After Amichai and Sammy began doing some pull-ups on some overhanging wooden cross-pieces on the path, a guy from a different group came over, recognizing the specific type of pull-ups they were doing (gripping with their fingers), and asked if they did rock climbing. Correct! We then began to talk to him about our respective trips. Turns out he's also from Maryland and now helps design satellites. Cool stuff.
A short while later we went back to the boat to make dinner. There was a bit of a concern for about 15 minutes about our propane, but after some fiddling with knobs and the smell dying down, we finally had our pasta with cheese and sauce. When we finished it was close to 9:00 and we decided to head back to shore, to continue to chat with our new friends.
When we arrived there were no other visitors there and the bartender was cleaning up. Amichai and Sammy each decided to shower onshore, so while we waited for them we just read or talked, until the manager told us they were really closing up and about to turn off the lights. We were back on the boat not long after 9:30. Who knew tourist places would close that early?
Back on the boat we watched a movie and then went to bed. I slept on deck.
Friday morning I got up at 7:25 and was joined not long after by Sammy and then the others. We motored over to Salt Island, which used to (or still does) pay an annual tax to the Queen of a bag of salt. Not far off the island is the wreck of the RMS Rhone. It was wrecked from a late-season hurricane in 1877. Apparently because it was late in the season and thus warning signs (like barometric pressure) were ignored, and because no one could swim, it was quite a catastrophe. But it's a great snorkeling and diving site!
After a quick breakfast of cereal, all of us but Amichai got our snorkeling gear and took the dinghy over to the wreck site, tied to the dinghy mooring, and went in. It was a pretty disgusting-ly hot day out, so it was a relief to get in the water. It was really cool! You could see the wreck very clearly below. I snapped a bunch of photos with my underwater camera (and again, once those are developed I can upload them). We practiced trying to dive using the holding-your-nose-and-blowing trick, with varying degrees of success. I didn't do it so well.
After about half an hour, guess who joined us? That's right, the family from Kansas City. Some of them were really good at diving down deep. One girl got all the way down to the wreck and went under a wooden pole before coming back at up! We snorkeled for a bit longer and then headed back to the boat and motored over to a neighboring bay which had fewer waves.
We decided to eat lunch ashore after seeing some shaded picnic tables. Guess who was already ashore and about to leave when we arrived? That's right, the guy from Maryland and his family.
Lunch! We did not eat that chicken.
Sammy did some kite flying.
After having a quick lunch we explored around our part of the island.
The "Salt Pond" another tourist had mentioned, which I had expected to be just a pile of salt.
Salt Island is no longer inhabited so it was a bit eerie, but beautiful in a lonely way.
I saw some nice conches in a pile and thought it would be cool to bring one back, until I realized the pile was one of several marked graves.
By the beach, however, Sammy found a conch shell all on his own. With the dead inhabitant inside and about to fall out. Having emptied its contents, he took it back to wash and bring back home.
We were all a bit jealous.
It was time to go back to Road Town, to dock at TMM for Shabbos. We saw this rock formation on our way out of the bay, which reminded us of a statue of a lion or a sphinx:
This was the last sail of the trip! And so I decided we needed to do something we had only ever talked of doing.
"What's so special?" you ask, "haven't you been in the dinghy before?"
No, we had never been in the dinghy before...out in the open ocean while being pulled by the boat! It was a bit crazy how we did this. First we slowed down. Then Yoni and I pulled in the slack of the dinghy rope before jumping in and holding on for our lives as the rope quickly pulled taut and the dinghy jerked forward.
I mentioned before how awesome the boat looks when we sail downwind, wing-on-wing. Here is what it looks like:
How did we snap this photo? Well, obviously from the dinghy. But how? We had forgotten the camera on board the boat. No problem! Slow the boat down again. Have Amichai pull in the slack. Have us almost slam into the boat. Have us actually slam into the boat. Have us finally pull up close enough so CG can hand us (not toss, hand) the camera. Then let us out again to snap photos!
Getting back on the boat was also a bit nerve wracking, but we all emerged from the ordeal safe and sound.
Then we refueled and went across the harbor to TMM. There (or here, as that's where we are still) we got back our duffel bags, shopped for some groceries, and cleaned the boat. As we cooked and clean we listened to a playlist of Shabbos-related songs, which was nice. We got ready just in time.
We were the only inhabited boat there, until a catamaran docked beside us. We're not sure what European country the families on it were from, but as we sang kabbalat shabbat on deck they finished docking and began rinsing off diving equipment. As we sat down to eat they left to head over to town.
For dinner we had soup, steak, some leftover chicken, rice, and brownies. A HUGE thank-you to CG for cooking and then freezing most of the best food we had this entire trip. We sang some zemiros before heading to bed (well before our neighbors got back).
I got up around 7:30 and Amichai was already up and had davened. I then davened and there was a staggered awakening as Sammy, CG, and Yoni got up and did the same. We had kiddush over grape juice, with orange juice and brownies, around a bit after 9. By then the families from the catamaran next to us had left, but guess who arrived? That's right, the family from Kansas City, come to return the boats and head back home.
Not long after we finished eating our kiddush-breakfast, an employee of TMM who was working on the boat next to ours asked us about Judaism. We then had a short discussion about reinterpretation through the generations (and he seemed to have ideas similar to "yeridas hadoros", the "decline of generations"), about the King James Version of the Bible versus Hebrew, and exactly where Jews stood on Jesus and his place in the Trinity (actually not in the Trinity, or any Trinity at all).
It was getting hot, so we walked over to the air conditioned office to relax and read some books (they had a small selection on some shelves). We also spoke to some members of the Kansas City family which floated in and out of the office as they got ready to leave. After they left we spoke to the captains of the catamarans they had been on, as well as the cousin they had come to visit. They had some pretty interesting stories. One of the captains was from South Dakota and the other was from (I think) Idaho! Both captains live on boats and have for some years. Sammy was very pleased to hear one of them say wing-on-wing is a difficult point of sail, after we said we had done it.
They also briefly spoke about safety procedures. Did you know that for very "large" passengers that fall overboard you use the main halyard on a winch to pull him or her back up onto the boat?
We ate lunch a little after 1, finishing up the vacuum-sealed deli meat we had brought with us. Then we headed back to the office to be cool and read some more. After the office closed at 5 we went back to the boat and by then it had cooled off outside.
We thought everyone had left, but as we were settling in on deck, a family came on to the catamaran next to us that had been abandoned earlier that morning, along with a TMM employee. They were going out for a brief sail. As they were about to pull away, I noticed that one of their dock lines was still looped around a post! I shouted to them and un-looped it. Just an everyday occurrence for me, saving million dollar boats from being destroyed.
Before Shabbos was over we sang some shalosh seudos songs and then davened maariv and made havdalah. Amichai made havdalah this week and it was cool to hear him do the Sephardi version of it.
Since then we cleaned and packed and showered. We're getting up very early in the morning to get ready to go. We have a ferry to catch!
The trip isn't over yet, but all of us on the boat have been doing a lot of reflecting over the last couple of days. Three weeks is a long time to be out here and it feels a bit strange, but welcome, to know we are going back home soon. I think I have been very fortunate to have been able to go on this trip and spend time with such great people.
Shavua Tov!
Chicken of the Sea
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