Mike goes down to pick up our hire car early in the morning. We have decided to get one for the whole week so that we can get around easily and the taxis here are so bloody expensive that it even works out cheaper, or probably will anyway.
Shortly after he gets back, Penny arrives to say hello. It’s lovely to see her familiar, smiling face. Apparently I could have watched the Royal Wedding yesterday with her and a friend but I’m not bothered to have missed it – I’ve seen the dress on the internet and presumably there will still be lots of coverage once I get home if I need to see it (which I won’t).
We chatter away for a while – it’s hard to summarise 16 months worth of travel to someone – then Penny sorts our storage problem for us saying we can put all our personal stuff at her house, in fact probably everything except large boat bits. She even has new boxes – 12 of them – to pack our stuff into.
There’s a shout from a boat arriving at the fuel dock next to us and it’s Jock from TMM, another familiar face.
Penny leaves to do some errands but then comes back for us and I go in the car with her and Mike follows in ours so that we can learn our way to her house, find out where to leave our stuff and collect the boxes. It’s a terrifying drive. The road (to us) is practically vertical, with hairpin bends at crazy angles. In places, the single track road is crumbling at the cliff edge and there are small landslides on the inside edge. As if that isn’t bad enough, at the bottom of Penny’s drive the government have dug the road up and then just left it for over two months and you have to go over rubble then a sudden clamber over a step back onto concrete – all done on a hairpin bend and between the two huge concrete pillars at the bottom of the drive. Scary stuff even in a 4-wheel drive truck type car. I don’t know how she does it all the time.
We natter for a while with Penny and Peter, once again admiring their fantastic views over the Sir Francis Drake Channel and all the islands then load the boxes into the car and with our hearts in our mouths, head back down the drive to face THAT bend. It honestly looks like we are going to go over the edge. I hold my breath. I think my heart stops. Then we are round and safe. After that one, the rest seem like a doddle.
Passing Nanny Cay we decide to go into the marina to see who’s around and find Suzanna in the office. We arrange to take her and the Crazy Horse gang to the Bananakeet Cafe for sundowners on Tuesday. That really will be the last goodbye of this trip (unless we bump into Suzanna at San Juan airport on Friday ).
On the way back to the boat, we stop off at Island Department Store to see if they have any other storage stuff and some things for the boat (I am swapping out some of my galley equipment). This is the funniest store ever. Never, in the history of man, have so many ugly things been put together in what looks like a warehouse, for people to buy. The decorative ornaments and fake flowers are worth a trip to give your mood a hint of hysteria. Clocks adorned with plastic birds and flowers over a foot high are just the beginning and on an island with so many flowers growing naturally, I can’t believe the garish, unbelievably shiny fake flowers that are on display in ugly abundance. And people obviously buy this stuff. Amazing. We escape with two of those cheap tartan bags (cheap but twice the price they are in the UK) and two huge laundry bags for some of our bedding and towels.
We’ve arranged to meet the Thomas family at the Dove, so after a rest, a shower and change, we drive down. We love this restaurant and are so looking forward to the meal. Being pretty expensive, it is usually a venue for a treat but tonight our main courses are a little disappointing. Both Mike and I choose their signature steak dish but everything is a little over-salted and we can’t really taste the difference between the three components of the meal. However, the wine, the starter and desert are fantastic and the company is exemplary as usual. Despite the meal, we have a wonderful evening.
Photo: At the Dove with the Crazy Horse Gang
We drive them back to Village Cay Marina where Crazy Horse is currently berthed and arrange to pick them up tomorrow to go over to Nanny Cay to watch the start of the Atlantic Cup rally. Back on Jeannius, we heave our extremely full bellies into bed, groaning and bemoaning that we ate so much. So much for the diet! Again!!!
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