It's a small world and 'head over heels'
Ile Jeudi
Bob and Lin Griffiths
Fri 12 Oct 2012 18:04
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Friday 12 October 2012,
A nice Sweden Yachts 42 came in near us today
and they will be taking part in the Atlantic Rally for
Cruisers. A British registered yacht which has been sailed down
from Conway over the last 10 days by 4 guys, one English, 2 Welsh and an
American called Alex. The yacht belongs to the Alex's girlfriend he
told me he was returning to Barbados for a few weeks. It turns out that he
is the owner of Lexi's Bar in Holetown in Barbados. It is a well known
place on the island although we have only been in on a couple of brief occasions
(we don't do late nights). He asked where we live in Barbados and I told
him, explaining that like most people he probably doesn't know the area.
Not only did he know it but he had stayed in the house next door for a
couple of weeks earlier this year and knew a few of our neighbours. You
don't often come across people from Barbados preparing for an Atlantic
crossing.
Today is 'National Day' in Spain and as pretty
much everywhere was going to be closed we decided to ride our bikes into the
'old town' section of Las Palmas. It was all a bit run down but worth
visiting.
I often wear a
hat in the sun and prefer not to use the chin strap if possible. As a
result I have developed a good instinct for catching the hat as it
blows off my head in gusts. This is fine when walking but less so when
riding a bike downhill on a cobbled street. On this occasion as the hat
blew off I threw my right hand into the air to try to catch it (failed) and
braked at the same time with my left hand. I don't know what you can
recall about riding bicycles but you might remember that applying only the front
brakes is risky and doubly so if you only have one hand on the handlebars.
This only came back to me as I flew forwards over the handlebars
coming to a rest in a crumpled heap with the bike on top of me. I managed
to keep my head away from the ground as I landed so was pleased I had remembered
how to fall off a bike even if I hadn't remembered how to prevent it
in the first place. Lin said it was all rather dramatic and gave a
high score for difficulty but poor marks for style.
We decided to rest for lunch and inspect the
various cuts and bruises (mainly to my pride) and rode back carefully in the
afternoon.
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