We really enjoyed sailing Sanctuary as always, but time to move on......
After saying our goodbyes to Mike at Provalor Sailing, he called George to come pick us up, George is great, used him many times.
Mike offered one of the plastic bins to collect our leftover
food; the boys loaded it full with the frozen stuff on the bottom and ice on top.
A little 4X pulled up, it was George’s dad, great guy, lived on Tortola all his life, had to alert him to watch the road when any
women were in present view tho!!
George took us from Sea Cows Bay all the way to Trellis Bay where we agreed to meet Tony and Melody aboard AristoCat II. Long trip for only 415 per person, we each gave him a $20 because he cracked us up the whole ride.
We got some cold beers from ‘De Loose Mongoose and talked with Simon for a bit, inquired about rooms at Beef Island Guest House and he offered us a killer deal.
AristoCat II anchored right out front and Chris brought the dink ashore, we loaded our provisions and
gear aboard.AristoCat and Melody heard of our plan to stay ashore for the night.
Mel would have no part of that, no way, you are staying aboard with us!!
Tony had grilled up some awesome pork chops and Melody had the mashed potatoes ready to go, did I mention these two are awesome cooks??
Rounds of Bushwhackers and such followed we totally enjoyed the afternoon watching boats trying to
anchor all over the place.
We saw a Moorings Captained
power cat do a novel re-set of his
anchor a bit further forward, he left it set and just powered forward over the anchor for a while, dragging it along the bottom, quite interesting to watch.
It was a comedy all around the boat, what a spectacle, boats cramming in here, there; anywhere they think they could fit!!
We later headed into the full moon party, what a blast, lots of fun people, STRONG drinks and music!! The fireballs were cool as were the Jumbies and fire
rope and
music, by the time we ate the food was kinda lacking, it was so over-spiced I couldn’t eat it.
We all had a blast and it was clearly time to go when Chris was heeling really hard and thought that tiki torch would hold him up!!!
The Full Moon party at trellis bay is a must do, we will be back, my girls would love it!
Only complaint, the porta potties were disgusting and no other restroom facilities to be had.
Also bummed we did not wake up for Chris’s departure..it was a rough night after all…
Day 7:
Wonderful breakfast aboard ACII Tony and Melody are quite a team, it was really great!!
We sailed on around the outside of Guana Island with a course set for the Kingfish Banks.
Keith took the
helm and amazed us with his skills as a new
Skipper sailing wing on wing effortlessly, we adjusted course and he deftly pulled off the cleanest low energy gybe we had ever seen!!
We caught and released a nice bonito.
No more fish were to be on the banks, pretty choppy conditions, so Keith gybed again and we headed for Jost.
We smoked 2 other boats on the way to Jost, both formidable cats, a crewed Voyage cat and a
Leopard 45, Keith was grinning pretty big by now!!
We sailed into Great Harbor and anchored up near the
ferry channel.
Pretty much kicked back the rest of the afternoon, went in to Foxy’s and visited with Paulfox and SusanZ, met Paul’s new Donkey and checked out the
Sloop project a bit.
We walked down to Corsairs and made dinner reservations the proceeded to lounge around ACII some more.
The pizza at Corsairs was really good as was the service; we had a really large, rowdy group seated next to us. The menu items looked absolutely awesome; I saw many of them being whisked from the kitchen, going to try some of the regular dinner items next time, nice menu!!
We headed to Foxy’s after dinner and watched some of the antics, it was entertaining for sure.
Back to ACII for a night cap and
wind it down, we had put the dink up on the
davits and were chilling out.
We then heard a
dinghy outboard revving really high in neutral over near the rocks toward the shore from the
ferry channel, the revving continued and the dink was going no where.
This continued for a good 40 minutes, we were waiting for the
engine to fry.
Just then I suggested we put the dink down and lend a hand to this poor soul.
OK, we had put the leftover pizza box in the dink to dispose of so left it there when Tony and I went to see if we could help.
We motored up to the stranded dink and I held the pizza box out, “sir did you order a pizza?” …..the look on he guy’s face was totally blank, he was so hammered he could not speak…OK, that wasn’t
funny, “Sir, grab your painter, we will tow you” he reached over the bow of the dink, no painter….we threw him a line and towed him to his boat, he spoke only French.
During the tow he said take me back to Foxy’s, but my boat first, I give you money….
We towed him to his private Bennetau with
Ontario CAN on he stern and he clamored off his dink, setting it adrift and tying our dink to his boat...
Tony managed to grab his dink and we shined a flashlight toward the prop…the painter was all balled up around the prop…hmmm…..dink wont go,
engine cannot be lifted, no painter, what could be wrong???
Tony carefully unwound the painter from the prop, started the engine and put it in
gear, worked fine.
Drunk guy comes back out, gets in his dink and speeds off, leaving our dink tied to his boat….need less to say we were laughing our A$$ES off at this point.
Took a good hour to
wind back down and go to
bed after that one!!!
Day 8:
Talked Melody into making Pizza scramble with the leftover pizza, dice it up and add some scrambled eggs, serve with bloody Mary’s, life is good!!
We watched a huge fire that appeared to be on the beach at Great Harbor but turned out to be a trash fire that burned a really long time with huge flames.
Did a trash dump and picked up some more
drinking water and we headed out for Norman Island.
What a great sail to
weather, good wind steep chop and fun!!!
We made a
lagoon 420 look silly and beat a couple of charter monos, we did get passed by a very light
Seawind cat that had been
racing in the Spring regatta, ton was trying hard but I explained, he has nothing aboard and is a very light cat.
Approaching The Bight, we were amazed at how many boats were in there!!!
We needled through all the moorings and anchored in close at one of Tony’s “secret’ spots. Tony and Mel got the feedbag going again, unreal grilled teriyaki glazed burgers topped with pineapple served with baked beans, and did I mention these guys cook up some mean grub???
The parade of large and small sport fishers, ladies with small bikinis and fun to watch
anchoring, back down to shore
med mooring operations going on all around us was quite a spectacle to observe. The PR
Navy was there in force and out for a good time, they all got louder as the
rum began to flow!!
There was not one minute when stand up paddle board, dinghy or close passing boat did not go by!!
The boys took the dink into Pirates and we chilled aboard just taking it in and floating around behind the boat for cool off breaks.
Took the boys over to Willy T and drank a few with them then left them to pick up later.
Dinner at Pirates was VERY good, my
rib eye steak was excellent, everyone enjoyed their
meals and the service was top notch.
Met Rupert, the Manager, very pleasant Gentleman, discussed the possibility of bringing the TTOL Flotilla in one night, he vowed to have a band for us and make it a special night.
Rupert sent a free round of drinks to our table; we really did not need them but drank them anyway.
The key lime pie was really good, I shared with Keith and he even smeared some on his face I laughed so he continued to smear it all over my face and I let him!!.
We returned to AC II and the boys continued to Willy T closing the bar at some hour of the night!
Day 7: Up early and motor-sailed to Soper’s as we had flights out of STT later in the day and Tony and Melody had PAYING Customers arriving that afternoon.
Capt Jim of Blue Moon came over and visited for a bit then it was time to ferry over to STT, the 10:30 was not running so got on the 12:00 ferry, kinda sweating making flights at 2:10 and 2:40 PM.
Georgec1 was also sweating the schedule as he had similar flight times.
The STT
Airport was a ZOO!!
Getting through
Customs and TSA was a nightmare..We still made our flights!!!
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!!
Many thanks to Tony and Melody for their incredible hospitality, all the food, drinks and fun we could handle!!!
I got a feel for what it is like on a crewed yacht with a team that “get’s it” as they were on top of everything and AC II was immaculate and extremely comfortable.
Those two have even more fun doing their “thing” and enjoying the crew aboard than can be imagined.
Even as friends, we were pampered like their guests and just thanking them would never be enough.
I must say I can even more highly recommend taking a crewed charter with Tony and Melody aboard Aristocrat II, the cat’s meow in EVERY way!!
OK, their webite is here:
www.utopiasailing.com
Don’t worry Tom, I did not share ALL of our
racing secrets, Foxy’s Cat Fight ’09 is coming up and they will be foe on the water yet friends at the bar!!
As always, GREAT people, sailing, cannot be beat!
Saildoggie photo/video link here:
http://s6.photobucket.com/albums/y238/saildoggie/BVI409/
Tradewind's photos here:
http://photobucket.com/BVIApril09