11/8 Thursday

The dawn of our last day. I took my family out to the reef I tried the day before and we had another nice snorkel there. There had been some rain overnight, and there was a bit more fresh water clouding the top few inches of the water column, but otherwise it was still very nice. The Brits were first out of the bay. I asked the crew to wait for us to leave. I asked a local to untie us - Tyrone who came out to our boat looking rather bleary eyed and with a spliff in the corner of his mouth. I gave him a few dollars and some of our food, and he untied our line.
We motored south and watched the scenery go by. I really hope to do more exploring of the St. Vincent coastline next time around. I suspect there is a lot of good snorkeling there.
We soon reached Blue Lagoon and called the base. A pilot came out and took our boat through the cut. We tied up, and our cruise was over.
We still had part of the afternoon and there was a small party planned for the flotilla members at the base. First we took showers and had a drink at the bar. Some of the Okies (those who didn't have the early flight) were still there. The party was held at the somewhat run down pool of the hotel attached to the base. There were tasty appetizers and more rum punch, and some embarrassing party games which are not really our style.
At some point, Kenzo politely inquired why we chose the flotilla. I don't blame him for asking - we probably did keep to ourselves more than is usual, and in hindsight we could have managed the cruising ground perfectly well on our own. I have no regrets though, the format took a lot of the stress out of the unknown aspects of an unfamiliar area and now we know what flotilla sailing entails. I don't think we would do another flotilla in SVG and certainly not in the BVI, but wouldn't rule it out in, say, the Med.

I still had a chance to talk to Simon the base manager that evening and provided him with a list of things that needed attention on the boat. He, again, was a really nice guy and gave me good ideas for the future and his personal email.

I won't go into detail about our return trip; if you actually read my whole wordy trip report to this point I want to thank you for re-living the trip with me and hopefully I have included some information that might be useful to you should you visit this amazing place. Writing this up has been a nice respite from digging wet leaves out of the gutters!