We get up early as both Mike and I have chores to do before we head over to Jost Van Dyke. Mike has to remove the boat’s whiskers (the green slimy stuff that grows on the hull amazingly quickly if you hang around anywhere for more than a few days) and the barnacles. I have the laundry to do, which seems to be the easier of the two chores, especially as Mike’s job involves getting into the sea, which I do as infrequently as possible.
Mike takes me to the dinghy dock muttering that it’s about time I had another dinghy lesson. I hate driving the damn thing as I always turn the throttle the wrong way and end up hurtling towards things at high speed, but it would be so much easier if I could get to shore by myself.
I find the laundrette. Mostly it is a graveyard for old, rusty machines. I count 5 washing machines and 3 tumble driers which are dead but as I am the only person doing the washing at this time of the day, there are lots of others to choose from.
Jo wanders past on her way to the rubbish skips and points out that one of the machines I have chosen to use is a tad slower than the others. A tad slower? It takes 20 minutes longer on a cycle that only takes that time to start off with. That one is obviously on Caribbean time. While I wait for the machine to finish, I watch a herd of goats outside, especially one black billy, who bullies all the others, chasing them around the tree and scattering the chickens in all directions.
Only one other customer comes in during my time – a local lady. She arrives with two plastic bags of washing at a time, until she is surrounded by them. I watch, facinated, as she pours washing liquid, chlorax (bleach) and Fabuloso (kitchen floor and surface cleaner) into each of her machines. She either has a very dirty family or she is a chemist who knows the exact formula for getting tepid water to wash clothes brilliantly in a 20 minute wash! (The water is always tepid even when you select hot.) But no, she informs me that the liberal use of Fabuloso (2 different ‘flavours’ too) is because she like the smell.
When I get back to the dinghy dock, I can see Mike with his snorkel under the boat, still scrubbing. He can’t hear me, or the phone that I ring constantly. So I stand, in the boiling hot sun, waiting for someone else to come along so that I can hitch a lift. No one comes. It’s at times like this that I wish I had been given my dinghy lesson. Eventually Mike gets out of the water, notices me and comes over immediately, only to be snarled at for making me wait. It turns out he had nearly poisoned himself on the anti fouling that came off into the water as he scrubbed the hull but he’s still alive so I’m not sympathetic.
On our way out we head over to the fuel dock. The wind is gusty, threatening to throw us against the concrete blocks and it’s hard to get the lines on but eventually we manage it and fill up. Kev and Jo pass us on the way and we wave to show them that we have our fishing line out for the first time but they don’t notice, and neither do the fish – we catch nothing, for the first of many times!
We both anchor up and I put the drying out. The great laundry drying weather proves to be too much for my bath mat, which takes off at high speed from the back of the boat when I am not looking and is never to be seen again. As we speak, it is probably wrapped around some unsuspecting boat’s propeller! Jo comes over to pick Mike up so that they can check us and the boats out of the BVIs. They have a little excitement of their own in the dinghy when Jo underestimates the hold of her new stern anchor. It pulls the dinghy back as she steps off and she disappears between the dinghy and the dock. Luckily the water is only thigh high and she walks to the shore. Mike is gentlemanly enough to take her backpack for her. I hope he didn’t laugh!
We join Kev and Jo for drinks at Foxy’s, but at $18 a round in Happy Hour, we only stay for 2 rounds. Although Foxy is said to be in the bar every afternoon, today he is represented by a plastic or waxwork like model, obviously off spending his profits elsewhere.
Photo: Kev, Jean and Mike arriving at Foxy’s
Photo: Jo, Jean and Mike savouring their expensive drinks
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