Decided that this is a great way to end 2014 which has been troubling, sad, horrific, joyful, enlightened, opportunistic, and full of hope. Although it’s been a great year, I will happily wave goodbye and welcome in the new year in all its glory. I am confident that this will be a memorable year full of laughter and surprises.

We woke up slowly and Matt dove into the Starboard engine to give her a scrub down, check the fluids and belts, and do other manly stuff I care not to learn about. Meanwhile, I finished putting teak oil/stain on the rest of the teak on the boat – there are only 3 places I did not teak and that was because I would have gotten more on the boat than on the teak and why waste hard to find teak stain. Who knew there was so much teak on our boat? Jeesh. After our burst of energy Matt made some yummy home fries, eggs, and finished up the bacon. Feeling refueled, Matt jumped in to see what was under our boat while I did a wee bit of work (I mean “wee”). After he informed me of the delightful creatures playing under our boat, I jumped in with him and we snorkeled the reef near by – some cool flirty swimmers, a few puffer fish, and such. Now I know why nobody could anchor near us – it is all coral/rocks.

Rinsed off, tried to make ourselves more presentable and headed ashore to clear customs. Normally not a big deal, but the island is shut off to yachties–only live ins or people staying in houses are allowed beyond certain points to protect the resident’s privacy evidently. Anyway, Matt thought they had to let us clear out-so we forged ahead and low and behold the security guard must have been in siesta as walked right past his vehicle and made it the short mile up and down hills to the airport to clear out. Easy breezey.

Matt stopped to have a beer while I wrapped up some last minute shopping, bread was on my must have list from Sweetie Pie Bakery, bought Matt a new hat and managed to find a small bag for $12 U.S. (Yes, they have things that are inexpensive on Mustique). Found Matt at the bar, paid our tab for his 2 beers for $10 U.S. (mind you we bought an entire case for $100 EC or $35 U.S.) They know where to get the yachties

Back to the boat for some R&R (Matt hid from the sun in his cool hammock while I read my Kindle). Dinner is on the grill, plan on a short nap, then off to our private party – who shall we be…Ginger and Giligan, Fred and Wilma, the Underhills? We get to make up persona’s…how did we get invited to the Mustique employee/resident party???

Happy New Year…. See you on the flip side.

Tho could really grow accustomed to this life style. Could never afford it, but then again, who can.

Not sure where the day went.

Christine played with teak, re-oiled / stained the whole boat. I played with some electronics, almost felt like work, IP addresses and net masks and routing, never getting all the seatalk stuff I wanted to work.

Fresh fruit for breakfast, and some boat projects in the AM, we had lunch plans at Basil’s at 12:30. Watched most of the charter boats leave, everyone behind us left. Perfect time to run the honda generator, I had started it in Chatham bay last week, to make sure it’d run, hadn’t started in 2+ years. Fired up on the 7th pull, not bad.

Today fired on the first time I remembered to turn the ON switch ON, plugged it into the boat 220 volt circuit, its a 220v honda. Switched on the 220V chargers, and nothing. Uh.. its supposed to charge. Tweaked some things, flipped some switches, then finally idled up the honda, and now we are cooking with gas, litterally. 60amps going into the house bank in bulk mode. Helped the batteries out greatly. Dropped a bit more gas into the generator, and it was lunch time. Planned on the generator running out of gas while we had lunch, hopefully.

Ashore earlish, walked town. Found a produce guy on the waterfront, had great selection, told him we’d be back after lunch.

Met up with some friends from previous visits, great lunch, conversation, all around excellent visit. They informed us of 2 parties on Mustique. Basil’s where most of the tourist and yachties will be and The Cotton House for Mustique Employees. We dade plans to join the employees, locals, house residents, its a 60’s theme from england, complete with bangers and mash. Now my boat attire,is flips and tshirts, not sure how that’s 70s, course some of the tshirts might be from the 70s. Since we are new here, we can claim to be anyone we want to be, Maybe the underhills, from caddyshack, or the folks from the huge yacht in the harbor, Might have good stories to tell. At least about the one New Year spent on the island of Mustique.

After lunch, back to the market, no bread – sold out, but some awesome, fresh green beans, couple of tatters and leisure walk back to the boat. We were going to go back ashore, but the chaos on the water was pure entertainment.

So yesterday, it was busy. Normally you must use a mooring ball here unless you are over 60 feet. Tonight there are just as many at anchor as on balls, and tomorrow is supposed to be even busier.

Our ball, is right next to a pretty solid bottom. No one seems to get an anchor to stick, the catamaran last night found out. I set up the lido deck chairs and watched the show. Boat after boat, try after try. Nothing stuck, I tried to help, saying “no one has made it stick yet”, language barrier, or bravado, I always got the last chuckle, as they picked up and reset somewhere else.

An american monohull came in, they waved, I waved back, english our first language, I suggested they “make sure it sticks” they tried once, it was close, but kept rolling up on the big boat in the back. Said it wasn’t good enough and left, sweet, 1 try and understood. Told them they shouldn’t be discouraged as there would be plenty more to try, tonight.

Oh my, a floatilla, 4 boats wanted to raft up in the non-holding area. Quick, I need a fresh drink for this. One sets an anchor and invites his friends to do the same and raft up. The others get nothing to set, I question if he really set, but the wind / waves were calm at the moment. The others tried both sides, ended up back in boonies before thinking they had a bit of a hold.

The beautiful big mono, who would have been the recipient of a dragged anchor, called out on the VHF about his discontent to the harbor master, in no time, Slick and the boys were on it. They told em the holding sucks, yet the french charter captains thought thew knew better and still tried to raft up. They got 2 of the 4 together, then it got rolley, and then one anchor wasn’t holding, that was the end of the raft up. Its now well after dark and I hadn’t even started cooking cause the show was entertaining.

A few more resets, and we have 1 of the 4 thinking they may make it through the night.

Behind us action is okay, I won’t talk about the 2 infront of us, who dropped anchor and immediately left the boat for shore. I hope they stay hooked. We are happy we arrived early when we had a choice.

Now that we have an open bar for new years tho, we are contemplating our early departure new years morning at sun up. Stay tuned, as all plans like that can / and will change.

Beautiful sunsets, despite all the boats, beautiful steamer looking thing came in late, we have our own constellation in the mooring field.

Excellent connection from the boat. (Chuckle)

Part of the sunset

Chaos of boats going on.