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Monday, February 13th - Bitter End, Virgin
Gorda, BVI
We
are back at one of our many favorite spots in the Virgin
Islands, the Bitter End Yacht Club on Virgin Gorda.
We have enjoyed hearing the stories about the snow that
our friends back home on the East Coast enjoyed over the
weekend. Although I miss the fun of skiing,
sledding, snow angels, snow ball fights, and warming up
by the fire afterwards, I am not sorry to have
missed the shoveling and power outages! I'm sure
the kids are happy to have a snow day, although I'm not
sure all of the parents feel the same way!
Making our way out of Nanny Cay on Thursday afternoon we
had a wonderful feeling of liberation. Despite the
relatively plush surroundings we enjoyed there, being
"on the hard" is no fun. Any advantage there
is to living on a boat (and some might argue that there
aren't any) disappear once you take the water away.
Most of the systems onboard cease to function and you
are forced to devise a work-around to deal with most
daily chores. The seawater heads are just one
example. Although we have holding tanks for the
heads, all of our other "gray water" is disposed of over
the side. When you are twenty feet over the ground
with workers scrambling around beneath you, it is not
advisable to be dumping dirty water on their heads.
The fridge and freezer both use a heat exchange system
that is connected to a big metal plate in the keel.
The refrigerant is cooled by the seawater and then goes
back up to the compressor. We managed to eat most
of the food from the freezer, only throwing away a few
items that had probably been there for too long anyway.
A big block of ice in the fridge did a good job of
keeping the rest of it cold, as long as we didn't go in
and out of it too often. Aside from these various
logistical issues, the lack of privacy was also taxing.
At least the rainy weather kept the bugs away. It
certainly could have been worse, but we were nonetheless
thrilled to be back afloat.
We
called up Cenou and Jaimie on the VHF radio and they were
both at Deadman's Bay on Peter Island. We arrived
in time for the girls to get a water ski ride on the
back of Johnny Martin's 25 horsepower dinghy.
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Everyone was off in different directions the next day, Cenou to provision in Roadtown, and Jaimie to provision
and pick up a guest at the airport in Trellis Bay.
We all agreed to meet again on Saturday at the Bitter
End.
Our replacement computer had arrived via FedEx (thank
you Tammi!) at the marina office just before we
splashed. After school on Friday, Joe spent the
rest of the day getting all our programs back up and
running on our new system. It is a Fujitsu
Lifebook and the screen is really awesome. They
use a technology called "Clearview" and the colors are
spectacular. You can also see the screen from many
different angles, which makes it much better than our
previous laptop. While Joe was engrossed with
getting it all set up, the kids and I decided to take
the kayak into the beach and hang there for the
afternoon. It is amazing how they can entertain
themselves without fighting or complaining for hours and
hours on a beach. A little sand, a few rocks, warm
water, and warm weather are their only requirements.
Me, I am happy with a good book.
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Dinner was getting to be a bit of a challenge since
emptying the freezer for our haul-out, so we made the
trek to Roadtown to provision on Saturday after school.
We were also excited to find a hair salon while we were
there. Both of the girls had finally agreed to get
their hair cut! There was a price, however, for
their cooperation on this issue. We had been
working on them steadily since we were in Guadeloupe,
trying to convince them how much easier it would be to
keep their hair looking nice if it were shorter.
Brushing it is a chore that mostly falls to me, and it
can be truly horrendous. Cassie's hair is
especially knotty, although after a good day at the
beach, Juliana's is no picnic either. We had
offered them each twenty-five Euros if they cut it in
Guadeloupe and were amazed that even the prospect of
cash would not persuade them. You won't believe
what it cost us in the end.
Shortly before dinner on Friday night I realized that
the boat was awfully quiet. Where were the kids?
I checked down below and they weren't in their cabins.
I couldn't hear them on the bow, but I walked up to
investigate. Where else could they be, after all?
I noticed the light in the port bow locker was on.
They had discovered this spot a while ago and quickly
adopted it as their occasional playroom. I opened up the hatch to see what kind
of mess they were making and was pleasantly surprised.
Cassie had put one of our adjustable back boat chairs
(we call them yahoos, but that's another story) on top
of the fenders and was sitting talking very seriously to
Juliana, who was in another yahoo in the corner.
"We are having a meeting," she informed me. Some
sort of secret club had been formed between them and
their friend Holly back in Annapolis. They have
done a very good job of keeping the details to
themselves so I can't say much about it, other than that
they all take it very seriously.
"Hey mom," Cassie
began, "can I buy the bow locker from you for $75?"
"Why would you want to buy the bow locker, Cassie?"
"So we could use if for our meetings. Can we paint
it?"
We
were quickly getting way outside any territory where I could
unilaterally make decisions. "You'll have to talk
to your dad about it," I told her, laughing at the idea.
Dinner was soon on the table and it wasn't long before
the subject of the bow locker was broached with Joe.
Much to my amazement, after a ten minute contemplation,
he agreed to sell them the bow locker on one condition;
they both had to get haircuts.
The decision didn't
come easy. They both thought about it for a few
hours, hemming and hawing. Finally, Cassie came to
us to say we had a deal. Juliana's status was
unclear, but we moved forward with the negotiations with
Cassie.
"We get to keep all of our stuff in there still," Joe
stated.
"Yeah, sure."
"And we can go in there whenever we want."
"We'll make sure we have our meetings when you don't
need to use any of the stuff in there so you don't
interrupt them. That's fine. But I want to
paint it."
Joe raised his eyebrows and asked, "What color?"
The color scheme has not been officially worked out, but
the concept of painting the bow locker has been agreed
upon and the deal sealed with a couple of very cute
haircuts. Hallelujah.
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Through our friendship with John and Po Martin, we have
been enjoying many perks here at the Bitter End.
They have spent lots of time here and have lots of
friends. We were invited over for dinner on Jaimie
on Saturday night when we arrived, and after it was all
cleaned up and the kids were watching the free movie
that the resort puts on every night, Johnny informed us
that we were going for a Hobie Cat ride. "You've
got to be kidding. What do we do with the kids?"
Rike had volunteered to stay back with them, and John's
mom and his office manager, Delores, were both here, so
he assured us they would be well looked after. We
ran out to the boat to change into clothes that might
even keep us warm when wet, grabbed a few beers, and
hopped onboard. The moon was nearly full and the
breeze was blowing a steady 12 knots. It was a
spectacular night, wet and wild, with five adults on a
boat designed for two. There was a group of about
ten Hobies that went out, "racing" upwind past Saba Rock
towards the reef. We all had lifejackets on, and
managed to make it despite the seriously overloaded
boat. I kept waiting for the moment of impact when
we hit the reef, but it never came. John and Po
have a ton of experience out on the water and Po kept a
close eye on things, urging John to tack over whenever
she thought we were getting too close. The water
soaked us from head to toe, but it was wonderfully warm.
There was a great gathering at the beach once we finally
got there, but we couldn't stay and hang out with the
rest of the crowd as the hour was growing very late.
When we finally got the kids to bed it was after 11pm.
I reminded Joe that we used to do this all the time on
weekends back home, going over the a friends house and
staying out late with the kids. We have not done
that much at all since moving onto the boat so my guilt
was light. Besides, it was worth it for the rush
of being out on the water on such a beautiful night.
It makes me think that I need to do that more often!
Alas, we really do have to get moving. We have to
be in Georgetown, Bahamas, some 760 miles away, by March
2nd. The current plan is to sail straight to the
Turks and Caicos islands, about 460 miles away. We
will spend a little while exploring there while keeping
an eye out for a weather window to make the rest of the
trip. It is a little early in the season to be
heading up that way, but Bruce, Alison, Sam, Kari and
Holly are meeting us and we wouldn't miss that for the
world! It is looking like we might have a good
window starting on Thursday so we will be watching
closely and preparing for a few days under sail.
I'm hoping we have luck with the fishing on the trip so
I can replenish our freezer! I only wish Joe and
the girls were more enthusiastic when I cooked it.
I am going to keep trying though, as I am sure I can
find a recipe that they will get excited about.
Happy Valentine's Day.
Love,
Christy, Joe, Cassie, and Juliana
Next entry
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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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