Happy Birthday Your Majesty 18:21.3N 64:34.9W

Serenity of Swanwick
Phil and Sarah Tadd
Fri 22 Apr 2016 00:16
We moved up to Peter Island yesterday afternoon and picked up a mooring in Great Harbour as a step up the chain of smaller islands SW of Virgin Gorda. We also need to go up to Tortola to fill the water tanks and search for somewhere to refill our gas cylinders and that's only a four mile trip from here.

So today we went over to Tortola found a mooring close to town and were told by another boat owner that as its a public holiday they might not come and collect the dues. I suppose that HMS Mersey being here dressed overall could have given us a clue but no we did not realise it was the Queens birthday. Did you have a public holiday in UK? Hope the children at least had a day off school.

We failed miserably in our search for gas, the petrol station here fills gas bottles but not Calor or Camping Gaz, so it looks like we'll have to eke out our remaining gas till we get to St Martin or Antigua. The walk out to the petrol station did allow us to find the parade ground for the birthday celebrations and we watched the march past of the police, HMS Mersey's crew and all the services and voluntary organisations from Tortola. Now that's not a particularly big march past but it takes time if you make the police go round once at slow time and then again at normal speed. The best part was when two local drum bands went past, the marching changed as the rhythm changed. It was a bit like being back at carnival, and some of the marching was verging on dancing. Sorry no pictures as we hadn't expected to need a camera when we went ashore.

We have now filled our water tanks and are back on Peter Island for the night. The wind has picked up as forecast and we have some good shelter here.
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