A Personal Tribute To The Colorful Creator Of Tortola’s Famous Full Moon Parties
The British Virgin Islands have produced some legendary beach bars and equally legendary personalities. One of the most unforgettable was Wellington “Bomba” Smith, creator of Bomba’s Surfside Shack on Tortola. With news of his passing, I remember the unusual bar, its famous Full Moon parties and my own encounter with the man behind it.
By Kevin Wilkerson, PubClub.com Editor & Publisher
The Virgin Islands bar have long been full of legends. There’s Foxy of Tamarind Bar, Gertrude of Gertrude’s Beach Bar and Grill and “Bomba of Bomba’s Shack.
It is with sorrow that I must resport the passing of “Bomba,” whose real name was Wellington Smith. He died on Nov. 3, 2026. Nobody really knows his age tho one news report put it at 75.
Smith ran a unique bar in the British Virgin Islands. Bomba’s Surf Shack in Cappoons Bay, Tortola, was not a surf shack devoted to surfing, but a collection of items that the surf washed up on his property. Legend has it that he did not like the fact that his wife going off to party so he build the shack so she could party at home.
But it was not the makeshift decor that made people come from far and wide but his signature drink: his famous mushroom tea and full moon parties.
The drink was a hallucinogenic drink made of “magic mushrooms” and women were known to trade their underwear for drinks. Above the tin-roofed shack of a bar on the property, women’s underwear hung from the rafters. interestingly enough, so did a pair of binoculars.
You got the mushroom tea out of a big kettle, as I recall, in an outdoor area and drank it under the stars. Or under a full moon.
The story is told in a song by singer/songwriter Eric Stone, who llved and played in the Virgin Islands for several years and visited Bomba’s several times.
“You can howl at the moon at Bomba’s Surfside Shack…
“Pretty girls can trade in their underwear….
“The magic mushroom tea is everywhere.”
Bomba’s opened in 1976 and Hurricane Irma destroyed it in 2017. Bomba tried to rebuild and re-open but it proved to be too much of a challenge.
I met Bomba while sitting at the little bar. We chatted a bit about the women’s underwear and a few other things. He was pretty chill and did not really say a lot but I was fully aware of the fact that I was talking to a local legend.
An interesting side note about the women’s underwear. On a plane ride back to L.A.., I wound up sitting next to Jules Asner, the cute-nosed occasional host of E’s Wild On!,” whose garmets were hanging from Bomba’s bar. I don’t recall if I knew that already or Bomba mentioned it to me but I just had to ask her about it.
She was polite but quiet and when I brought it up, she blushed and said, “I had to do it for the show but it’s not really my underwear. I bought it in town and that’s what hanging there. I did not remove my underwear in the bar.”
Well, I’m sure even the shy Jules would raise a glass – or a cup of mushroom tea if one could get one – to Bomba, a legend of the legendary bars of the BVIs.
Kevin Wilkerson is the founder of PubClub.com, an award-winning journalist and nightlife expert who has covered destinations, events and nightlife for more than two decades. While working as a newspaper reporter, he received an Associated Press award for investigative journalism. He met ‘”Bomba” at the bar.
Next Stops On The Virgin Islands Party Bus…
• What It Was Like At Bomba’s Surfside Shack
• The Bars Of The British Virgin Islands
• The Famous Drinks Of The Virgin Islands
Leave a Reply