Sunday 26/12/10
Awoke to a beautiful morning with a fresh breeze blowing. No sign of any carnage from the night before. I made a large batch of corned beef hash for breakfast, which we had with fried eggs and bagels. We took the dingy and went to snorkel with the turtles that inhabit the Cays. We saw a few but not as many as last year, I also noticed that the sea grass didn’t seem as abundant either. The strong winds made for some tiring swimming, but a set of fins helped. We then went for a snorkel on the reef where we saw many colorful fish and a nurse shark resting under a rock ledge. Nick, who has a fear of sharks, was even persuaded to go take a look. This was the closest I have ever been to a shark, it’s tail within arm’s reach. The shifting swell made it an effort not to end up under the ledge with it. After lunch of chicken fajitas we set sail for Union Island. We took a mooring and dingied to the public dock off the Anchorage Yacht Club. A lot of the shops in town were closed. We were able to top up our digicel phone at a local bar where the beers were 3 for $10EC. One of the guys there had lived in Brooklyn so he and Nick discussed the latest sports news while I spoke with another gentleman about the current state of politics in SVG and the US. We met up with the rest of the crew at the Anchorage Yacht Club for some drinks and use of their very strong wifi signal. Even though the digicel calls to the US are only 44 cents (US) per minute it was nice to be able to finally have a strong enough signal to use Skype and save the minutes for another day. Nick has to stay in contact with his girlfriend, so it has been a tossup as to whether he has been spending more money on phone calls or drinks. Some of the crew ate at Bougainvilla, a very posh looking restaurants, but with prices that weren’t too bad. A few of use opted to try the Lambi Restaurant, a local place. It doesn’t look like much from the front, but inside there were linen table cloths and napkins. Grilled chicken $35 EC, Creole Lambi $50 EC and Lambi Soup $10 EC were the choice we made. The meals came with fries, raw salad, a very tasty potato salad, carrots and green beans, and garlic bread. There was also a steel band playing. Our friends from the Swedish boat we met in Wallilabou were having dinner at Bougainvilla, so we chatted with them for a while on our way back to the Yacht Club for nightcaps. All in all a nice day.