Day 5

Island bar hopping seems to be my new favorite pastime.  They're the ones with good internet.  Here at the Bitter End's "The Crawl Pub" I'm getting hopped up on cold diet Coke and quickly posting another misspelled island episode...stacy

Anchorage outside Virgin Gorda’s Yacht Harbor last night was a crazy one.  The sandy and rocky bottom didn’t really lend itself to a firm anchorage below (despite Mark setting the anchor by hand!) and the winds and gales didn’t contribute to a steady push in one consistent direction from above.  Usually the wind pushes all the boats in one direction, like compasses all in sync, but this was not the case here.  The strange swirl of wind and tide and swells shuffled the anchored boats in a hodge-podge mess.

We took the dingy into town and Chloe bought and mailed some postcards off to her teacher at school.

We also decided to shop at the little island grocery store right off the marina we discovered the evening before.  I was super excited to find flour tortillas and corn chips inside.  It’s been my experience that island shopping is a “come what may” sort of deal…On one island you’ll find beautiful ripe avocados but the corn chips to enjoy them won’t show up for another two or three islands after that.  I felt like I hit the culinary jackpot.  A Mexican storm inside our galley is in the forecast!  I’d already bought two gigantic avocados three islands back and they were ripening like ticking bombs.   And now we have chips! 

We also decided to buy lots of ice for our coolers since I'm longing for a Coke that's not lukewarm from the fridge.

Here's the loot from the grocery store...don't squish my chips please...

Connor's getting to be a real pro at the dingy.

We found our boat at or near where we'd left it.  I'm thinking it was more "near" the general vicinity we anchored it that "at" the same spot.  No sooner did we get aboard did we find that are anchor began to slip and we started drifting.  Looks like we'd gotten back to the boat just in time.

We got ready to leave and more trouble ensued.  Our anchor chain's power cord decided not to work.  So now we're drifting and trying to weigh anchor.  We all worked together and Mark managed to trouble shoot the power problem while Keith kept us from drifting into the other boats, and Kathy and I worked to get the chain up while Connor spotted the anchor.  With the problem solved we were off at last.

While under sail we got treated to a rare and awesome sight.  We spotted this giant tall ship under sail off our Port bow.

Isn't she a beauty??

If you look closer,

You'll see a dingy in the center of this photo.

That was a girl following just behind with a large camera.

There was also a helicopter flying overhead

so we think they may have been filming 

some shots for a movie perhaps.

If so, they're gonna have to edit our catamaran out of their shots because we just couldn't help sailing up for a really close look.  She was to charming to resist.

However charming she was, we were all happy to be aboard a boat that only had two sails to manage.  She looked like a lot more work.  Though her fridge might have been working better...

Kathy kept telling the boys that we should pull up the dingy and secure it to the boat before long passages but the boys love to just tow it behind.  It makes it way easier.  But of course as predicted by Kathy, we lost the dingy while underway sometime after seeing the tall ship.  And, thanks to Kathy we were alerted to the fact that it was gone.   

Connor’s heroic efforts jumping in the dingy amid large swells to hook it up.

Here Connor heroically jumped into the dingy after

Keith and Kathy hooked onto it and worked

amid the large sea swells to latch it back onto it's line.

Watch out Peter, looks like Connor's heroic status

is gaining on yours...

Mark securing another line "just to make sure" it stays this time.

With our dingy back we motored over to the Bitter End of Virgin Gorda.   On the way we caught a view of Necker Island, Sir Richard Branson’s island where his vacation home recently was struck by lightening and burned.

Check out the way in to the Bitter End...

See that very narrow and SHALLOW way into Bitter End?

That's the way we went in...

Very shallow motoring between Mosquito Island and Virgin Gorda to get into to the Bitter End.

Our depth gauge in meters:

(it got down to One and a Half feet!)

Mark directing Keith through the narrow passage...

Connor spotting the hazards...

 

Keith very focused...

At last we made it to the Bitter End Yacht Club and were happy to hook up to a buoy and not have to set another anchor.  We'll get a better night's sleep knowing were securely set.

Chloe was delighted to discover we were moored near a beautiful and enormous catamaran named "Princess Chloe".  She had her own staff aboard, and most likely a working fridge!!

Went in and took some nice warm pay showers which was a delight.  I found one of the hand dryers on the wall was hung high enough to serve as a perfect hair dryer.  Ahhhh! Nice fresh dry hair!!

That night the kids sat in the salon and did a little chart and navigation work:

Good news!  The ice we bought is keeping our fridge, freezer, and cooler full of water and sodas waaaaay colder!  Paradise is looking better and better.

Cheers!