« Tall Ship Picton Castle, Francis Drake Channel | Main | The Indians, off Norman Island »
May 03, 2007
Soper's Hole to The Bight, Norman Island
The roosters woke me this morning. Then the barking dogs. No spectacular sunrise to admire this morning because of the big gray rain clouds scooting across the hills.
I hopped in the dinghy and whipped into the marina office to check weather. What a surprise. East winds 15-20 knots, scattered rain. The weather here is so predictable with the trade winds. We dropped the mooring shortly after some heavy rain, and set off for The Bight on Norman Island. It used to be a busy anchorage, because of the famous Willy T, an old permanently moored schooner-turned-bar, where women who leap off the second deck into the water, sans-top, receive a free Willy T thong. Whatever. Word has it there are no more free thongs. They wouldn't fit me anyway.
It was a magical sail. With 20 knots on the nose, we pinched as close to the wind as we could. The boat surprises me with her agility at 40 degrees to the wind. However, with way too much weather helm, we shortened sails to keep her from griping up into the wind and dragging the rudder. We topped 7 knots, and had a blast tacking up the Francis Drake Channel between the south shore of Tortola and the strong of smaller islands to Tortola's south.
One of the cupboards in the galley flew open as we heeled. Spaghetti went flying everywhere.
We passed a catamaran motoring in 20 knot winds. It was called Merlin. I yelled "Hey Merlin, show us your magic". He carried on motoring. He probably couldn't hear me over the sound of the engine.
We arrived at the anchorage well before noon, put the boat to bed, read for a bit, had some lunch, and went ashore to explore. We discovered a charter boat full of very burned, very drunk people making complete fools of themselves in a very quiet little spot on the beach called Pirate's. We chose a spot a little ways from them, and enjoyed the breeze, and the soca music, which sadly had strange sound effects mixed in. Like cell phone ringtones and fog horns. Not my kind of music.
We made reservations for dinner, and returned to the boat for a swim, a snooze, and some reading. After a much needed shower, we went back to Pirate's for dinner. It was wonderful, complete with a steel drum band. The restaurant is a simple post and beam structure, painted white. They have allowed people to write all over the posts - mostly boat names, crew names, little figures, funny little sayings. Consistently written in black, the names blurred together after a while.
The effort was a poor cousin to the Chat'n'Chill in George Town, Great Exuma Island in the Bahamas. It is a shack on the beach, only a few tables (three I think), with t-shirts hanging from the ceiling like sails. It's kitchy, quirky and completely unique. We realized the difference - the t-shirts were from boats and crew that had sailed much more than the Bahamas. There is good reason they call George Town "Chicken Harbour". This is live-aboard cruiser territory. Pirate's is charter-boat territory. One week or two, here to take it all in the little slice of time they selected to be here. It's a different state of mind. We talked about how many charterers were former live-aboards. Chis guessed 2%. I might have guessed slightly more.
Whatever the case is, we're happy to be here, excited about having mastered an unfamiliar boat, and we've already started a list of things we would do differently next time. I miss the live-aboard life, and this has put the bug back. But with our departure looming, I also miss New York.
Posted by dave at May 3, 2007 03:10 PM