A few lines from Peters Island, BVI, Jan 7th 08
Out Of India
Birgitte and Ray Charmak
Tue 8 Jan 2008 18:20
are both enjoying "Donald Duck Sailing". We have revisited
beautiful St John where Hugh and Scott very generousously invited us all to
stay and enjoy their breathtaking Villa Indigo overlooking the bay.
Christmas and New Year was spent touring some of the islands with our dear
guests Gary and Lara. They have now returned to South Africa and Ray and I
are back on "Out
of India", alone for the first time since end of November.
I am quite fed up with sailing any further than 20 Nm at the moment. I
refused even sailing to Antigua which is basically peanuts from here, on
the ground that I have had enough for a while. So having a very easy Captain
we are chilling big time! We are nicely tucked in the stunning bay Grand
Harbour on Peter Islands in the British Virgin Islands on the 7th day
without
moving.... well that is with the exception of that night I woke up in the middle of the night realizing that tradewinds unexpectedly
had changed and we were a little bit too close to shore. I woke up to my fast asleep captain and he moved us to safer grounds... not that
easy with many boats in the bay, as he has a night vision similar to a bat... and they have something he doesn't have, a built in radar....
Peter Island hosts a wonderful resort, Peter Island Resort, where we have
befriended Debbie who has no complaints about how we are mingling
with the resort guests and enjoying their 4pm teas and cakes. Free Wi Fi
access beautifully located by the pool overlooking mountainous Tortola. The
strawberry daiquiri slipped down very nicely thank you!
A few nights ago, we spotted a fellow Royal Thames Yacht Club member and in
our very beaten up dinghy which we purchased for $100 in Rio Dulce (that is
what previous owner paid in repair job) we sort of made our way over to
their
fancy 70 ft Swan and hand delivered our invite for sun downers on "Out of
India" same afternoon. The smart crew member looked at us big eyed as Ray
somehow managed to flip the engine up side out still on full whack. Crew
member was obviously worrying about the prop scratching up the side of the
yacht and probably quite relieved to see us go.
Spent the day at the resort (as usual) and things very running smoothly pc
wise until Ray was going to purchase flight tickets. Now that took about 2
hours, not down to his inefficiencies, and we were running very late for our
guests. I ran back to the dinghy
to give some very needed air injections whilst Ray sorted payment
transactions, and as the sun set, we finally made it back to the Swan and
made our
apologizes and were instead instantly invited onboard on to their yacht,
"Stay Calm".
Ready to return to "Out of India", our sorrow dinghy was hardly afloat,
despite various attempts of patching up the
leak. We were gallantly offered a tow back and smart captain got us back in
safety...We thoroughly enjoyed Emma and Stuart Robinson's company
and hope to meet up in Antigua for race week.
Just returned back from an other hard day at the resort. As we were leaving
we noticed the beverage manager was having a wine tasting. Ray went over and asked for a business card as we need to stock up on wines. And guess what, we were invited to join in. We could not have picked a better time, they had just got to the Champagnes. Moral to the story be in the right place at the right time!