The Days are Just Packed!

We’ve been busy!  I will let the pictures do the talking, but we have now taken our guests to their fourth country in five days.  You have to exert extra effort to entertain old people.  Wink.

Mel realized that the Land’s End polar fleece pullover that she was wearing when she plotted all of this is now in a dry bag in the bilge, “in case the nights are chilly.”  “Ha!” she writes, sitting at her table tonight in a spaghetti-strap maxi dress with all of the saloon doors open.  She thinks of her dear friends back in Minnesota, who now have to do odd-sounding things like “warm up the car” and “shovel the snow.”  Well, friends, if you can’t come visit so you can thaw out, here’s a taste of our recent activities:

After checking out of boat-choked and bridge-burdened Sint Maarten, you spend a few hours motoring over to Road Harbor, Anguilla, and wake up the next day by a beach with soft “brown sugar sand.”  You pull up your anchor (which set the first time!  Hooray new Rocna!) and motor over to a little sandy island you spied on the way in.  It is called Sandy Island.  What are the odds?  (Pretty high, actually.)

You snorkel and play in the sand and talk to a Norwegian and a Brazilian while a Jamaican serves you PINA COLADAS MADE OF DIAMONDS.  (No, they aren’t actually made of diamonds.  But after reviewing the bill, Mel is now inspecting her poop for diamonds…)  Since sunset is coming, you pull yourself up from your beach chair, dinghy back to the boat, detach from your mooring ball, and motor 45 minutes over to Crocus Bay, surrounded by cliffs with caves that Greg discovers during a snorkle were packed with bats and guano, which somehow created “powdered sugar sand.”  You watch a glorious sunset as your boat gently sways on its anchor.  After Greg showered, of course.

The next day you explore the interior of Anguilla with a native Anguillan taxi driver, visiting old plantation houses and art galleries.  That night, you pull up the anchor at 1 a.m. and sail downwind 13 hours to the British Virgin Islands.  After 5 months of upwind sailing, you feel like you are floating on the moon.  In the middle of the night on your watch, if you look up, you see 20-30 shooting stars an hour.  If you look down, you see tiny dots of phosphorescent blue light that fill the crest of each breaking wave for a few seconds.   The Parasailor tells you sternly that it does not like less than 11 knots of wind, but nevertheless the next afternoon you reach Virgin Gorda, winding your way through the charter boats and yachts to catch a mooring ball in a busy mooring field, surrounded by green hills with palm trees.  Your turn on your Christmas lights and play Yahtzee after dinner with Allie, who finally gets a Full House on her fifth try.  Then it’s time to sleep in your berth, listening to the crashing waves ashore.  After you update your blog, of course.

Another full day on The Amazing Marvin.  Cheers!

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