Tuesday 14th January 2025
Sailing today so an early start, unfortunately this morning is hot again which is good, but zero wind, not ideal for a days sail; let’s hope there is a good breeze at sea.
After breakfast we headed off to Jolly Harbour, earlier than we needed because we were unsure where we boarded our yacht. I had one place in mind from four years ago and Christine had a different idea so we decided to head to the booking agents office and find out. The girl here recognised Christine immediately and shouted at me to park opposite, unfortunately this was where Christine has told me👹👹!!!! We then headed along the broad walk to the collection pontoon. As we were early we had to hang about a little, but then a rather large catamaran arrived and that was that, there was no room for our charter to dock so a call was made to our skipper for the tender to be sent to collect us. The dock we were on was for the height of a normal boat, not low enough for a dingy, so our getting on was a little undignified to say the least!!! Anyway we were on our way and met up with our 51ft Benateau in the harbour channel and clambered aboard. We met our skipper Charlotte, and Devon our deck hand and then headed out into the clear blue Caribbean water, but no wind😩😩
In a sail boat, running on engine “doesn’t cut the mustard”, noisy and no fun but as we rounded the first point, “hooray” there was a modicum of wind so out went the jib and the engine was cut; we were sailing, albeit about one knot, but sailing none the less, peace at last!!! Now was the time for refreshments as we headed to Carlisle Bay accompanied with slices of fresh fruit, this is going to be good.
Arriving in Carlisle bay right opposite the famous hotel, we dropped the anchor, broke out the masks, snorkels and fins and straight into the clear blue water. Though the water was clear there wasn’t much marine life to look at. The skipper then broke out the “Lily Pad”, a mat made out of plastic and foam about 3-meters long and 1-meter wide attached to the boat with a lanyard. I was the first on it but to my surprise everyone joined me; this pad was buoyant enough to support the weight of the four of us. Laughing and joking whilst lying on the Lily Pad, soaking up the sun with water lapping over us, we got the call; “lunch is ready”. After a bit of a scramble we were all off the pad and back on board looking forward to the bar-b-q.
I have to say the food was not as good as the food we had on our last charter 4-years ago, the bar-b-q’d chicken was dry and tough though the sauce it was cooked in was excellent. There was no salad only coleslaw and a plate of mixed beans accompanied with cold corn-on-the-cob, mine still had ice on it!!! Desert was fresh fruit, though we had to ask for it!!! The offer of booze was very good but a limited range bar. On the whole I was very disappointed, still overall we had a good time, both Charlotte and Devon were chatty and good hosts.
After lunch there was plenty of time for more swimming and sunbathing before heading back to Jolly Harbour.
The trip back was better as we found some wind but some of the Skippers manoeuvres were questionable, especially when going about; the jib went in all directions and we did a 360 turn; still all was well with the sunbathers on the bowes.
Upon arrival, fortunately the Charter boat pontoon was empty so we docked and had a far more genteel disembarkation. We settled up, said our goodbyes and headed to the bar overlooking the marina, not that we needed another drink!!!
As it started to get dusk and the issues with driving in the dark,we headed back to base but stopped en-route at the local KFC for a bucket of chicken, we were peckish!!! Car safely parked in the drive and we “dived” into the bucket, oh yes we also had a mountain of fries and some “hot” (this time) corn-on-the-cobs; anybody would have thought we hadn’t eaten for a week!!
Full and satisfied we cleared up and relaxed but not for long, doing nothing has tired us out so another early night was called for