As I am sure everyone knows by now, Malcolm has sold his house in Venice Beach and shipped a lot of things to Chateaux Relaxeau Caribe. Ever on the lookout for an excuse to get to the Ilons I volunteered to come down and help him unpack. About the 1st of the month Mal was informed that the shipment should arrive around the 10th so allowing a little for island time I cashed in a leftover ticket on Spirit to SJU and AE from there to EIS and flew down on the 12th.

Contrary to my usual experiences flying through SJU the trip went near perfect. My bag was the first off the carousel at SJU and I had plenty of time to make the AE flight. I should have known that was a bad omen because as I walked out of Customs at Beef Island, there was Malcolm with Red Stripe in hand shaking his head. Not only was the shipment not there but the shipping agent knew nothing about it!

We were in the ilons though so we decided to make the best of it and headed for Cane Garden Bay to grab my second Red Stripe at Myetts and say hello to Prince, Val and Karim. Then we proceeded down to CRC where I unpacked my portable geo-bio lab in the lower apartment. The incubator, petri slides, microscope, pipettes and rock hammer had evidently attracted a lot of attention with TSA because they had totally scrambled my carefully organized packing. I decided I better recalibrate the incubator so my first test was the cistern water at CRC. Amazingly the count was only 3/ml which is better than my swimming pool!

After settling in I wandered upstairs to discuss with Malcolm how we would unpack the non-existent furniture. We decided to start by relieving the refrigerator of a few Red Stripes and then ride up to Bananakeet for a sunset aperitif. Rubin Chinery was playing. I had only heard Rubin at the Soggy Dollar where there was a lot of distraction. In a quiet setting like Bananakeet I found that he is a master of the 12 string. He plays everything from Delta Blues to island music.

Speaking of music, never play music trivia with Manpot! The man is a virtual walking encyclopedia of music! It was down right embarrassing! I grew up with Otis Redding and knew he was a great singer but Malcolm grew up 4,000 miles away in London listening to pirate radio and knew WAY more than I did about all the musicians from my home town than I did. It is also easy to see how Mal has the best Rolodex in LA. He knows EVERYBODY from West End to Road Town. Once you are known as a friend of Manpot’s you are part of the family.

The weather was really strange last week. A low north of PR kept the wind bouncing around out of the west and south with a few hours of delightful sun followed by a couple of real frog choking squalls. We watched Interline Regatta as it broad reached up from the Narrows to Cane Garden. I have never seen anything like that before.

Speaking of the Interline, they filled all the moorings in Cane Garden and descended en mass on Myett’s for the party. The place was packed by 9PM. It was easy to tell the after guard as they grimly pondered the leader board while the fore deck and rail meat partied away. To make it even more of a party Jose “the crazy Puerto Rican” and his crew came in from the Willy T Regatta to liven things up a bit.

Except for the Interline the North Coast was pretty quiet in the off season but we had a leisurely lunch with Cheryl at Islands and a fabulous diner with Davide and Cele at their beautiful place overlooking Maya Cove. Davide showed us the plans for his new house being built on Scrub Island. A spectacular octagonal multi-level thatch roofed pagoda overlooking the channel. The kitchen, complete with wood fired brick oven, commands the entire floorplan of course.

I have stayed upstairs at CRC before but never downstairs. I have to say though that if you are a couple looking for a low profile, private place right on the water CRC is hard to beat. It is basically one large room with a kitchenette and nice bath with a private covered patio overlooking the ocean. From Mid Spring through Summer there is a beautiful beach but in winter all the sand hangs out at the Bomba Shack just up the road. No A/C but it is really not needed. I was under covers all week and the sound of the waves made for the best sleeping ever.

As Malcolm dropped me off at Beef Island for my flight home Friday his stuff was on the island but still had not made it to his house so I felt a little guilty about not doing anything but move a table downstairs and drink all his Red Stripe. (But not all THAT guilty.) <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/jester.gif" alt="" />

Thanks Manpot for a great week. I’ll help you move any time! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Joy.gif" alt="" />