Working from boat.

It turns out that the sea dawg needs a face-lift. She's been having problems with infections in her right eye for ages and it seems to be steadily worsening. The vet doesn't have much to offer other than eye drops which only work for a few days, so he referred us to an animal opthamologist. By coincidence, the nearest one is in Emsworth. That's 'andy.

So we headed off down to Chichester on Thursday evening for a change. Missy sensibly booked the appointment for Friday afternoon, so we made use of the (disappointingly flakey) marina wifi and worked off the back of the boat on Friday. I'm not sure how much productive work I got done, with VPN problems taking much of the day, but it certainly beat sitting staring at a car park in Bracknell.

Anyway, the opthamologist confirmed that her lower eyelids are too long and she'll need surgery to shorten them. We were amused to find that the procedure involves taking a small amount of skin from the side of her face and pulling it tight, so she's going to be facelifted. I'm sure she'll look lovely. Sadly, he said that, no, he can't give her botox to get rid of the wrinkles while he's at it.

We had a lovely weekend, making the short trip down to Bembridge. *Again* we were out early, being one of the first boats out as free-flow started. We motored down to East Head and got the sails up as we passed North Winner buoy. The wind was a bit variable to start with but as we rounded the new West Pole marker, we had a nice angle for a close reach pointing pretty much at St Catherine's Head. Not quite a straight line to Bembridge, but we only needed a couple of tacks to get us heading to the harbour entrance.

I thought we'd be early enough to get a decent berth on the Duver pontoon, but everybody on the South Coast seemed to have had the same idea as us and it was already rafted four or five deep on the outside of the pontoon. We were slightly surprised that we were directed onto the inside. I always thought it was a bit shallow there.

I was wrong - it's a lot shallow! Here's the picture at low tide on Sunday morning. We were sitting in about 18" of water with the keel and rudder sunk into the soft mud.

To be fair, nobody was going to be going anywhere for another three hours or so, because the harbour entrance is roughly the same depth.

So, nothing for it but to go and get a newspaper, get the kettle on and sit and drink coffee before heading off for a walk on the beach. Can't beat it for a relaxing Sunday.

Once we had enough water we headed off back to Chichester. The wind was perfect, a pleasant South-Easterly that gave us a beam reach all the way back to Chichester. It swung round a little towards the end, but we were able to sail serenely back as far as Itchenor (it was on the nose by then, and I didn't fancy tacking up the channel) before firing up the engine and cruising home.

Sumer is icumen in?

At last, at the end of May we finally had some reasonable weather to go sailing, so man and his finely-honed sea dawg were able to head over to the Folly for the weekend. To be frank, the weather wasn't great, but it was good enough. A little sun, a little wind and the only rain overnight.

Knowing that we're useless at heading off early from home on a Saturday morning, we went down on Friday evening, were up at an outlandish hour. (The alarm was set for 6am), and were one of the first boats out of the marina as the depth in the channel filled in to a decent level. It makes a change for us to be so organised.

Not much to report on the trip over to Cowes, although while we were to listening to the coastguard directing Whisky Bravo to a medical emergency on a yacht off Calshot, we were almost surprised by this monster coming up behind us. I wondered why the Southampton harbour launch was hanging around in the vicinity!

We arrived at the Folly while the lunch crowd were still hanging about, so we had to shift Moonshine twice before we got properly settled. For the first time, though, we were on the inside of the visitors pontoon. It's a nicer spot to be and feels less like being in a marine car park.

We were early all weekend for some reason, and were fed, watered (actually probably too much watered by the time we'd finished) and back on the boat by about 9:30.

We were able to have a lazy Sunday because of the tides. With low tide at Chichester at about 3pm, we had the option of getting up and away by 8:00am, or hanging around until about 11:00 and idling our way back. Not surprisingly we chose the latter, having a leasurely breakfast and a walk down to Island Harbour before heading to the fuel dock opposite East Cowes Marina (red diesel up from 45p a litre to 77p a litre since the last time we re-fueled!!!) We had just enough wind to sail, but it took until around 1pm for the tide to turn and we started to make a decent speed back to Chichester. For about the first time ever, we got into a decent position to get through the small craft channel in the submarine barrier off Portsmouth, so we didn't have to fire up the engine to get through.

We dawdled up the Itchenor channel, because we reckoned we'd be struggling for depth, but two hours after low water we had over a metre under the keel in the marina approach. It looks like the channel depth is actually more than they post.

So, back at 5pm and off home. At last, Moonshine actually went somewhere for the first time since October.

Spring sailing

Moonshine went back in the water while we were away, but it was a few weeks before I was able to get down to her. Last year, we had some of our best sailing in April, but this year the weather made it a complete wipe out. We got the sails back from being valeted and got them on, cleaned up the interior and sorted out the mast electrics, but we didn't get out on the water until late May. The bank holiday weekends were uniformly foul. Ugh. What a shock to the system.

50 Not Out - Day 12 & 13. Antigua and home.

We had a lovely couple of days in Antigua. It's quite a contrast to the BVI. English Harbour and close-by Falmouth Harbour are very yachtie and I dare say a lot of the Brits there are the same people as you'll meet in Cowes most weekends.

The Antiguans seem much less reserved than The BVI'ers, it was noticable how most people you pass in the street greet you, which is something we didn't find in the BVI. It's not that people are unfriendly on Tortola, it's just that they're less open. Anyway, it was very pleasant.

The mix of boat bums, millionaires and eccentric expats is quite an appealing mix, too. Hopefully we'll be lucky enough to be able to go back there again some day.

Anyway, after two days of mooching around the dockyard, admiring the boats and lazing on the beach, we headed off back to the airport for the BA flight back home. We arrived at the airport very early and were dismayed to find that the flight had been delayed by something like six hours after problems in London.

Still, we killed some time quite nicely, sitting in the evening sun at the Stanford cricket ground and then heading to the Sticky Wicket bar for something to eat and a few beers. It gave the holiday a nice symmetry to start and finish there.

I can't tell you much about the flight home. I was dozing before the plane finished taxi-ing to the runway, and didn't wake up again until after the cabin crew had served breakfast. Missy assures me it was pretty good, though.

So back to Easter in sunny England...and blizzards over the bank holiday!

Still, nothing can take away the memories from absolutely the best holiday ever. We had the most wonderful time.

50 Not Out - Day 11. Nanny Cay and English Harbour.

March 17th - the day we had to hand the boat back. There was no wind as we headed out of Cane Garden Bay, which was disappointing. We were resigned to motoring the whole way back but, as we headed round the southern tip of Tortola past Sopers Hole, the wind filled in nicely. We finished up having a lovely sail, tacking up and down between Tortola and St John, exchanging tacks with another boat going much the same way. The wind even got up to a level when I was wondering if we'd have to reef, but settled down at a nice 15-18 knots until we lowered the sails for the last time at the entrance to Nanny Cay.

So we refueled and re-watered the boat before calling Horizon to let them know we were back. At this point we handed over responsibility for Sunshine, as he reversed her from the fuel dock, around the marina and into her slip. There's always a smartarse.

After lunch at the Gennaker bar (best roti's, Red Stripes, burgers etc on the island - at least according to Devon, the waiter!) we caught the taxi back to the airport. After an interesting encounter with a guy from St Kitts and Nevis who, dressed in a rather scary checked shorts suit with matching hat, taught us some of the local phrases, we headed off on the LIAT flight to Antigua via St Maarten.

We arrived at English Harbour, on the South side of the island, some distance from the airport in the early evening. We'd booked a couple of nights at the Copper and Lumber Store Hotel in the old dockyard at English harbour. It's an amazing place, a restored 18th century naval storehouse with the rooms around an open central courtyard. The nicest thing was that it's air conditioned though!

Missy had wisely booked dinner ahead at Abracadabra, a very pleasant Italian restaurant, so we had the luxury of having a nice shower, before getting changed and walking the short distance down there. English Harbour is very, well, English. (Think Fulham-on-sea). It felt strange at first, being amongst so many English accents after a couple of weeks of largely either American or Caribbean ones.

50 Not Out - Day 10. across to Cane Garden Bay

OK, it's now mid-June, a full three months after we got back from the BVI. I think I ought to accelerate my posting a bit, before it overlaps with my 60th birthday report!

Since it's been left out for a while, here's the faithful little dinghy that trailed behind us for the whole two weeks. They're pretty cool little ribs, actually. Perhaps we should get one for zooming round Chichester Harbour or taking up and down the Thames.

This pic was taken at Sandy Cay, where we stopped off for breakfast on our way over to CGB. We'd already had an eventful day by the time we arrived there.

As I made my way into the cockpit first thing, it was obvious that the scene wasn't quite as it should be. I'd paid attention to the boats to our right, because one of them, a largish Moorings cat was disconcertingly close to where I thought our anchor was. Only now it wasn't, it was about twenty yards back....and sliding slowly backwards towards Invictus 2! It was obvious that there was nobody awake on the boat, and it looked like it wasn't going to be long before there was an expensive coming together. I fired up the little yellow dinghy and headed across there. There was no response to me calling them from the dinghy, but battering on the sides of the hulls, soon had the skipper peering blearily out of a hatch. He did well to get everyone up and the boat stabilised before anything bad happened.

Since we were going to be heading away for breakfast anyhow, we upped anchor pretty much immediately and headed out of the harbour. We got lots of waves and blown kisses from Invictus as we left. I think they were appreciative that we'd saved them from damage. I'm sure it would have been covered by Moorings insurance, but they live on the boat, so the inconvenience would have been pretty irritating.

We arrived over at Sandy Cay after a short motor and anchored a short distance from this guy before getting the coffee going. We hadn't really got any plans for the morning, so we weren't in a rush to head off until some idiot came in at 90 degrees to the direction we were lying and stopped about 20 metres ahead of us before dropping a few metres of anchor chain in a heap. It was obvious that as he swung round, he'd broadside us but, before we could ask him to move, he got in his dinghy and headed off to shore.

We quickly upped anchor again and headed off to Cane Garden Bay, muttering darkly about charter companies not properly vetting their charterers.

The rest of the day improved quickly, although the weather was up and down, with sunshine and showers. We wandered over to Stanley's for the obligatory cheeseburger in paradise, although Missy broke ranks and had the honey stung chicken, which she's still raving about.

After lunch our plan was to head over to Bobby's to get a couple of bottles of the local Callwood's rum. We misremembered the route from the last trip, making a substantial detour in entirely the wrong direction, actually passing the distillery and this little guy making his presence felt as king of the hill. After re-traceing our steps back to Bobby's it turned out that they didn't actually have any of the rum, anyhow. We nipped back to Stanley's who said that they did have a shop at the distillery, although he wasn't sure if they'd be open on a Sunday afternoon.

We thought we'd take a chance on it, otherwise it would be an indefinite amount of time having to drink Mountgay rum on Moonshine. There's nothing wrong with Mountgay, but it fundamentally isn't Arundel rum, and somehow doesn't seem quite as right.

I'd visualised the distillery as a modern factory with gleaming stainless steel stills and guys in white coats. That's about as far as from this place as it could be possible to be. There were three teenage lads mooching around in the "shop", who were just about to leave for the day. They did have plenty of rum, though, and a dollar each bought us a tour of the facility.

The youngest of the three boys showed us around. He was very proud of the history of the place. The buildings are approaching 400 years old, and the Callwood family (he's a Callwood) have owned the distillery for 200 of them. The place is the most ramshackle thing imaginable, but utterly fascinating.

This is the drive leading up to the distillery. It's not quite as industrial as I'd imagined!












Through the gloom, you can just make out the glass demijohns, where the white rum is aged.












This is where it all starts: A field of sugar cane next to the distillery, complete with sign warning off miscreants.










The engine room of the whole operation: Underneath the corrugated iron roof is an ancient truck engine. A belt connects the engine to a medieval-looking crushing device. The juice is squeezed out of the canes and it runs into an old stone trough.














The cane is dried, and used as fuel to boil the cane-juice. The entrance to the furnace is the circular pipe in the wall.


The juice is then fermented for a period of time. It's then re-boiled before being run through this ancient old still -
not much sign of stainless steel or gleaming copper around here!

The resulting spirit is then aged for a while. The white rum is aged in the glass jars, while the dark rum is aged in old oak whisky casks, which give it it's darker colour and the hint of vanilla, which tastes so good sitting in the cockpit of Moonshine while staring at the night sky.

Sunset for our last evening on the boat (boo!) before we headed off to Antigua for a couple of days (hurray!) and then home (boo!) before easter at the parents' (hurray!).

We ate at Quito's on our last evening. More great seafood, and another great table at a restaurant, overlooking the bay.

50 Not Out - Day 9. Soggy Dollar and Sydneys.

A chilled out day today. We were staying put in Great Harbour, so we had a quick wander around the sandy main street of the settlement, arriving just in time to see Taboo swimming back to shore after diving out to greet a party of school children who'd arrived on a wooden boat with a rig that looked like an arab dhow. Very unusual. I thought I'd taken a picture of it, but obviously not, so here's a long-shot of the church at Great Harbour instead.




We took the dinghy round the headland for lunch at the Soggy Dollar bar and had a very pleasant time, although we did find ourselves getting slightly sniffy and snobbish when the day-trippers arrived. Even more so with the fairly rough two English couples who showed up later on (tattoos, ciggies and loads of effing and blinding. Charming).

We did meet a couple who have retired to a liveaboard life on their boat Invictus2. We were pretty jealous. Boo hiss. They were pretty dismissive of a lot of charterers, but they seemed to like us for some reason.



Anyway we had lots more Red Stripes before retiring back to Sunshine for a well earned snooze, meeting this wonderful boat on the way back. Her name's Kokomo and she's very big and beautiful indeed. For about the first time on the trip, we didn't have nice fluffy white clouds and blue skies today. Ah well, I guess sometimes we just have to suffer a little :-)



Dinner this evening was at Sydney's Peace and Love over in Little Harbour. While waiting for the cab driver, Missy got to have a beer and a chat with Ivan, which she was thrilled about. Not much to report about Sydney's, really. The pig-roast was really good, though. Sydney's still works on the Honour Bar system, so you can just nip behind the bar and pour your own beers if you feel so inclined. Our paths crossed with the two catamaran-loads of a capella girl singers again here, but also with a miserable boatload of Americans who just had to be lawyers, trying to scam as much from the restaurant as possible. Ah well, not everyone can be as nice as us :-)

50 Not Out - Day 8. Anegada to JVD and Foxys.

This was our longest sailing day, heading downwind from Anegada to Jost Van Dyke. There's nowhere to get water on JVD, so it involved a pitstop at Marina Cay to fill the tanks and get ice.

We had to make an early start, and for once managed to get away in decent time. We left at around 8:30am with a gentle broad reach taking us back down towards Tortola.

It was a lovely sail and Missy didn't move much from her spot in the picture here. She stayed lost in her thoughts for almost the entire trip. We managed a rapid 20 minute turnaround at Marina Cay, made our way through the Channel to the North Side of Tortola (remembering Georgina's briefing advice to take the narrow channel between Great and Little Camanoe and not the inviting wider passage). At about this point we lost the wind a little and had to motor the rest of the way, behind Guana Island and out to Jost.

One lovely moment was when a dolphin spent some time with us, diving in front of the boat, then following us underneath the dinghy before heading off. The only reason we saw it was because it was silhouetted against the sandy bottom, so we might have had more visitors along the way that we missed.

We got to Great Harbour just about in time to be able to anchor without having to struggle to find space. Just within earshot of the large group of friends in catamarans who were partying hard on their whole trip. Fortunately, their playlist was pretty good, so the music wasn't intrusive.

For the first time on the trip, Missy decided it was time to get the air be out and spend some time in the water. After a shower and another brave attempt to reduce the Red Stripe stash we headed off to Foxy's.








It's unlike any of the other places in the BVI that we've visited, which are generally pretty small. Foxy's is a cavernous sort of opened walled space and we were slightly nervous that it wasn't going to be us, but it was terrific. Foxy clearly relishes his role as an island character and wanders around swapping anecdotes with his guests for the evening, and being happy to pose for cheesy photographs with dodgy characters like these two!

The bar is home to a few cats, who know how to spot a sucker (me!) who is likely to take pity on their poor, starved animal impression and feed them tasty bits of barbeque, plus Taboo, Foxy's big black dog who is one of the few dogs I've met who has a better life than Clementine! He cadges scraps in the evening, wanders around JVD during the day, taking his naps in the shade under the trees and generally having an idyllic life.

50 Not Out - Day 7. Loblolly Bay, ARH and the ghost of Ken Bates.

Today we headed off to Loblolly Bay. We had another slight taxi holdup, because the old truck wouldn't start and the dreadlocked driver couldn't get the hood open to try and fix it. After much pulling, pushing, thumping and hammering with the help of Potter from the restaurant, Mitch, who's truck it is, arrived and applied the correct magic to open it up. A quick squirt of petrol into the (diesel) engine and we had lift off.

Loblolly's slightly futher away than Cow Wreck beach, but we had proper roads for further too, since they're black-top to the airport before reverting to packed sand. We saw some of the island donkeys on the way.

Loblolly is another wonderful spot. It's a slightly larger beach than Cow Wreck with a more people, but it's still utterly beautiful and the snorkelling is definitely better. We didn't do much, but snorkel, sit in the sun, eat lunch at the Blue Bamboo restaurant and repeat after lunch, but what a wonderful spot to do that.


We couldn't work out what these little critters were up to as they followed us everywhere. It was only when one of us touched the bottom that we realised they were waiting for us to stir up the sand so that they could sift it for food. Who said that fish were stupid?

These girls were part of a group of about twenty who we met a few places around the islands. It turns out that they're an all-girl acapella singing group on a vacation sharing two very nice catamarans with a lady chaperone and with two young guys organising the trip (including the "medic") who looked like they couldn't believe their luck!








Dinner for my birthday was at the Anegada Reef Hotel. Again a wonderful meal in a wonderful setting - and the one evening we didn't take a single picture! Ah well.

After the meal, we got talking to the lady who runs the ARH. She's been there since the late 1960's, when she went over to Anegada to work for Ken Bates who was trying to set up a mega-resort on the island, having purchased a 199 year lease on 90% of the island, something that would have been a disaster for the island and the islanders. Fortunately, the BVI government managed to make life difficult enough for him that he abandoned the project leaving Anegada to be the un-developed paradise that it remains today. We were horrified that it came so close to being ruined by such an unpleasant character as Bates, but delighted that the BVI government had been able to get rid of him. It was weird to hear his name crop up in such an unlikely place, though.

50 Not Out - Day 6. Cow Wreck and Potters.

This really was a day in paradise. We got off to a slow start when the taxi that we'd ordered to Cow Wreck beach didn't show up. The driver had been held up on the other side of the island. We were told this by the lady running the store while we were waiting outside for him to show up. We wondered why she'd know, but another passer by told us that she was his daughter. Life on a small island.

Eventually we found another cab (actually a pick-up with benches bolted to the back!) to take us over there, finding out that the nicely made roads around the anchorage at setting point give way to sand a few hundred yards past the village on the way to Cow Wreck. Still, the sand is fairly smooth, although I'm not sure how long the trucks last with the beating they must take.

The interior of Anegada is just dry scrub, with the occasional lizard, flamingo or one of the many donkeys that roam free.

Cow Wreck beach itself is just a bar and a couple of small bungalows on the beach. It's peaceful and utterly wonderful. I'd be happy to spend a couple of weeks there just doing nothing but read, walk, snorkel and sit at the bar watching the waves.

We did a bit of snorkelling in the wonderfully clear, sheltered water, then had some lunch and topped up our Red Stripe levels. I had the shark taco, which was pretty darn good. When I asked if it was local, the barman said that he catches them himself each morning. You can't get more local than that.

We spent the afternoon alternating a little more snorkelling with a little snoozing and a little more Red Stripe drinking before the cab arrived to take us back across the island to the boat.

Dinner was at Potters by the sea, another sand-floored beach bar restaurant with great fish. I skipped the lobster this time, feeling slightly sorry for the poor chaps after seeing them awaiting their fate in cages by the dinghy dock! We had a great time after dinner watching a group from Wisconsin trying to emulate the dancing of the waitress. We decided that generally, it's not just white men who can't dance. They were great fun though and it was a fantastic way to spend the last few hours of my 40's.

The pictures didn't turn out too well from this one. I guess the camera must have been affected by the rum I had as a night cap.

50 Not Out - Day 5. Off to Anegada

Anegada isn't a particularly long trip from North Sound, only about 12 1/2 miles but, because Anegada is very flat indeed, you can't see it so it feels like you're heading off into the unknown.

The guides all recommend arriving at Anegada around noon so that you have a good chance of seeing any coral heads in case you get you bearings wrong. We headed off from Leverick Bay at around 8:30 am to make sure that we managed that, having filled up again with water and managed to purchase ice from the two endearingly incompetent guys who run the fuel dock at Leverick Bay.

We had a great sail up to Anegada with a nice broad reach taking us up there in decent time. Missy was a bit concerned that every other boat was slightly to the West of us, but the waypoints and advice about the current from Walker Mangum's excellent Anegada navigation page proved to be correct and most of the other boats had to turn towards the entrance channel from some distance out.

Anegada gradually appears over the horizon trees-first. They're the only thing that is over 35' high. As you get a little closer, the trees get a little more defined and the water turns from this.














To this.














And then to this.




It really is the most stunning spot and we sat for some time just drinking in the colours (and the Red Stripes of course).

We were a little concerned about the water depth at the mooring here. At low tide we had all of 6" under the keel, but with no appreciable swell and a soft, sandy bottom, there wasn't much of an issue.


There are three restaurants on this side of Anegada: Neptune's Treasure; Potters, and the Anegada Reef Hotel. They all ask you to reserve your table *and* what you'd like to eat by 4pm so that they know how many people they're serving and what they need to throw on the oil-drum grills. They also tell you what time to show up. Our choice for the first evening was lobster at Neptune's Treasure.

Sitting at our table at the water's edge, watching the sunset, drinking wine and waiting for our lobsters to arrive, I realised that, to my surprise, it can actually get better than Leverick Bay.

Wow.

50 Not Out - Day 4. Bitter End to Leverick Bay

This was a really lazy day, even by our standards. Total distance to travel - about two miles across the sound.

So a little shopping for t-shirts and stuff at BEYC followed by the short trip across to Leverick Bay, where we'd booked a slip for the night to make a change from bobbing around on a buoy. Not much to report apart from that. We much preferred the Leverick Bay resort to Bitter End. It's still very very nice, but just a little less manicured. Just like us, really.

We were joined at the dock by one of the biggest boats we saw on the trip, Cracker Bay. Formerly Campbell Bay Very impressive. Oddly, we didn't see any of the guests actually leave the boat while they were there.

In the evening, while we were lazing back at the restaurant, chatting and drinking, I noticed the couple at the next table were having one of those very quiet but intense arguments that people have when they're in public and can't scream at each other. It seemed such a shame that in a beautiful place as this, they were so miserable. I did mention to Missy that it was a waste, because it doesn't get better in life than this, so they really should look around them and appreciate what they have.

The next few days were to prove me wrong though. I thought it didn't get better than North Sound, but then I'd never been to Anegada before.

50 Not out - Day 3. The Baths and North Sound

We headed off after a slightly delayed start waiting for a boat to clear the Marina Cay fuel dock. The pitching of the boat into the waves yesterday had caused the shower head to crash into the tap in the heads, causing us to fill the bilges with all our fresh water, so we couldn't head off without filling up.

Fortunately, we didn't have a terribly demanding day planned, just a quick motor across to the channel to visit the Baths on Virgin Gorda for lunch before heading to North Sound.

We'd missed the Baths in 2005, due to trying to drown ourselves by swimming to shore against wind and current. What was surprising on re-visiting the area was just how close into shore we actually were, given the difficulties we got into. It was probably less than 100 metres. This time, with the wind abating, it all looked very benign.

You can't take the dinghy into the shore at the Baths, because of the number of bathers, so you have to leave it on a floating rope a little offshore. In another one of my great decisions, I dropped Missy off on the left side of a pile of rocks before heading over to the right side to moor up so that she could wade ashore with the camera and all the gear.

What I hadn't realised was that the "pile of rocks" actually splits the beach completely into two with no easy way round. After puzzling for a while, I figured that Missy was smart enough to realise that we weren't going to be able to meet up down there so I headed up the marked path to the restaurant, arriving just in time to meet a somewhat miffed Missy. Oops.

Virgin Gorda has a lot of chickens. This one spent much of the time searching for crumbs between the restaurant tables. Perhaps someone should have mentioned the obvious dangers of becoming a chicken burger to her!


We felt obliged to make at least a token effort to spend sometime looking at the huge boulders and pools that make up the Baths, despite time moving on apace. They're actually pretty cool. Something else to re-visit next time.

We had hoped to sail up to North Sound, but the weather was changing somewhat and the winds were lighter and much more variable than on the trip up to Marina Cay, so we managed about a mile of constant trimming and flapping sails before giving up and motoring the rest of the way, lightweights that we are.

We almost had a minor disaster on trying to pick up a buoy at the Bitter End Yacht Club, when the boat hook twisted out of Missy's grasp and into the water. It hadn't crossed my mind until this point what a critical piece of of kit the boathook actually is. Fortunately, a passing dinghy from the yacht club saw us lose it and were able to swing round and pass the hook to us. It was actually quite a neat piece of sailing from them.

The lovely thing about North Sound is the sense of tranquility, because of the amount of shelter from the surrounding hills and reefs. It's more like being on a lake than at sea.

After getting ourselves organised and having a couple of beers, we headed off to the Bitter End resort for dinner. It's very, very pleasant, but not particularly our kind of place, feeling a little too much like a theme park for the wealthy for our liking. That being said, dinner in the pub was very pleasant and the drinks went down just as well as elsewhere. Another good day, all in all.

50 Not Out - Day 2. Upwind to Marina Cay.

We'd expected this to be our one fairly demanding sailing day of the trip. The prevailing winds in the BVI are from the east, and there's a knot or so of current drifting approximately north west. With the wind sticking at a little over twenty knots, we headed out of the bight at around 9:30am. The seas were a little calmer than the previous afternoon and, with two reefs in the main and the jib partly furled, things weren't actually too bad. We weren't making a huge amount of forward progress as we tacked up and down the channel, but Sunshine was very happy and we eventually motored into Marina Cay at about 3pm.

The last time we were here, things were a bit hair raising. As we prepared to pick up a mooring buoy, the cabin filled with smoke and the engine quickly lost power. I had to turn the engine off in case we were about to catch fire, which meant we weren't able to use the windlass to get the main anchor down, eventually getting the secondary out just before we ran out of water.

This time, thankfully, we motored serenely in, picked up the buoy at the second pass and were able to crack open a few relaxing Red Stripes without fizzing with adrenaline. It was much better this way!

At dinner at the restaurant, we had to take a picture of one of the not-quite-sturdy-enough-for-Woody chairs as a memento of the previous trip. "If you're going to fall, just fall...."

Missy was very disappointed to find that the blue-cheese burger isn't on their dinner menu. Ah well, another excuse to return.

50 Not Out - Day 1. Nanny Cay and Norman Island

It was very pleasant to throw back the shutters at 7:30 on Friday morning to be greeted by a view of green hills, masts and palm trees, so on went the t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops and away to get some milk for the coffee and some fruit juice to help us get the day under way.

Then off for breakfast at Gennakers restaurant next to the Horizon office before the seemingly endless paperwork to be sorted out. Then some retail therapy to get a few things (reefs, sunglass straps, something to try and stop the waterproof camera sinking like a stone). Sunshine was ready for us by 12:00, so we were able to check out of the hotel and get our stuff on board. After a terrific briefing from Georgina (English girl out there with one of the best jobs, ever) and getting all loaded up with provisions from Bobby's, we were able to get off the dock by 2pm as we'd hoped.

Georgina took us out of the marina and pointed the back of the boat at the fuel dock, before stepping away from the wheel and handing Sunshine over to me. At the time I was messing around with the dock ropes with my mind miles away, so it was a jolt back to reality when I realised I had to back close enough in to let her step off the boat without hitting the dock.

Having successfully negotiated this, we headed out the marina entrance and headed South towards Norman Island. With a strong wind and choppy seas, we motored the short distance, the only minor inconvenience was getting the dinghy from the bow to the stern. This would have been fairly straightforward in flat calm, but it was an early test with the boat pitching and rolling.

Still, an hour later we arrived in the Bight at Norman Island. Despite the strong wind, Missy managed to pick up a mooring buoy at the first attempt, Yay.

Then it was off to Pirates for the first painkillers and conch fritters of the trip before we headed back to the boat and crashed out exhausted.

50 Not Out - Day 0: The Longest Day

It seemed like March 6th went on forever. The flight to Antigua is at the relatively civilised hour of 11:15, so we didn't exactly have to get up in the wee small hours of the night to get to Gatwick on time, although we did have to give ourselves enough time to finalise the packing (Mainly consisting of removing stuff from the bags when we reminded ourselves how little of what we took last time we'd actually worn). AGM provided a very nice Mercedes to take us to the airport. We didn't have to worry about making small talk with the driver, because he barely paused for breath for the whole journey.

The baggage drop and security at Gatwick was relatively painless, apart from the Eastern European couple behind us in the security queue who seemed to have no concept of personal space and were bumping us constantly until I turned round and politely (no, really) told them to back off.

BA get a fair amount of stick these days, but (touch wood) compared to US airlines, they are pretty good. The trip down to Antigua was no exception to the last few BA flights I've taken. The food was OK, the seats comfortable, the attendents not too slow with the booze, and the movie selection broad.

I'm still scratching my head as to how The Coen brothers got so many awards for No Country for Old Men, though. What could have been a great, if violent film, dropped a bunch of threads about three quarters of the way through and sputtered to a pointless halt. But I digress...

We had a fair amount of time to wait in Antigua for our Liat flight to the BVI and so are grateful for "Billionaire Antigua-based Texan financier Alan Stanford"'s grandiose personal cricket ground across the road from the airport and the Sticky Wicket bar and restaurant that it contains. It was a very pleasant place to kill a few hours before returning to the airport.


Back at the airport, Liat were having problems with the aircraft (Not that they initially bothered to tell anybody). Eventually, after a couple of hours delay, they found a smaller aircraft, bounced a bunch of dismayed passengers who were hoping to get to St Martin that night and dropped the scheduled stop on the way to Tortola.

I'd called the taxi company who were meeting us on arrival to tell them we were going to be late, so there wasn't a problem when we arrived, although the fact that the first thing the driver asked was if we'd called the hotel to tell *them* that we'd be late made me worry. When we left the Nanny Cay Hotel at 6:00am on our previous trip, I remembered that the reception was in darkness and we'd slid our key cards under the door of the lobby.

It was 12:15am (4:15am body clock time) when we arrived at the hotel and our hearts sank when we saw that there wasn't a single light on in the place. Fortunately it turns out that there is a 24 hour security guy who saw us on the CCTV and was able to check us in. We had visions of spending our first night on the island sleeping on the beach.

As it was, we were able to crash into bed after being awake for 22 hours. We slept pretty well, oddly enough.

50 Not Out - Looming on the Horizon

Getting to 50 is always going to be a slightly traumatic experience. It takes a lot of self-delusion to convince yourself that you're young and hip - a lot more than I possess. After a short period of reflecting on the prospect shortly after my 49th birthday, I decided that the best way to deal with the situation was to focus on the positives and work on some of the negatives of increasing maturity.

Focussing on the positives is an easy thing to do. I count my blessings pretty much every day. I have a wonderful wife, a son who finally seems to be shaking off the teenage lethargy and becoming a fine young man, and of course a dog who manages to make me laugh out loud most days. We have a house that we're happy in and enough money coming in through the door to be able to get it looking the way we want to. We can also just about afford to run Moonshine, even if that means that the old Volvo has had to soldier on for a few more years than it would otherwise have had to.

The main negative that could be relatively easily dealt with has been a steadily expanding waistline caused by all the comfortable living, which led to a warning about blood pressure and cholesterol from the doc a couple of years go. So since October, Missy and I have both been working hard at the gym and swapping high calorie goodies for fruit and salads. We've both lost about 20lb since then and feel much fitter and healthier. With me being only four years younger than the age at which my father suffered his first heart attack, it's probably an important lifestyle change.

To celebrate the actual start of my second half century, there could only ever be one place to be. We loved our trip to the BVI in 2005, but missed out on visiting Anegada due to some unsettled weather. What better way could there be to mark a significant personal milestone than watching the sunset from a beach restaurant on one of the world's most beautiful islands , with a cocktail in one hand and locally caught lobsters on the grill.

So, on 6th March 2008, we headed off for ten days sailing the BVI. The most direct way of getting there is to Antigua with BA, so we also tacked on a couple of days there at the end of the trip to give ourselves a soft landing back to reality.

Oops.

I procrastinated too much this weekend, so didn't get to the marina until 1pm on Sunday afternoon. That meant that I had time to finish all the hull jobs - getting the anodes on, the prop polished, waxing the hull and getting the last coat of antifoul on - but I didn't get to check the mast electrics until after 3pm. It looks like I need to replace the steaming/deck light on the mast, which is badly corroded. Trouble is, by the time I worked that out, I hadn't left enough time to buy another one.

Moonshine is supposed to be back in the water on week commencing March 17th and I won't be able to get back down there until March 28th at the earliest, so the reason I spent money getting the mast lowered, making sure all the mast lights were fine, hasn't happened!

Darn it.

Ah well, BVI in three days, so mustn't grumble.