From Charles:
With only the most minor of inconveniences…okay, there were a few – late planes, frantic gate changes, lack of showers, closed restaurants, and six-foot seas, we’re finally safely moored at Norman Island’s famous Bight.
The place is beginning to feel like home; homemade Pina Coladas and our first snorkeling adventure in the new gear got the bad taste of air travel adrenaline out of our mouths.
The boat is good: lean, adventure-ready, and elegant. A DVD player/TV combo mounted on the bulkhead gives me the feeling that more than a few people sort of miss the point of a Caribbean vacation.
I admit the shameful truth – we motored over today. Didn’t even raise the sails once. This wind and the waves, definitely a jump up from the summer months, and about 30% on top of that. Too much. Other people were sailing. Those people are crazy.
We’ll be staying the night here and leaving late-ish tomorrow, long enough for us to get in one more snorkeling trip, and hopefully, get our new underwater camera out there so you can all see what we see!
We’ve got reservations at Pirates Bight restaurant tonight; the barbecued ribs sound mighty tasty.
Alicia:
I lost my beer hat today. It was a 1557 New Belgium baseball cap I’d won by stepping up to the mike one karaoke night and pretending I knew more than the chorus of “You Sexy Thing.” The wind whipped it right off my head as we were turning the boat to point into the Bight. “Oh no!” I cried.
“It’s gone,” said Charles.
“Yeah,” I agreed. This was not like the time my Finland hat went overboard — then, I’d made the person responsible swim out and retrieve it. The Finland hat is special. This hat was merely gone.
Later, we discover a gift shop on shore that sells t-shirts, and therefore very probably hats. We are planning on going to check when we dinghy to shore for dinner (and wifi). So now the loss of the hat just at that moment seems providential. “You have done well with this beer hat,” the universe is saying, “but it is time for something new.”
Charles, by the way, is not joking about the ferocity of the waves today. Apparently the phrase swells of six feet or so is a code phrase for Alicia you better hang on to that boat because it is actively trying to throw you into the ocean. At first this was startling, because growing up with ski boats means I consider a forty-five-degree deck angle equivalent to capsizing. In a sailboat, this merely leads the captain to make sure all the rum is secured below in the cabin. (It was. We had great consideration for the rum.)
Then, on a trip into the boat’s bucking interior to retrieve the cruising guide that would tell us how not to hit rocks, I starting thinking of my movements the way I thought about them when we go rock climbing. This worked like a charm, and I felt much more secure. So remember, rough seas = climbing a vertical wall. End of seminar.