Grenada Day 5

Waking to the sound of crashing waves is wonderful.  Waking to the sight of my husband without a cup of tea in his hand for me is not.  We need to do something about this, or rather, I do.

By 9.30 we are ready for our lift to the boatyard.  Before we go I ask at reception for an electric kettle so that Mike can perform his husbandly duties.  They promise it will be in my room at the end of the day.

At the boatyard we are amazed to see progress.  There is masking tape all along each hull.  Obviously something is about to happen!  Sure enough, a man arrives shortly after, clad head to toe in protective gear and starts painting the hull with noxious chemicals then lots of intermittent scraping noises start.  Then, a little while later, another five men clamber up the ladder and start to remove the boom.  We are having all the reefing lines, outhaul, main halyard and topping lift taken back to the cockpit so we can do everything with the sails from there.  So this is two jobs in progress.  Amazing!

Photo:  What!  No boom?  We didn’t even see it go!

Mike strips out the old fridge and freezer seals and I clean out the grooves for the replacements  Amazingly the new ones that I bought out from the UK fit, and they fit easily!

I start to organise my eighteen months’ worth of cosmetics, body wash, shampoo and hair dye into a system that I will recognise in the middle of the Pacific!  Bugger the water and the food – I am a girlie!  We have decided that one cabin will be kept for our, sorry, MY storage, and I make lots of headway.

Every time I walk through the salon I shudder at the mess.  The table is strewn with all sorts of things that are “in progress” according to Mike.  The dining table looks like every other table we have ever owned.  As far as Mike is concerned, tables are for putting things down on as you walk past them, not for eating off.  I have never managed to house train him out of doing this, even in the confined space of a boat.  Ah well, he is pretty well trained otherwise.

Photo:  What a mess!

A local family arrive with a truck load of fresh produce.  I buy a ton of okra and tomatoes and a huge papaya (I didn’t know they were that big!) and head back to the boat.  Mike tells me he doesn’t like okra but I find a recipe on the internet that makes him change his mind.  By the time I have finished cooking (in 32 degrees of heat) it is quite late, and we enjoy a sit down in the cockpit to eat our okra curry.  It is wonderful especially as the wind has now picked up and there is a cooling breeze.

All through the day the scraping noises from under the boat continue.  The anti fouling is coming off but due to the mess and the noxious chemicals, we don’t venture down to see what is actually happening until it is obvious that the guy doing the work has gone for the day.

Photo:  One hull partially stripped

Photo:  Mike doing his inspection of the work so far

This is the first time I have been under Jeannius since she was being built in the factory in 2002.  Looking at her lines from underneath, I am reminded how beautiful she actually is with all her curves.  Most catamarans have straight lines underneath as it makes them cheaper to manufacture but not as strong as our beautiful Privilege 435.  At least she will be beautiful when we have finished touching up the paintwork and cleaning off the rust marks from the anchor chain.

Photo:  Jeannius’ beautiful curves

I get onto Skype and manage to talk to Ann, Johanne and Victoria which makes a lovely end to the day.  I can’t believe that it has gone so fast.  Tempus fugit when you are involved in mindless and menial tasks!!  I even manage to send some e-mails, something I have been rather tardy with since the advent of the blog.

Mike starts of take apart one of the water pumps that he replaced a couple of months ago.  After covering yet another table with bits, and hitting the pump with a hammer, he realises that the new part that was purchased in the BVIs is actually the wrong one.  Bugger!

Photo:  Mike playing with his pump

Armed with all our tea making paraphernalia, we call for our transport and soon, Sam, our lovely driver is waiting to take us back to La Sagesse.  I decide to make some inroads into the rather lovely bottle of Sauvignon Blanc that we bought at great expense.  I discover that it is well worth the £20 we paid, and quickly I am three quarters of the way down the bottle.  Ah well, it’s never as good the next day (like I need an excuse!)  The evening is spent watching Gavin and Stacy and Strictly Come Dancing.  Bliss!!

Grenada Day 4

As there will be nothing going on at the boat yard, we give it a miss today.  Mike is at the PC on the veranda by 8.30.  I luxuriate in bed until the heat drives me out.  Mind you it’s midday by this time and the cleaner is trying to get into our room.  I am busy though, catching up on the blog.

We go down to the restaurant for a late lunch, then have the customary nap.  As it is Sunday, there are a lot of local children on the beach, playing noisily with gay abandon, so we eventually give up on sleep and read instead.

Nothing else happens.  Lovely!!!

Grenada Day 3

At 3 am Mike gets up to use the bathroom and comes face to face with the most enormous cockroach he has ever seen.  He sprays it with bug killer but that just serves to make it mildly annoyed and instead of scuttling into a corner it rampages around the room and into the bedroom where I am awakened my Mike slapping it with his shoe.  He is successful in killing it.  I just hope that it was a parent and not a child!

We arrange a lift to the boatyard.  Work should be starting today but it doesn’t.  Every day will cost us $150 in hotel and food bills so I get pretty fed up with the non-activity.  Mike is more philosophical and knows that it will be done when it’s done.  I still rally against ‘manyana’.

Photo:  Jeannius out of the water

Mike starts some work on the boat, putting the new port hole knobs on.  I do a bit of re-organising then retire to my netbook to start archiving and deleting the hundreds of e-mails which I have stored.  We go for lunch at the waterside bar.  Not much on offer today – burger or pilaf.  We have one of each.  By 1.30 we have run out of things to do.  There is so much we can’t do.  With the boat out of the water we can’t use the generator so lack of air conditioning means that we can’t do anything strenuous inside otherwise you would sweat to death.  No sea water to cool the fridge and freezer so we can’t use them so although we have food on board, we have nothing perishable to eat which makes cooking something vaguely edible difficult.  We can’t use the toilets and any water I flush out of the kitchen sink lands straight on anyone who happens to be under the boat although there’s not much chance of that today!

Photo:  Work done for the day, we wait for our lift back to the hotel

On the way back, Samantha, our driver, points out a vendor selling live land crabs.  She says they are delicious, a local thing.  They are all hanging on a stick, claws waving.  I wish I had stopped to take a photo.

We have another afternoon nap then I spend time at the bar using the hotel wifi to Skype home.  Mike works on the PC and I start the blog again, always difficult when I have let it slip for a few days.

Dinner is the last of our meat pies out of the fridge and our entertainment is another two episodes of ‘The Worst Week Of My Life’.  I fall asleep to the sound of the waves.  At least they drown out the sound of Mike’s snoring (and probably mine!).

Grenada Day 2

We pack up and leave the guesthouse, saying goodbye to the lovely ‘T’, the owner.  We pick some stuff up from Jeannius on the way and drop other things off and Mike gets the estimate for the work to be done.  Frighteningly, in writing, the amount sounds even more!

We check into the hotel.  Our room is very pretty, with a large four poster bed.  It is not air conditioned but there are huge windows on two sides of the room which are just covered by mosquito nets, no glass.  The sound of the waves breaking just a few feet away is wonderful.  We flop on the bed and fall asleep almost straight away.  The bed is wonderfully comfortable.

When we wake up we go for a walk along the beach.  It is beautiful.  The sand is so fine and light that it gets churned up in the waves so the water doesn’t look the most beautiful I have seen but is clear beyond the breakers.

We walk hand in hand along the beach then go for a swim.  Yes, I am actually swimming on my second day here – probably a record for me!

Photo:  Ursula Andress/Halle Berry, eat your heart out (I wish!)

Photo:  Mike on the veranda of our little cottage

Photo:  The view from our veranda

Photo:  The bar and restaurant almost hidden in the lush vegetation

Photo:  The main house; guest rooms below and behind; the owners live upstairs

After a shower and a nap, we are ready for dinner.  We meet another couple, Sandy and John, whose boat is also in the boatyard and join them for dinner.  Amazingly, there are also two guys staying here, Graham and Mike, whose boat is also in the yard and they are doing the World ARC too.  John, the barman, introduces us to them.  What a small world.

Grenada Day 1

We both wake up feeling more resigned than dejected.  If the money has to be spent then it has to be spent.  As this will eat away at our pot of ‘adventure money’ we will just have to do a couple more charters to pay for it.  Mike goes off to the boatyard to give them the go ahead and returns saying that he has found us a nice hotel to stay in right on the beach not far from the boatyard.  The hotel will take us to and pick us up from the boatyard each day so we will have no need for a hire car.  Although the hotel is double the price of the guest house it is far more like luxury and without the expense of a car will work out vaguely the same.  Except for food of course.  The guest house was self catering and this is a hotel with hotel priced meals.  Still we feel in need of a treat and Mike has decided that we should look upon the next couple of weeks as a sort of holiday.

Photo:  Our guest house at Westerhall 

We keep the hire car for an extra day and do a bit of food shopping and sightseeing.  We have discovered these fabulous local meat pies.  They are round and cut into triangles like pizza.  They are actually breads stuffed full of either ham or soya, and actually the soya ones are the most delicious.  One triangle feeds the two of us for one meal and they cost $4 EC, about £1 each.  Not bad!  Unfortunately the supermarket that stocks them isn’t walking distance from the boatyard.

Mike takes me to view our hotel, La Sagesse (website address is http://www.lasagesse.com ), which is also the site of a monkey nature reserve.  It is beautiful, right on the beach.  We are taken to view a couple of different rooms and choose one furthest away from everything else.  It is set in its own little garden and is the one nearest to the beach.  The waves crash just twenty feet away and we have total privacy.

We spend the evening back at the guest house munching our meat pie and watching ‘The Worst Week Of My Life’.  Although about the lead up to a wedding, we think the title is quite apt!

Back to Grenada

My phone alarm wakes me up just before six and by six thirty I am in reception waiting for the bus to take me to the airport.  I am still nervous about the weight of my bag.  Surely 30 kilos can’t be right?  But that’s what is printed on my ticket so I will fight it out if I have to.

In the event it isn’t a problem.  My bag weighs in at 28 kilos.  With 16 month’s worth of cosmetics, hair products and various lotions and potions, not to mention the odd boat part, I’m surprised it doesn’t weigh more!  At 7 kilos, my hand luggage is 2 kilos over but the nice lady just tells me to put my netbook under the seat rather than in the overhead locker and lets me off.  Result!

I install myself for an hour in one of the airport lounges and check my e-mails before reading the little poignant note that Johanne and I had exchanged a few days ago.  No details but a few tears were shed.  What would I do without friends?  Leaving them behind is one of the hardest things about doing the World ARC.  I manage to speak to Johanne and Victoria before I leave.

The plane takes off half an hour late but we are assured that we will make the time up.  It is a good flight.  I share the three middle seats with a retired teacher who is good company but doesn’t talk all the time – a relaxed combination.  We land just ten minutes late but the queue for immigration is something else and as I was at the back of the plane and therefore one of the last to get off, I wait for nearly an hour in the queue.  At least this means that my luggage is waiting for me when I eventually make it through.

Walking out of the terminal I see Mike with his lovely smiling face ready to greet me.  A big hug and kiss later he breaks the news to me about the boat that he has received that morning.  The boat had been hauled out to fix an oil leak from the propeller shaft.  It took just half an hour to fix.  However, once Jeannius was out they could see that the nose cone for the new propeller was split.  Not a major problem as being only two months old it is still under warranty and a new one is being sent.  The really bad news is that the brand new anti fouling is blistering and coming off due to an incompatibility with a previous layer even though a barrier had been applied.  The whole lot has to be stripped off right back to the boat’s gel coat and reapplied.  This will cost us another $12000 and will take at least two weeks.

Mike is devastated at the news and I am probably worse.  I hate hanging around waiting for the boat to be fixed.  I loath boat yards with a vengeance and the fact that Jeannius is out of the water means that we can’t stay on her and will now have the added expense of a hotel for a few weeks.

Mike drives me to the guest house he has booked.  We both have raging headaches and have an early night, dejected and miserable, both our moods feeding the other’s.  Not a good start to our adventure.

Back in England 1 October to 1 December

What a whirlwind! There was so much to do and so many people to see.

The weather was kind to me when I first arrived although I still felt cold.  We had some beautiful sunsets too – not quite Caribbean style but lovely just the same!

Photo:  Sunset over Diglis Water, Worcester

I spent the first weekend with Victoria who luckily had a long weekend off.  I introduced her to the Pandoro/Troll bracelet idea which she embraced wholeheartedly.  By the time I left, she (well I really – birthday and Christmas and all that) had nearly completed one bracelet.  Because she liked the coloured beads so much she has gone for the Trollbeads as they have more of a selection.

Photo:  Victoria’s Trollbead bracelet – isn’t it pretty?

A week after I arrived, Mike came back.  Poor Mike.  His whole visit was taken up by paperwork.  While he was doing this I managed to get and see some of my friends; Jan, Helene and Jane.

Mike’s parents arrived for a three day visit but because the apartment is so small they had to stay in a nearby hotel and Mike picked them up in the mornings and took them back when it was time for bed.  We had to leave them for doctor and dentist appointments, all of which had to be squeezed in to a small time frame.

Photo:  Three generations of Beswicks

After they left, Mike, Victoria and myself went to our favourite restaurant, the Venture In.  This is the scene of all our celebrations – exam results, birthdays and anniversaries, and any other excuse we can find to visit.  The food never disappoints.

As Victoria was working the entire next weekend, we went to stay with Johanne and Steve but again, Mike took his laptop and surrounded himself with paperwork while we were there.  Johanne and I would normally have gone shopping but by this time both Mike and I were in the throes of really nasty colds and Johanne wasn’t feeling too good either so we didn’t bother.  She went to a lot of trouble cooking us a full, traditional Christmas lunch on the Sunday, as she knew we wouldn’t be able to have one on the boat, even providing Mike with a Christmas pudding.  He was in his element especially as she gave him all the left over pudding to take home.  What a little treasure she is!

On 21 October Mike flew back to Grenada.  I was supposed to follow the following week but with an ever mounting pile of things to organise and people to see, I put my flight back.

I had a much needed haircut and colour then met my friend Emma for lunch.  The next evening I went to a Bevington Bash, a sort of ‘meet the neighbours’ thing which did actually give me the chance to see some of the people who live around me that I haven’t met before.  Being in the throes of cold number 2 and feeling pretty grotty I didn’t intend staying long but ended up being one of the last to leave.  Amazing what a few glasses of wine can do!

I met my friend Helene for lunch the next day and then Johanne arrived in the late afternoon.  I cooked us a lovely meal of spiced braised lamb shanks but failed to notice that the chillies I used were the hottest variety you can find.  They weren’t the bird’s eye ones or scotch bonnets.  Instead they were something innocuous sounding – Dorset Nagi or something.  They sounded British (Dorset?) so I assumed they would be mild.  I failed to notice the picture of the six chillies on the packet as I didn’t have my glasses on when I went shopping!!  Anyway, we ended up having to scrape the sauce off as it was far too hot to eat and I had to make a caramelised onion gravy to go with it instead!

The next day, October 25, was Victoria’s 25th birthday. 

Photo:  Victoria and her boyfriend, Tom

I presented her with her Troll bracelet which she loved.  She went off to spend the day with friends while Johanne and I walked into Worcester for a spot of shopping. 

The following week I went off for the whole week.  I drove to Cheshunt to see my brother, Tony, first.  It was lovely to see him and Maureen looking so well and the icing on the cake was a visit from Tracy, his daughter, who is lovely company.

From there I went to stay with friends John and Allison who holidayed with us in July.  Allison, a brilliant cook, racked her brains to think of things that I wouldn’t easily be able to cook on the boat and delighted me with a full roast lamb dinner.  Yummy.

Allison and I spent the next day together, having a girly lunch and she took me to a hairdressing supplies shop to get some of the things I would need to do my own hair for 18 months – God forbid!  I was so confused as to what to buy I just purchased a pair of scissors.  I needed to talk to my hairdresser before I started buying anything else.

From there I went to my sister’s in Hethersett.  Ann and I had a lovely time with visits to her children and grandchildren.  We also had a fantastic evening at Viv and David’s who came out with them in August to the boat.  Viv cooked the most amazing meal – she had started it the day before and it was out of this world.  Viv also knows how to set a table and had lit about 80 candles.  The sight was spectacular.  Thank you, Viv.

  Photos:  A memorable dinner at Viv and David’s with Ann and Terry

We went back there the next day as Viv and David were going off to collect their new puppy, a Labradoodle that they named Truffle.  Truffle was absolutely adorable.  I want one!

Photo:  Me and Truffle having a cuddle

Photo:  Truffle looking rather more like a cuddly toy than a dog!

That evening my nephews, Matt and Jim, came over for a meal with all but one of the grandchildren.  It was mayhem but in an orderly fashion.  They were adorable.

Photo:  If Finlay wears a hoodie, the hood stays UP!

Photo:  My nephew, Matt, with his son, Rupert

 

Photo:  Great niece Lilly having a photographic strop

I went back home on the Friday afternoon and that evening went out for dinner with my old boss, Liz Taylor, her husband and another ex-colleague, Elaine and her husband.  Had a great time.  Liz’s husband, Alan, gave me a Sooty hand puppet with instructions to photograph it regularly on our world trip.

The following day I went for a lovely walk along the banks of the River Severn which our apartment overlooks.  It was a beautiful day.

 Photos:  The River Severn where it joins the Birmingham to Worcester canal just yards from our apartment

In the evening I went over to Jane and Michael’s for dinner and had a lovely evening.

The next day I drove to Johanne and Steve’s, just for a whirlwind 24-hour visit.  The first half the following week was taken up by visits to the doctor, dentist and having an assortment of nasty jabs ready for the World ARC.  I felt like a pin cushion by the end of it!  On the Thursday evening I took the train down to London to visit my friend Laura.  She had quite a few things lined up for us including a visit to London’s only remaining music hall where we watched some old Pathe News films bringing back vivid memories of our childhoods and youth.  On the Saturday, Laura had to work so I met my niece, Alice, who is at university at UCL.  We had a lovely day mouching around the shops around Spitalfields and Brick Lane and a lovely lunch at Storey.  In the evening we met with some of Laura’s friends for a meal at a restaurant overlooking the Victoria Park firework display.

Photos:  Dinner and fireworks

Hangovers the next day necessitated lounging around in bed for most of it, and Laura’s bad back had us doing the same thing the following day but I’m sure the rest did us both good.

I returned to Worcester on the Tuesday, had my Yellow Fever jab, then went for a very boozy lunch with Kim, so boozy in fact that I didn’t leave until late in the evening when it was safe for me to drive again.

The following weekend saw me back in Appleton with Johanne and Steve, going to see Mike’s parents on the way there.  We had a lovely dinner on the Saturday night with some friends of theirs, Mike and Linda and Johanne’s cooking was up to its usual standard.

Photo:  Johanne and I, dressed up and ready for dinner

Back in Worcester, I had a visit from Sue who used to work with me at the college in Bromsgrove then in the late afternoon I drove to meet Ali and Jan with whom I used to go to yoga.  Jan had just produced her first baby, Hayden, who was lovely and looked very tiny to me although he was nearly twice the size Victoria was when she was born.  I joined Ali for supper after to catch up on all her news.

The following evening I went over to Solihull to join Emma and Andrew for dinner.  We had a lovely meal at the Malt Shovel in Barston and Emma forced me to drink copious amounts of champagne and wine.  Yeah, right!  Like I need forcing!  Luckily they had organised a taxi back to theirs and I stayed the night.

Photo:  Emma and I only slightly hungover!

On the way home I called in to see Jan and Chris again before heading home ready for yet another meal out, this time with some of the trainers I used to work with at the NHS; Denise, Helene and Vanessa.   Unfortunately they had left it to me to book the table and I forgot until about 4pm so the next hour was spent frantically phoning around to find somewhere.  Helene came to the rescue and found one though and we had a good old gossip and laugh.

Photo:  Me, Vanessa, Helene and Denise enjoying a girly night out

Around half an hour after I got back home, my sister Ann and her husband Terry arrived.  With there not being much room in the flat, I gave up my bedroom and slept in the lounge.

We had a late breakfast then wandered into Worcester, intending to do a bit of shopping.  We tried to walk along the river but discovered that it had just started to burst its banks on our side and we could only go half way, so we walked back and took the canal side route instead.  Terry offered to buy a quick snack so we went into The Glasshouse just for a starter and a glass of wine.  Four and a half hours later, after a very enjoyable time, we left and flew around the shops before they closed.  Terry bought Ann some very nice presents.  If you don’t end up using them, Ann, throw them my way!

Photo:  Terry and the two sisters

The next day I met my old buddy and ex-colleague, Dave, for lunch.  We exchanged news and had a good old chat.  It was lovely to see him.  I walked over to the river bank and saw that the flooding was now much closer, and even the canal had flooded.

Photos:  The flooded river and Canal at Diglis Basin

The next week saw another visit to the hairdressers where I received a brutally short haircut and instructions on what stuff to buy to do my own hair, followed by a visit to Jane for reassurance that I didn’t look like a boy.   She said I didn’t but I wasn’t convinced - this was boat hair with a vengeance!

The next day was spent organising paperwork and looking dejectedly at the mounting pile of stuff that I was accumulating to take back to the boat – most of it heavy.  I went out to photograph the river which had now well and truly burst its banks on both sides and flowing in a torrent in the direction of the sea. 

Photo:  A poor swan, peddling like mad to get up river against the torrent 

Photo:  The water on the far side is usually a playing field

Photo:  The fast flowing River Severn

I met another friend in the evening for yet another goodbye.  The next day I woke with the headache from hell which no amount of medication would touch.  I stayed in bed until after noon having taken a whole cocktail of stuff to no avail, but I had to drive up to Mike’s parents to leave my car and say goodbye.  By the time I arrived I was so stressed that I burst into tears, which didn’t help them a whole lot as they were already upset about us going.

Steve came to pick me up and I spent the night at his and Johanne’s.  There were more tears saying goodbye to Steve and Isabella in the morning before Johanne drove me back to Worcester.  We were determined that we would NOT spend the weekend in tears and managed this pretty well to start with.  We walked into Worcester where the Christmas market was in full swing and did a spot of shopping.  We found some amazing bargains in Felice, and Johanne took full advantage of them.  On the way back we stopped for a drink or two at The Glasshouse, the scene of last week’s revelry with Ann and Terry.  We had great fun and a lovely couple gave us their Moet and Chandon celebration balls (little gold balls which have charms, candles or offers of free champagne in them which sit in the top of your champagne glass). 

Photo:  One of the golden balls, and nothing to do with David Beckham!

This spurred Johanne to talk another one out of our waiter even though we weren’t drinking champagne, just a rather nice Sauvignon Blanc.  Anyway, we had such a nice time that we booked a table for the next evening – the last supper!!

The next day we went back into Worcester and I found a few bargains in TK Maxx, more suited to my new lifestyle.  We had a lovely meal at The Glasshouse and managed to talk two more Moet balls from our rather delicious waiter, Sam.  I had decided that it would be a nice idea if we each wrote a note to the other which we would open just before I got on the plane. 

The next day was cold, miserable and very wet.  We decided that if we stayed in we would also be miserable so we went for a sightseeing trip to Great Malvern.  The weather didn’t improve our mood and most of the shops were shut although Johanne, ever on the lookout for good food, managed to buy a boot full of stuff from Waitrose.  That’s my girl!

We wrote our notes when we got back, ate dinner and said our tearful goodbyes.  Trying to say goodbye like we would see each other in six weeks just didn’t work.  Victoria had the difficult job of trying to comfort me after she had gone.  Sigh.

The next morning, Victoria’s friend, Becky, took me to buy all my hair stuff.  Scissors, bleach, hair dyes in a variety of colours that I get to mix, and even worse, that Mike gets to apply to me.  Heaven knows what I will look like.  Shaving it off might be a better option!  By the evening I had managed to get most of the stuff in my sailing bag but lifting it was a problem.  I could drag it along on its wheels but getting it down the stairs and onto trains was going to be a problem.  Luckily my visit to the site office to say goodbye paid dividends as Sean, the site manager, said he would get me and my bag to the station the next day.

Victoria and I spent a girly night in and when it came to say goodnight I was in floods of tears again.  More tears followed in the morning, more from me than her.  After 9 weeks of invading her space on and off, she was probably glad to see the back of me, although she does like her dinner being ready when she comes in from work and will miss that if nothing else.  Only kidding, sweetie!

I tidied the flat up in the morning and bang on time Sean came to take me to the station.  He even lugged my case up the stairs, over the track and down again to the far platform.  After that the struggle was all mine, and it was a bloody struggle.  Luckily the rain kept off and it was warmer than it had been of late so I didn’t have to bundle up with clothes I wouldn’t need for ages.

I changed trains at Reading and whilst waiting for the train to Gatwick, a fellow female traveller dumped soft bags next to me.  She had three to my two, and I offered to guard one for her while she dragged two of hers onto the train, then she helped me with mine.  We got talking.  We introduced ourselves.  Amazingly, Gabbie was also going out to the Caribbean to start a round the world sailing trip on her yacht in January, although she and her husband are doing it as part of the Blue Water Rally rather than the World ARC.  Hopefully, our paths will cross as we visit the same places.  The unbelievable thing is that there are only 22 boats competing in the Blue Water Rally and 36 in the World ARC and they are from all over the world.  What are the odds of meeting another owner on a station platform in the UK?  We have to meet up, Gabbie, if only to dye each other’s hair and drink wine together!!

After a long wait for the free transport to the hotel, I was finally installed in my bed with another mother of all headaches.  I watched two hours of TV, took enough drugs to knock out a horse, put the alarm on and mercifully, fell asleep.