December 8th, Thursday - Tortola, BVI

       

Back at the Village Cay Marina in Roadtown, Tortola.  We have arranged to meet the Quantum Sails guy here to take a look at our main cover and add some fabric to it.  Since we got our new mainsail delivered and installed in Hampton, it is a real chore to get the cover around it and zipped up.  The new sail is a little larger and much crisper than the old one, so there just isn't enough cover to protect it properly.  Quantum has agreed to come measure it and take it off the boat today and have it ready for us tomorrow.  We are tied up to the dock for a couple of hours while we get that taken care of and run a few errands.  I just dropped off our laundry so we will be able to pick that up tomorrow as well. 
 
My shoulders are still a little sore after the kite boarding lesson at the Bitter End on Monday.  Joe and I hopped into our dinghy with Grace, our novice instructor, and made our way over to the beach on Statia Island.  We practiced launching and flying a beginner kite for a couple of hours, and went for a couple of body drags.  If you have never seen the sport before, I am sure you will soon.  It is a fast growing phenomenon.  The kite looks much like a parachute, and has four control lines that lead back to a bar.  You control the kite by tilting the bar from side to side with small movements of your wrists.  Once you learn how to fly the kite, the fun begins.  The power the kite generates is pretty astonishing.  You have to learn how to hold it in the neutral zone first of all.  This is when it is flying directly overhead, not pulling at all.  This is where you have to keep it in order to get your feet into the board.  We didn't get to try that in our two hour lesson, but we are hoping to get to that the next time we go.  Anyway, you dip the bar ever so slightly to the right and the kite dives down to the right.  The more you dip, the more the kite dives.  You have to pull it back up by dipping the bar to the left and that keeps it full and generating power.  Once you get the hang of that, you go for a body drag.  Lift your legs up behind you and lie on your belly while maneuvering the kite in the same way.  Instead of absorbing the pull of the kite with your arms and shoulders, you simply let it drag you through the water.  Joe and I both had a great time, and our instructor pronounced us ready to graduate to a board the next lesson.  We almost stayed at the Bitter End another day so we could keep going, but we had already missed a rendezvous with Cenou to stay one day and didn't feel good about missing them for another day.
 
Jaimie and Zia took off for The Baths to see if we could find Cenou.  We were looking forward to introducing John and Po to Claude and Rike, and anticipating even more eagerly the site of six little girls, Jaimie and Skylar Martin, Celine and Anouk Dussaud, and Cassie and Juliana Boyle, running around the beaches together.  We arrived at the height of activity at the Baths and had to lurk around waiting for a mooring to open up.  There were three other boats circling around with us, so it was a contest of wits to see who got the first available ball.  We had the advantage of an ally in amongst the moorings, and Cenou alerted us to a boat just dropping a mooring near them in enough time to ensure that we were the first to pounce on it.  It was a stressful half hour, but then we could relax and watch the rest of the boats vying for the next one.  Jaimie arrived in the midst of it and demonstrated much more class than the rest of us.  They just dropped their anchor.  Once all the boats that had arrived in the morning finished their lunches on their boats, moorings started opening up at a swift rate and Jaimie had a few to choose from.  Still immersed in the contest, one charter boat full of six men felt threatened enough by Jaimie's movements that one of them took it upon themselves to wave her off emphatically from the bow.  Repeatedly. 
 
By the time it was all over, we had finished our own lunch and launched the dinghy to go exploring the rocks and caves one more time.  It turns out the afternoon is a great time to be there and there were hardly any other people slinking through the caves.  The six girls got along famously.  Actually, we also had Bo and Heidi's little girl, Sophie, and her brother Dylan.  The family is vacationing with the Martins for a few weeks.  Our "little" group of 8 adults and 8 kids had the beach to themselves by the end of the afternoon. 
 
 
We found a rocky anchorage on Cooper Island to spend the night.  We decided to have a night off from socializing so we all had separate dinners on our own boats after a brief cocktail hour on Zia.  We had a fitful night's rest in the swells and gusty winds.  All three boats had school to get through in the morning so we didn't shove off until lunch time.  Heidi was getting a little seasick by that time and we were all happy to find a new spot on Salt Island with a little less rolling.  We snorkeled and hunted for shells on the beach and had a pot luck dinner on Zia last night.  At one point Bo asked how Claude and Joe met.  Two years ago, they had both been interested in the boat Claude wound up buying.  Rike said that I had vetoed it because it didn't have enough room to entertain.  Joe cringed, and in fact might have been happier if we couldn't accommodate so many people quite so easily.  The 8 kids were all down below watching a movie in Cassie's cabin and the adults were seated comfortably outside around the table, enjoying the perfect night air, good food, conversation, and the spectacular scenery. 
 
We plan on heading over to Norman Island to see the crowd again tonight.  It is Skylar's 7th birthday tomorrow and we are celebrating it with a party tonight.  I promised to make her a carrot cake, which will be my first attempt at baking on the boat.  I was never much of a baker at home, so I've got my fingers crossed.  We will split up with the crowd over the weekend so we can get situated for my parents' arrival on Sunday.  Although they won't be staying with us on the boat, we hope they will be up for a few day sails or even an overnighter.  We'll see.  Mom is terribly prone to seasickness so we are going to play it by ear. 
 
As the holidays approach, our friends and family are even more on our minds than usual.
 
Lots of love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie and Juliana
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Many thanks to our friend Craig Homenko for his assistance in setting up the website.
We also would like to thank our buddy Scott Brunner who has been kind enough to host the website on his server.

 
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