Beef Island
18.26.857N
64.31.924W
We eased into this morning and really didn’t have any particular plans except to make our way to Trellis Bay. Last year when we were here, the moorings in Trellis were gone by afternoon if you didn’t get there early. So we disengaged our stern anchor via the dinghy (with no drama), while Gerry helped to hold the Palace in place. Then we pulled up on our primary anchor and slipped into the center of the harbor while Gerry let go his piling and did the same.We unfurled our main and as soon as Orpailleur was clear, we made our way slowly out into Sir Francis Drake’s Passage. We had 14-18 kt winds slightly north of east which demanded that we claw our way to our destination. Of course, when two boats are going in the same direction, it’s a race; whether the other guy knows it or not. It was a great day of sailing in spite of the fact that Orpailleur beat us by a quarter mile or more. I couldn’t believe how well they could point. We thought we were good but they left us in their wake. I’m still not convinced that they weren’t motor sailing part of the way. We slipped into Trellis with our tail between our legs and made reservations at The Last Resort for dinner for all of us.
After getting ourselves together, we dinghied into the little shops here and had a look. The guys found a place to have a couple of beers and entertain themselves while Nicky, Rose and I perused the handicrafts. We found them later cutting a beer can in half. Gerry had told Dale that the Brits have invented a way of making sure that each can of draught beer pours with a head on it by placing a widget inside each can. Sure enough, there was a little bobber looking widget in the can that supposedly released an additional amount of gas as soon as the can was opened. Per Gerry, the guy who has the patent on the widget gets a penny per widget. Does anyone besides the wives of these men see the irony in an engineer, journalist and doctor cutting open a beer can to discuss the merits of another inventing a contraption to put extra gas in beer and how said inventor could have put his ingenuity to better use?
A few hours later, we ended our day with dinner and dancing at The Last Resort, a little restaurant on a piece of land hardly big enough to call an island at the end of a runway of the local airfield. The band played loud and a just a little too fast to dance to but we gave it our best shot. Although the crowd was quiet to begin with, we were all up and dancing by the end of the evening. A fun time had by all.Photos: Stolen from Nicky's blogspot because she had better ones !
