We've had a great couple of days since we've arrived back in Bequia with friends old and new. When we were heading into town in the dinghy on Christmas Eve we spotted Pandora (the boat we rented 2010/11) at anchor with someone leaving in a dinghy and heading the same way. We detoured to catch them up and lo and behold it was Mike and Nicola, owners of Pandora. This was a big surprise as we thought she was out on charter so we had a quick chat and arranged for them to come over to Tumi that afternoon to see her and for a proper catch-up.
Rum cocktails and rosé wine later, having put caught up on a lot of news, we headed over for drinks and dinner on the boat of some friends from this season, Tim and Paula. We got to know them in Martinique spotting that they were flying a Devon flag and stopping by to say hello and being invited on board for a sundowner. They live in Kingswear, just across the River Dart from Dartmouth, and are crossing the Pacific early next year, so we had a lot in common and to chat about. Anyway we enjoyed a lovely Christmas Eve balmy evening with them with the backdrop of lots of twinkling mast lights and colourful lights ashore .... really pretty.
During the night the heavens opened and washed off all the salt encrusting Tumi from the rather boisterous sail down here on Tuesday but Christmas morning dawned still and calm with the sun shining. We joined six other British sailors for a late lunch at a local restaurant, sitting out on a verandah with a Swedish chef's interpretation of a traditional Christmas meal. Well we got the turkey, stuffing and sprouts as we expected, but the potatoes were somewhat on the spicy side (a big understatement), the sausage wrapped in bacon gave the good old chipolata a run for its money and we had a side order of corn bread. What really made us smile was the extra gravy, plenty of it but served from a tea-pot! Anyway lunch was a relaxed and tasty affair, if a little different.
Being our third season in the Leeward and Windward Islands, we're not going to be posting as many photos this year as we've probably photographed them all before ... and we probably looked better then than we do now! So only a few highlights will appear until we're in new territories, the first photo of the season being the aforementioned Christmas lunch .... just to show we're not forgetting our British roots!!
We're pick up Paul's son and his girlfriend on 1st January to tour the Grenadines so have 6 days to reacquaint ourselves with our former favourite spots so we can give them a good holiday. We think we'll head down to the Tobago Keys tomorrow to get the ball rolling but will be back in Bequia for New Year's Eve when there is a big firework display and party. Should be fun.