Friday 19 December 2014

George and Alastair have moved off Jo to stay with their wives, Caroline and Sophie at swish hotels and Mark and Ian flew home yesterday whilst Ted and I moved on to the boat. It suddenly seemed very quiet and we felt strangely sad and rather homesick! The last two boats to finish, Maud and Antares, arrived this afternoon. We were walking back from the boardwalk and saw the usual congregation of people on the pontoon, blowing hooters waiting for Maud to dock; we joined in and starting clapping and shouting as they turned into their pontoon space, then realised that they were not cutting their speed and there was even more shouting as we all ran for it, with Maud mounting the pontoon! Her stem protection looked like a twisted corkscrew and the pontoon was only damaged a little! Antares who followed Maud in, heard the commotion but was directed to a different pontoon, so we did not realise that she had docked.

A small two piece steel band with singer was playing outside BB’s tonight and another larger band outside Ole, they know how to party here! Shorts and T-shirts are de rigeur in temperatures of 25 degrees C at 2200 hours. 

Sunday, 21 December 2014

A relaxed chill out day, getting to grips with the vagaries of connections with the internet whilst afloat. Initially we sought help from the Marina office hoping that they would be able to print and scan, but at best their response might be described as disinterested. Eventually Iris found help in the form of Des on board Cloud 9 with his wife Chris. They took part in the ARC and intend to be sailing here for another five months before leaving their boat in Grenada for the summer months and returning home. Des is a whizz with IT and his boat is big enough to carry a printer/scanner.

We lowered the ARC flag and undressed Jo by removing her numerous flags that are displayed for special occasions.