Christmas Day

  It was an early start! We’d had a visitor in the night filling sacks and snacking in the cockpit: Although only 6am we couldn’t possibly expect a young man to go back to sleep. We dragged mountains of parcels on deck and commenced an unwrapping frenzy. There were all sorts of useful holiday things in CJ’s sack from Santa but best of all a new laptop from dad and lovely presents for us all from family. I still had no main present for Simon hoping tomorrow he may decide on some dive gear, so after opening the few odds and ends I had bought him it came as even more of an embarrassment for me to open one of the beautiful emerald necklaces that was draped around my neck on our shopping trip. I didn’t know quite what to say: How spoilt am I? I wore it briefly with an orange and green sarong while making breakfast then locked it securely away in the safe petrified it would end up overboard. Unfortunately we were now to see little of CJ as he disappeared into his cabin with his laptop preparing a presentation on St.Lucia for geography.

   Our Christmas Day was rather disorganised. I thought we were all meeting up around eleven for a mince pie and drink to decide what time to hit the beach but Si and CJ had gone to check out the swell in the bay to see if it was safe to land the dinghies, Liberty we found out later had gone to church, Sephina were at the yacht club and Ron (Zahara) and I met up every half hour resisting the urge to eat all the mince pies and drink all the beer while Joice was busy cooking on Fair Encounter: Eventually though dinghies were (over)loaded and we hit the beach.

   A cruise liner had unfortunately deposited most of its passengers on the beach and a sea of lobsters singeing on sunbeds greeted us. Luckily we had very generously been invited by The St. Lucia Yacht Club to use their BBQ and in front was not only an empty table covered with large wooden umbrella, but space for a multi-nation cricket match. The club was officially closed today but we were met by the lovely Danielle who not only loaded more charcoal onto the BBQ but offered us use of the loos and showers as well. How very kind. The beach now deserted as lobsters returned for dinner, we enjoyed a lovely afternoon eating, playing cricket, body surfing in the lively waves breaking on the shore and enjoying the company of new friends. A beautiful sunset was the icing on the cake before we packed up and returned with somewhat lighter bags. Apart from my bruised bum and an assortment of rather nasty gravel rashes from crashing waves it was practically perfect. Back on Brindabella we chilled with friends, cheese and drinks.