A very tranquil crossing marred only by the steady thump of the engine as winds had collapsed into weak, occasional puffs from behind.  The lee cloths were essential though as it was still rather rolly.  Bob was a stalwart and sat up on deck until 2am when I took over until the sun rose.  We couldn’t face supper so Bob finished the hobnobs, I finished the nuts and raisins and played guess which chocolate by feel and taste with a tin of Celebrations hidden in the darkness. My night sailing skills were a bit rusty and there was quite a bit of confusion in identifying a strange cluster of lights that turned out to be Richard Branson’s porch light on Necker Island.  We passed along the rocky coast of Virgin Gorda in daylight and were calmly anchored in time for breakfast at 9am, our usual cereals, somewhat healthier than supper last night but missing the statutory banana because they haven’t ripened yet, it seems to be all or nothing where bananas are concerned in this climate.

We were decidedly knackered by our two man night sail so restricted the days activities to a run ashore.  Checking in took over an hour because of the pedantic approach and multitudinous form filling, four different ones, one of which was a quintuplet, in this British island and a long queue of skippers with stacks of guests passports to process.  This knackered us even more so we did what we always do in these situations, had a beer adding a rather tasty fish lunch, wahoo for me, mahi mahi for Bob, as an accompaniment to the second although we had to translate the menu from American remembering about zucchinis, cilantro and suchlike.

It then transpired we were facing a dollar crisis.  All transactions in the British Virgin Islands, or at least Virgin Gorda, are made in US dollars and not ECs, its easier for the Americans apparently.  This required a visit to the ATM which didn’t work and a visit inside the bank, which did after Bob filled out and signed multitudinous forms.  We are now equipped with a fistful. 

We then wandered along the one and only street, one way then another to seek out restaurants for tomorrow (we still have last night’s easy supper for tonight, waste not, want not) and popped into the substantial, sophisticated looking supermarket to replenish essentials.  They didn’t have tonic only “thingy gator” and other additive and sugar laden pops, they didn’t have any “proper no added anything” cereal only sugar and palm oil laden American ones, no cheese other than American processed plastic varieties and the fruit was enormous, highly polished and bound to taste of cotton wool.  We couldn’t go wrong with the Carib beer, the local water and a replacement corkscrew so didn’t come away totally empty handed. 

We have returned to the boat to chill, to have a quiet evening to recharge our own batteries for a change and will have to drink beer in light of the lack of availability of tonic.  Cheers and bottoms up.