So happy to be back at Sandy Island

After a bit of a restless night Rowan rushed into the dock as soon as the shops opened. He managed to get a few things but the electrician couldn’t look at the water pump today. So we decided to top up with water and head to Antigua tomorrow.

We had a very painless mooring onto a rather tricky shallow dock for water. I don’t think that I mentioned that the other thing that stopped working was Rowan’s camera. Only the one helm station has engine controls, so the camera is very handy for seeing whats happening on the other side, so very helpful for docking. Very annoying but not essential, I just have to be his eyes for the other side telling him in meters how far away we are from the dock. We are realising how salt, sea and sun are so hard on anything delicate!

We wanted to go and relax so we headed round the corner to our favourite spot from our last trip, Sandy island. There were only 2 other boats there previously, today we were the eighth boat, but still blissful. I thought we had catching the mooring buoy mastered with our new 3m fancy boat hook that magically threads our boat line through the mooring hoop, only I got into a terrible tangle as I used the wrong hoop. Luckily the reserve boat was nearby collecting dues, so they helped us out of a pickle.

We then discovered that the quarantine rules for Luke and Phoebe arriving in Antigua have changed. Unless they stay at approved hotel destinations they have to self isolate for 2 weeks. As we have so many repairs and we want to replace the freezer we thought we’d book into an approved resort with them for a week. Then get them on board. So we’ve treated ourselves to what looks like a lovely place on a gorgeous beach.

By the time I had sorted that we finally managed a snorkel in the late afternoon. The sun angle wasn’t great at that time and we thought the coral had deteriorated since June, but maybe it was just the light. We did see plenty of fish. The pelicans were having a wonderful time with huge schools of tiny fish all leaping into the air at the same time creating a huge silver flash which had the pelies in a diving frenzy. Very entertaining to watch as they look so ungainly and prehistoric. We went for a walk along the gorgeous white sand beach, and found a whole lot of the little fish lying dead, they had obviously beached themselves in one of their flights out of water. We were very surprised no birds were eating this free meal. Maybe it happened at night.

We had put in a call to book a table at Alison’s Paradise Beach Club. She had our table ready and waiting when we arrived in Jeldi Jeldi. She is such a character, such an enterprising local, who has worked out how to use lock downs to her advantage. She loves the cruisers and says business has never been better. During lockdown she did food deliveries to the boats which no other locals thought to do. Last trip we went there a few times and were the only people on one occasion, but that was during lockdown, things have improved dramatically since then for her. She is so likeable she has a faithful following of cruisers who are her mainstay. We discovered that she had moved to NY with her family and spent 15 years there in real estate. It’s where she honed her great marketing skills.

Looking back to Polepole at Sandy island

We are sad to miss her Wednesday Pint and Paint evening. You get a board to paint your boat name when you order a beer. All the Grenadians have a good old chortle when they see our boat name. We’ve asked a few and they just say they like the unusual name. We asked Alison and she laughed and said it is most probably because one of the most famous island songs is called Roly Poly about a man with a very fat wife!!! I’m a bit horrified, it’s all been at my expense!!! Talking about boat names we had a funny time when we headed to the beach for our snorkel, a local boat taxi was picking up people from the beach. I saw the boat name was Hard Wood and assumed it was the wood it was made from. Not a chance, Rowan spotted the two enormous erect penises painted either end of the name! Rowan told him we liked his boat name and he grinned from ear to ear!

It was a lovely sunset at the bar, made a lot more congenial by a couple of glasses of Prosecco followed by a rum punch. A toast to Naked Shares! I am doing all the driving in Jeldi Jeldi so that I get more competent, which was a little daunting in the pitch dark after a rum punch - it’s quite far across to Sandy island. Luckily it all went smoothly, I was lucky it was an exceptionally still evening.