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Thursday, April 24, 2014

The Yacht Week British Virgin Islands - Part Two

Alright powering through today!  Here is Part Two of The Yacht Week British Virgin Islands.

For those just checking in, here is the full itinerary of where the week took us (each represents where we were docked at night).  This post covers Jan 2 - Jan 5, 2014.  You can catch up on the last post here.

December 29 - Board boat / Night in Road Town, Tortola
December 30 -  Jost Van Dyke (by way of Sandy Split)
December 31 - Jost Van Dyke
January 1 - Spanish Town, Virgin Gorda
January 2 - Anegada (Bathes at Virgin Gorda before leaving)
January 3 - Bitter End, Virgin Gorda
January 4 - Norman Island (by way of snorkeling at the Indian Caves)
January 5 - Return to Road Town, Tortola (flew back)

 
Thursday, January 2, 2014

We woke up early so that we could take taxis to the Virgin Gorda Bathes which are known for their clear calm waters and snorkel caves.  I was toasted from last night so I took a nap in the sand but my crew mates said the caves were amazing.  The most amazing thing to me?  The smoothies this dude made out of the back of his car up at the entrance.  The taste of fresh fruit after five days at sea couldn't be beat!!


The rest of the afternoon and early evening was spent sailing to the next island, Anegada.  The plan for the night?  Lobster BBQ at Cow Wreck Beach.  It is a LONG taxi ride from where the boats are so bring booze with you!!  Also I highly recommend splitting a plate of food.  It's SUPER expensive and a lot of food.  And make sure you go to the bar to buy your food ticket before getting in the food line or you will have to wait all over again.

 
 

After inhaling the food we spent the rest of the evening boozing on VERY overpriced drinks (again BYOB is definitely the way to go here).  I finally got the "HOE" skipper to smile... a Yacht Week goal for me.  Mr. Stoic.  I spent the majority of the night dancing it out with Bruce and getting to know BoogieNights and Manimal better.  Manimal had been on Yacht Week with some of our friends in Croatia.  We all shared giant watermelon draanks and complimented BoogieNights on his tiny gold lame shorts.



Towards the end of the night I found myself dancing with one of the skippers.  We were feeling mischievous so we started a game of Pegs.  The premise of this game is that a group of you have a bunch of wooden clothesline pegs and you try to tag someone on their clothing with the peg.  If they get caught with the peg on them they have to remove that article of clothing and finish their drink.  Skipper and I made a great team as he would flirt with girls and I'd peg them or vice a versa.  We were unstoppable and finally everyone else stopped playing because they got too drunk.  We also instituted an impromptu limbo contest and finished the night destroying his crew at Hi Low (the card game).  God I love Yacht Week.


Friday, January 3, 2014

Next morning, Cookie, Bruce and I held a 8am innertube recap session complete with drinking breakfast beers since we'd all managed to lose each other at some point.  There were some hilarious stories.  I would later find out that this section of ocean was INFESTED with sharks and that they'd pulled a massive bull shark out on the beach just the day before we'd arrived.  WTF.

Inside Joke: "Two trips to the same boat this morning?" "I should get paid." "You did get paid."

We packed ourselves up and headed back to the other side of Virgin Gorda ... the Bitter End.  I loved this place!  There is an adorable little restaurant with a sand volleyball court and a mini pool that you can cool off in.  And the grocery store there, while small, was surprisingly well-stocked with food I love. 

 
 

We ended up wandering by some Aussie buddies and Mayo so we stopped and next thing I know I'm being forced to chug Painkillers on one knee in my unicorn onesie thanks to an infamous Aussie drinking song.  Cheers -ssholes!

Wanna play?

"Here's to [INSERT NAME OF PERSON WHO YOU WANT TO CHUG] he's true blue
He's a piss pot through and through
He's a bastard so they say
He tried to go to heaven but he went the other way
He went....
DOWN
DOWN
DOWN
(and so on until the person finishes chugging their drink)

 Needless to say... a couple of those and I was WGW... and starving.  We wandered back to the boat just in time to enjoy  EB1's homemade jerk chicken wings and sausage on the grill!  It was such a lovely afternoon.  Even WGW was feeling a little better (he'd been sick the last few days) so we spent an hour making a raft out of the floaties and laying about in the ocean.  I needed my drinking buddy to recuperate!!!

 

It was approaching "Pre-Party Hour" and we decided it was time for all the herd to come together so the entire crew donned their unicorn onesies.  We even twerked to Miley above deck for a dingy of Foxes on their way to shore.  The Foxes caught the twerking herd on Go-Pro but we still haven't been able to identify them to get a copy.  SAD.  It was also time to lose the legs off my onesie... not even sure I resembled a unicorn anymore... but at this point I'm pretty sure I smelled like an animal.

We too headed to shore a few hours later where we yet again danced... err pranced(?) our hearts out on the sand.  There were a bunch of the dancers on stilts too.  It was probably a pretty funny picture to watch a bunch of silly unicorns weaving in and out around these giants.  I obviously have to post one picture of all of us looking like "blue cows" (no one seemed able to understand they were unicorn outfits).  At one point I got lost and asked someone to "take me back to my herd."



Saturday, January 4, 2014

Our final day... I can't believe it went by so quickly!!!  Today we headed to Norman Island by way of the Indian caves.  We didn't actually stop at the caves themselves but snorkeled in the vicinity.  The ocean was SO choppy that the snorkeling was short-lived so we got to Norman on the early side.

 
  

Which gave us the entire afternoon to hit up Willy T, a 30 meter stationary schooner that is now a legendary bar.  We dinghed in and got after more Painkillers with BigBear and the ShallWeGoForASwim guys.  They were dressed in USA gear that was hilarious.  I just happened to be wearing EB1's USA pants so a twerk-off naturally ensued.


The other fun thing about Willy T's is that you can jump off the second story.  I was took by a patron that if I jumped off the boat naked I'd get a T-shirt.  My immediate response?  "Let me see the T-shirt."  As I anticipated... no T-shirt surfaced.

It was an aggressive afternoon followed by a very hazy family dinner at Pirate’s Bight restaurant on the beach followed by our final Yacht Week beach party.  I put on the full guilt trip to convince WGW to come party for his last night.  You're ready for this!!  He finally conceded, dressed up in his onesie and promised we'd close down the bar.

 

And close it down we did!  Finally the bar closed down and we jumped back in the dingy to head back to the boat (note we'd JUST been there about two hours earlier to drop off Bruce and EB1).  Strangely the boat did not seem to be where we'd left it.  WGW pointed out that maaaaybe my directional skills were a little off at this point to which I furiously disagreed.  Our boat was the only boat that had been strung with X-mas lights to find it in the dark, but the area where we'd left the boat was markedly devoid of lights.  I pointed at some blinking lights way off in the distance and said, "Those look like our lights but that's impossible.  That boat would be past Willy T's on it's way into the rocks..."

While turns out, after speaking to a boat near where ours was supposed to be that that indeed WAS our boat about to crash into the rocks.  Apparently it had come loose of the mooring, crashed into their boat, and drifted off past Willy T's towards the shore.  SHIT.  They told us their skipper had jumped ship and chased after our boat and was currently keeping it from slamming into the rocks.  We asked about our skipper, EB2, and they said there hadn't been any sign of him.  DOUBLE SHIT.

So WGW and I dinghed out to the lights directly to our boat.  Lifesaver (the skipper) waved us in and explained the latest.  SOS EB2!!!!  Still no answer.  So WGW, Lifesaver and I spent the entire night keeping watch for our skipper while finishing up the last of the Ramen noodles.  I have never been so tired...and SO angry.


Sunday, January 5, 2014 (or really Saturday continued...)

As evening became dawn we were still down a skipper and Mochila and Bruce had to leave to make their flight... too bad we still had to SAIL TO TORTOLA for them to do that.  Finally Lifesaver offered to sail them back to Tortola with his crew.  We piled their bags into his dinghy and were on the way to his boat when looks who comes back.... EB2.  So we turned back, got dropped off and began a massive sail back to Road Town as quickly as possible. 

Upon arrival in Tortola we literally left EB2 with the boat and ran for the ferry which we completely missed.  So we took a taxi to the other ferry station and grabbed one there instead.  The only thing that saved us was our flight being delayed.  Thank god we flew direct because everyone else got completely screwed with their connections thanks to the horrific East Coast winter.  I kissed my bed when I finally made it home.

Inside Jokes:
Amahzing
Alright alright alright

Overall, it was another "amahzing" Yacht Week experience and for me surpassed Croatia on many levels.  It was about lasting friendships not random hookups, family time with my crew, casual beach parties in the sand, and home err boat-cooked food.  I would go back in a heartbeat.  Definitely one of the top vacations of my life.



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