It's Sandra's Birthday!!! The agenda is Her’s, and knowing Sandra it will involve a summit peak; a swim; and a full night of dancing. This is not what we call a sailing day. But sail we did.
So, the ultimate day goal was to be at the Soggy Dollar Bar, and dinner at Foxy's. Both locations are difficult to arrange as everyone in the BVI's are targeting this destination for the weekend. So, to make sure we would be in the proper bay (Great Harbor) for the evening we had to make plans. Plans that involved setting our alarm before 7am so we could get on the Boaty-Ball app to reserve a mooring ball in Great Harbor. This is where we would stay the night after partying it up at Foxy's for dinner and nightlife. It's also the base from where we could take the dinghy around the point to have drinks at Soggy Dollar Bar. These were the bullet items of the day. Everything else was secondary.
Alarm goes off, we prepare to grab a ball, annnnnnd, they're gone!!! Just like that! If you're not quick enough those 30 balls are taken at the stroke of 7am. So damn! We were able to reserve a ball across from the bay we stayed overnight, but this would require a taxi to get to the other two bays. Whatever, we took it for the team. And our team was batting 3 for 7.
Sandra, then wanted to take a quick hike up the hill in our morning bay. I dinghy'd her to a dock and abandoned her while I went back to the boat to finish some coffee and prepare the boat to move. I kept looking for her every 15 minutes to see if I could see her on the trail. But no luck. After the last time I came out to do a spot check, I hear "Chris! Over here!" Apparently, she took a different trail and I've been looking at the wrong hill all morning. I collected her at the dock, and then we left Little Harbor Bay.
No strong winds today. We decided to just do a relaxing circumnavigation around Jost Van Dyke. It's the island we were on, and the same island we planned to do all the events on later. Wind was barely 6 knots, so we were only going the speed of a brisk walk. It was a sunny day, and we didn't really have much else to do.
We rounded the island in 4 hours. But during that time, we checked the Boaty-Ball application, and low and behold, a mooring ball just came open in Great Harbor! This is where we wanted to be in the first place. We cancelled our other ball and picked up the last ball in this coveted spot. I celebrated with a beer and a handful of peanuts. This day was shaping up.
After getting around the island into the bay, we hooked up the ball and boat, then dingy'd to Great White Bay to have that Soggy Dollar drink and sit on the beach. It was nuts, people were everywhere, it was like spring break at Fort Lauderdale. We had a couple of Rum Killers then finally went back to the boat to get ready for dinner. At this time, I must tell you, I think I had to be smelling a bit gamey. I decided I had to dunk in the ocean to get the sticky off. OK, it's gross. But you would be too. As a sailor, I think it's a sin to be in the water. Regardless, I jumped in and it somehow, with its magic cooled me down and cleaned off the sticky sensation. I may do this again, but only for science.
After being cleaned up, we to the dinghy to Foxy's where we had a BBQ buffet. Then the dancing started, and Sandra was still in charge of the agenda. I took one for the team and went out on the dance-sand with her. It must've been a couple hours, and the sticky sensation was back. We finally went back to the boat holding a cell-phone flashlight out on the bow while we tried to find the sailboat in the dark. There it was. The only boat without the anchor-light on. Yup, that's ours. That's our way.
To get rid of the sticky, I decided to jump in and do a cool-down along with a little scrubbing. Sandra got a lot of dancing in, and appeared to have a great birthday. Tomorrow, it continues.