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Tuesday, 9th February 2016
Its a long sail of 4 hours plus towards Little Jost van Dyke and J. V. D. but just before we arrive at them we moor at an island called Sandy Spit which Scott has rechristened Isle of Smiles, with that lilting Scottish burr of his. A long lost Ayrshire accent which has gently eased with his years of travelling.
This island is just a very small Cay of coral sand a matter of maybe 50 metres across, with some vegetation in the middle and a couple of open sided tents being used as sunshades as well as the volleyball net. As Peter and I remember well our 'desert island' we visited off the Fijian coast a couple of years ago, there has to be a volleyball net. There are 20 visitors swimming, snorkelling or just walking around. Some of our group swim from Spyglass to the island but as the currents are strong, Peter and I take Scotts offer of a dinghy ride and we slide over the side as we get a metre or two off shore. We don our masks and snorkels and swim across the reef to the next island then eventually back to our boat. It's all a bit Robinson Crusoe, but great fun.
The plan as Scott sees it, is to head for a mooring to the Soggy Dollar bar, on white bay,Jost Van Dyke, but for once the plan goes completely awry, as the wind and more importantly the swell is worse than our Skipper has seen in two years. The waves are crashing up onto the beach near the bar (so called as the only way to get there is to swim from your dinghy, hence the soggy dollars) but we can't even anchor or moor the catamaran for more than a couple of minutes before dangerous waves threaten other moorings around us. We wave a sad goodbye to the unvisited bar and head onward.
We finally find a really great quiet mooring fairly close to an almost derelict looking property, sat alone on a tiny beach on a bay on Little Jost van Dyke. It would make a superb sunset drinks place so the plan is agreed. We have food on board to 'eat in' tonight. I've organised sweet potato wedges, made from scratch, and now cooking in a drizzle of olive oil and garlic salt, in the quite useless oven, which I hope eventually will do its job. Scott will cook our Swordfish steaks and Mahi Mahi fillets on the ships bar-be-que, which is attached to a metal bar at the far aft of our Catamaran. The Swiss girls prepare a fabulous salad and Emily our very own Ozzie Doctor-to-be come Chef in the making is turning almost dead mushrooms into a garlic delight and the leftover pasta from lunch, a coriander and pesto concoction. We whizz off on the dinghy for our very own beach bar drinks party, play the bean-bag games the owner has left in the beach garden and have a thoroughly fun hour. It's a fantastic meal we have when we finally get back to our sailing home, so another excellent fun day.
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