to The Baths.