Date: 8 January 2011
Position: Buenos Aires
(still)
Having achieved one of our lifetime ambitions of sailing
our own boat Mina2 into the
Downstairs Sipper’s (sic) home town of Buenos Aires, I’m afraid we’ve done
remarkably little sailing. Instead our life has been taken over by a social
whirl. After spending a week as a guest of Yacht Club Argentino in the centre of
the city, where we actually spent little time as we were celebrating a quiet
Christmas staying with the DS’s mother, we relocated into the northern leafy
suburbs as a guest of the DS’s own yacht club, Club Nautico San Isidro which is
a highly exclusive cross between The Royal Yacht Squadron and the Hurlingham
Club. An oasis of sophisticated hedonism set on a large island in what is the
equivalent of Wimbledon on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, the CNSI has in
immaculate 18-hole golf course surrounded by three swimming pools, five
restaurants and numerous tennis courts. Surrounding the island are the moorings
of the members’ yachts. We were told that because there is no room, they are not
able to welcome foreign yachts in the normal way but, through the DS’s
influential friends in the club (Fernando and Charlie), space has been found for
us. We are privileged to be their guests, and it has been wonderful being able
to moor here, with a constant stream of friends coming on board.
However I had been advised that such is the sensitivity
of the Falklands / Malvinas issue in the eyes of the Argentines that, even here,
we should try not to flaunt our Britishness. So since we have been in Argentina,
rather than flying the normal Red Ensign we have been flying our Blue Ensign
(allowed as a member of the Royal Cruising Club) and a very small one at that,
and the ploy has worked. Everyone has assumed we are Australian and so far no
graffiti has been spray-painted over our pristine hull.
The New Year’s Eve party at the CNSI is renowned and
after a picnic dinner on the lawns in front of the club house with loads of
friends, and a memorable fireworks display we spent the rest of the night
boogying away before walking round to Mina2 to sleep it off.
New Year’s Eve at the
Nautico
After the New Year we were joined by our children, Selina
and Peter, who flew in from a bitterly cold UK for a couple of weeks of sun and
fun. We’ve all been here loads of times but it was Peter who said that never had
he actually, properly, seen the city of Buenos Aires so one day we became
tourists – hopped onto on open-topped bus and plugged in the commentary
headphones for an interesting tour round the city.
The tourists set off
Buenos Aires old and new
