As I’ve said before, sailors plans are fluid, and have to be.

I missed the on shore adventure today, but filled the port water tank to the brim and boat electricity is making the Toyota Prius look like an old mag light. All is good.

Christine has a whistle, and I heard it between my trips to the engine room. Picked em up, and took them to the resort where we had reservations for New Years dinner for an afternoon snack. Well, the kitchen was having issues for the evening so all they had was plantain chips. We worked with it. Beer and chips, and a couple of virgins for the young ins, and afternoon was made.

3 or 5 beers into it, I reminded the crew that we ALL still needed to climb the rock fort that I had done before they got up. The young ins needed some grub, so a quick stop at the boat was in order as was a check on the charging and water making. Quick stop, all systems were a go.

Over to the rock fort. A straight up climb, restored so it was basically 255 steps straight up, with cannons and great vistas all the way up. In the morning, I broke a sweat, in the afternoon, it was a cardio exercise that Jane Fonda would a been prouda.

The boys really wanted to put the McQueeeny swing back together. So we did that. This time we opened up the side of the boat and raised the boom a bit farther. Lots of splashing and fun. We even convinced Christine to give it the college effort. I face planted a few times, maybe for the better we’ll see. Lots of fun and good times splashing in the water.

Its New Years and we have 7:30 reservations. Yeah, okay, thats early but its well before sailors midnight…. at least by 30 mins or so. Round 6ish we start thinking about it, and are getting hungy so a quick on board ‘snack’ was created. Cheese, dips, crackers, etc, whatever looked good was set out. Satisfied for the moment and knowing that dinner was only moments away.

Dingy’d ashore, careful of the ‘slippery when wet’ sign – story for another day, and found a place at the bar to wait on our dinner reservations. We played umpteen hands of black jack and no signs of dinner coming to fruition. Couple of beers and someone finally throws in the towel. Lets head back to the obnoxious boat, that looks like a disco tech that is the Sugar Shack. Christine tries to pay the tab, they want to charge us for dinner even though we are bailing on dinner cause we are starving! Luckily Christine spots our afternoon waiter and explains the ‘we are hungry’ story and we are away back to the boat.

Running low on actual protein, it was a pasta dinner with some fresh grilled veggies and a prego sauce we had on board. We looked back as we were sitting down to pasta in the rain and they were just starting to get organized for dinner. The steel drum band does have the chomps tho. I could listen to them all night long, or will have to as we can still hear them and the other clubs rocking out for new years.

First time I had to do dishes after a meal on this trip. Normally I cook and don’t have to deal too much with the clean up. I sit back and have a beer for clean up, and watch intently as the fresh water is used to clean the dishes. This time I got the appreciation first hand as how much tougher cleaning up is than preparing. I cook with as few pots and pans as possible and still end up making a mess, cleaning up after 7 people feels like we used 1/2 of the water supply. Guess I’ll have to get used to making more water or skipping more on shore adventures to keep the boat full.

Great day, Everyone is sad that 4/7ths of our crew is heading out tomorrow morning. Tis still funny, when they arrived we stayed up till well past real midnight, now we are lucky if 8pm, so when they get back to the West Coast… will they be going to bed at noon? (smile)

I have to sign them off the boat, so Christine and I will head ashore to the airport to make that happen in the morning and also sign out of the Grenadines. Will set it up that we can stop somewhere north tomorrow. Maybe Walibu or something else on the west coast of St Vincent, who knows its all fluid these days.

Happy new years ya’ll. Steel drums on one side, Gangam style on the other, and Happy Birthday on the other. Lots of choices in the middle of this Young Island Cut. Oh.. that breeze feels like another rain shower is on its way.