Hanging out in Culebra - again!
Seaduced
John & Jane Craven
Sun 24 Feb 2013 18:00
One of the things we had to do whilst here was re-visit our itinerary and re-plan our route south so we could let people know where we are likely to be and when. We decided to head south to St Croix, the other US Virgin Island for a few days, before heading back to Vieques for the weekend to meet up with friends.
On Friday - our first full day on the island, we decided to have a break entirely and spend the day at the beach - blissful. The beach here is gorgeous, I posted some pics last time we were here with Alex, I forgot the camera this time - I am not quite back in cruising, blog writing mode yet, partly because I have been here so often I suppose and partly due to bad planning!
Anyway, on the way to the beach we met another English couple, Paul and Debra who had arrived late the night before and were off to check in. During the course of our chat at the dock, they said they were off to the Bahamas. Once we said we had just been, it seemed the obviously thing to do was to tell them all our favourite places over a cold beer or two. A plan was made - drinks on our boat that evening. We had planned to head to town for a pizza later that evening and had hoped they would be able to join us, but due to customs problems, ie nobody available to check them in, they were sent back to their boat and told to stay on board until they could check in the next day!
They came to us for drinks and we gave them all the Bahamas info we had - they have a boat with about the same draft as us so will have some of the same restrictions. Over drinks it turned out that not only did they know of Wrea Green, as Debra's uncle lives there, we always tell people we live in a small village an hour from Manchester, because nobody has ever heard of Wrea Green, but Paul went to Kirkham Grammar School - very strange - they both live in the south now and have for years. We were all just thinking - what a small world it is, when it came about in conversation, don't ask how, the wine probably sent the conversation awry somewhere as it often does, that Paul and John went to the same school in Blackpool, and that Paul was the year above John - how's that for a coincidence?
The next day we had some jobs to do, and they had to clear in etc so we met on their boat for drinks prior to going ashore for dinner, as they had been told they could legally go ashore.
Sunday, we did a full spares audit - how exciting is that? It took most of the flipping day to go through all the spares and check exactly how many of everything we have. We now have to go to St Martin in a couple of weeks and add to our collection.
Monday, meant checking out for us as we wanted to sail to St Croix on Tuesday - unfortunately for us, there wasn't a customs officer available but, for a change, they were very accommodating, emailing us the documentation we needed to check in at St Croix, but on the proviso that we paid all fees due when we arrived in Vieques next weekend.
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