|
29:04. 18:03.92N 63:05.77W
Ok. So we were warned about this place, several
people told us not to bother coming here and we still came, so we only have
ourselves to blame. And besides. It's probably not as bad
as they all say really: yes it is filthy and mosquito
infested, and so crowded that it makes me claustrophobic, but we haven't
actually been robbed or anything (well not as such: paying $84 a
head for dinner was considerably more than we have paid anywhere else in
the Caribbean, but it was worth it just to get a vegetarian meal at a French
restaurant). And yes, it was quite a surprise to find the place populated
by a race of mutoid-men who seem to have VERY small penises, judging by the size
of their power boats! And they don't seem to have much in the way of
brains either, or maybe they just don't care that if they insist on hammering
through the anchorage at 35 knots, then their wake can and indeed did turn our
dingy over as it was tied to the back of the boat. All great fun except
for the one who has to pay $60 to get the outboard serviced.
Mind you the anchorage isn't much calmer without them - there's a sharp swell
that seems to come at you from all sorts of directions! And they have this
really comical thing: Every morning they have some kind of 'Dingy
Club' where a whole streem of identical dingies with 15 hp engines come
hurtling out of the lagoon, yelling in delight and hooting their horn and they
head off round the island. I've never seen anything like it!
 Look who we found mooring up next to
us...
It was worth being here just to see Henry off as he set
sail for the Bahamas, where he is meeting his mum and they are heading to
Bermuda for the first leg of the return journey - in his 25ft
Folkboat! My admiration for both of them is boundless. We
gave him a good farewell - a whole afternoon playing cards, then Chris
helped clean his hull of the rainforest which seems to appear if you stop moving
for more than 5 minutes, and we cut his hair!
It's a bit sad now, as realisation is dawning that we
only have 4 weeks left before we ourselves head home. LB is going on a
container ship from Tortola back to Southampton, where she will be sold.
We are beginning to strip her of all her goodies: Chris from P3 is sailing home
too, and has kindly relieved us of much of our tinned food which we still had
from over-enthusiastic vittaling in Las Palmas for the last crossing, and also
the diesel barrels, and the Satellite phone: trusty companion, kept us in touch
the outside world while 1500 miles from land. (He's getting a bit carried away
with this selling stuff lark - if you don't get another blog within the next
week it means he's sold me - please send a rescue party.)
We are off tomorrow morning at 4am (oh goodie my
favourite) next stop BVIs.
|
