It promises to be a lovely breezy day, just right for a good sail up to Leverick Bay, but first some provisions are needed for the making of BBCs, bananas to be precise, as my guests have been treated to the delights of this delicious drink and want more!
We go over to the shop at Trellis Bay but the bananas are so ripe they have split right open and Mike comes back empty handed.
We have a lovely sail over to The Dogs for the guests to snorkel but Nick is now more interested in fishing with Burhan than snorkelling and soon our bucket is filling up with single portion sized grouper. As I am preparing lunch, I hear a Mayday call over the radio. A Sunsail boat has gone aground on rocks between Great Dog and West Dog – we are moored at Great Dog – and after listening for a while to the exchange between the US Coast Guard, Virgin Islands Search and Rescue and the captain himself, Mike decides to get the dinghy down and go over and see if he can help in any way.
While he is gone, I relay messages from VISAR to the stricken catamaran as they can’t hear each other, probably due to something being in the way of the radio waves. Basically, VISAR talk to Sunsail who get a salvage boat out to tow them off the rocks, but the poor guy on the boat has children and a hysterical wife on board and it all gets very confusing. After a while, Mike comes back, having been unable to locate the boat, it not being where the guy thought it was (the guy on the other boat did say he might have got his location wrong) and the sea was too rough for our small dinghy. It becomes apparent that he has been trying to sail between the Seal Dogs, which is impossible (as he found out!) whereas there is plenty of water between Great Dog and West Dog which is where he thought he was. Listening to the radio, we hear he is eventually pulled off with no casualties.
Just after that, we hear another Mayday call via the coast guard. A drowned swimmer from another Sunsail boat, this time off St John in an area where there is a fierce current. The Coast Guard is calling for assistance from anyone with experience of CPR as the poor guy is not breathing. We have no idea how this one turned out, but it didn’t sound too hopeful.
Photo: Lunch - shrimp and scallops with Swahili sauce
After lunch we motored up to Leverick Bay. I go for a lie down and just fall asleep when Mike announces that I need to get the boat ready to moor up in the marina, oh, and I will probably need my wet weather gear! And I do!
I go ashore when it stops raining and do our personal laundry, popping back to the boat to make BBCs for our guests, who have managed to find bananas in the supermarket here. We join Nick and Monica for a drink at the Jumbies bar when they finish work, and also see Rick and Kim, Mike Kneafsey, Jim (from Blue Moon) and Soren. One drink multiplies but we extricate ourselves before we do too much damage! Our guests go out to dinner but we stay aboard as we are both really tired.
Photo: The Mocko Jumbies doing their stilt-leg holding thing
Photo: Shye and Sama with the Mocko Jumbies
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