It’s Christmas! Caribbean style

Tuesday 25 December, from Jumby Bay to Dickenson Bay: A nice sail to a nice Christmas lunch.
Merry Christmas everybody! We feel festive on Cloudy Bay today too, so there will be no work done today!
We have a cheerful morning, calling family and exchange happy holidays wishes with our friends. Then hang around a bit for one of our videos to finish uploading to YouTube. Thank you, you Grinches at Jumby Bay. You didn’t let us in your resort but your unsecured internet connection was lightning fast 🙂

Late morning we are ready to leave. Anticipating a nice sail to hopefully a nice Christmas lunch, we’ll have all the sails out. As Glen pumps the hydraulics, he comments “this will test the vang a bit”.
Sails are out, and we are on a nice broad reach with 15-19kts wind off of our stern quarter. Much faster than the motoring we did yesterday!
We need to pay attention to the chart and depth, it’s one thing gently motoring through these passages and shallows, and another thing charging through them at 8 knots. So we try to overlay exactly our incoming track from yesterday.

In this bright sun, the solar panels are getting 200w – almost maximum capacity. But we still need to run the generator after having the inverter on all last night, to ensure PC stays alive while uploading a video.
And we have a new setting on the generator to test. We delayed it starting battery charging for 1 minute after the engine starts instead of 10 seconds. This worked fine, allowing the generator to warm up a little before it gets hit by a 20amp demand.

After we pass Prickly Pear Island we gybe, just before we reach the outer reef, and then broad reach on the other tack to our lunch destination.
At noon we drop the anchor in Dickenson Bay, right in front of Coconut Grove beach club. What a great little sail that was. Nice wind and flat blue water.
We dinghy ashore and somehow find a space between the people on sun beds to haul it up the beach, just 20m from where we have booked lunch. Our first pull-the-dinghy-up-the-beach this season.

When we walk in, we realize we’ve been here before. How silly of us not to remember the name. Our table for 2 is in the cool shade of Coconut Grove beach restaurant. With our feet covered in sand and surrounded by a very relaxed and cheerful crowd, we agree it was for the best that we couldn’t book lunch in Jumby Bay: the atmosphere and dress code there are certainly more “constipated”.
We are not expecting any finesse cooking so we are pleasantly surprised by the nice Christmas set menu and mostly by how the food is presented. Glen has duck and I have Christmas ham. All very delicious and in a wonderful setting by the beach, with Cloudy resting at anchor just 80m away.

After lunch, which we try to draw out as long as possible, we walk on the beach passed Sandals Resort to the far end. It is a beautiful stretch of beach. And much much busier than when we last stepped foot on this beach back in May. Christmas holidays must be peak season for the island.

Our plan was to head back to Cloudy for a cuppa tea and relax till the beach bars came alive mid evening.
Close to sunset there is a very nice evening light, so we fly the drone to try capture it from above. By this time the beach has completely cleared – everyone back to their rooms we guess.

Earlier today, when we were having lunch, we were commenting there’s less rain on this part of the island. In Jolly Harbour it rained several times a day, every day. We have not had a drop of rain since we left two days ago. Well, we spoke too soon. After sunset, very dark clouds appear and we just manage to shut all windows and hatches in time before it starts chucking it down. Hm, so much for our plans of a fun night out at the beach bars…

While we wait for the beach scene to potentially liven up again, Glen plays with the Parasailor lines. He wants to try to fly it when we sail to Monserrat. So best set up the lines, and above all make sure they are long enough for Cloudy Bay’s length vs the 50ft catamaran they were made for.
Out of the cockpit locker comes his entire collection of blocks and shackles. The Parasailor has 4 lines: 2 guys and 2 sheets. The guys both need to come down to the bow sprit. So first job is to put 2 blocks on the bow sprit replacing the single block for the asymmetric. While dangling out over the bow he hangs an umbrella upside down to catch any dropped tools, blocks or shackles. And of course, because the umbrella is there, nothing falls! With the guys threaded down the side deck, around a turnaround block and back to the mainsail winches, there seems to be plenty of length to the lines. Brill!
Next job is to make barber hauler lines to pull the sheets down at midships to adjust the sail trim. These are simply large eyelets set in a spliced loop on the end of a rope. 2 to be made, 1 for each side. By 9pm he is done.

It’s still rather damp and cool outside and the only music we can hear from the beach is coming from the Sandals Resort. Tempting, but we know security guards won’t let us in there (we’ve tried that one before!). Through the binoculars the other bars look pretty empty. So we decide not to have a wet dinghy ride, but to stay on board and entertain ourselves.

It was a lovely Christmas Day, Caribbean style: a short exhilarating sail, followed by a very good lunch. And heart warming to connect to family even if we could not be with them. Very nice to have so many people who are following our social media warmly wishing us a merry Christmas.
And still manage to do some pottering on the boat in the evening, despite the morning’s plan not to work today. Well, playing with the Parasailor is like playing with a Christmas present no? What sailor could ask for a better Christmas?!