* Jan. 5, 2003. Our first full day on Shamu. A couple of rain showers came through during the night. I snorkel Waterlemon Cay before departing for Jost Van Dyke where Brian will clear us through customs. There seemed to be a bit of a current out by the point but there was a nice variety of fish this year, seemed like hundreds of starfish on the approach. The wind is very strong today, I guess that these are the Christmas winds; we hit 9.5 knots on the way to Jost. We pull into White Bay right alongside Calypso Queen. I yell out "ERIC," he yells out "ON TO THE BIGHT BABY, ON TO THE BIGHT!!! Brian has a funny look on his face; I doubt many of their charter guests start yelling at other boats, pretty funny. We Anchor right in front of Ivan's Stress Free Bar as we see Calypso Queen pull out of White Bay.<br> <br>Kent snorkels and we relax on the boat while Brian takes our passports and Dinghys over to Great Harbor to clear us through Customs. Brian returns and he drops us off at Ivan's. This is the first time we'd been there. Beers and good conversation with some of the campers and locals. We met Ivan and the conversation turns towards the aloe that one of the campers is applying to a wound on her foot from a thorn. He tells us that aloe will heal you inside and out. He said it will clean your colon as well, Kent wasn't comfortable with clean and colon being used in the same sentence. I guess you're supposed to eat it or mix it in something, I should have asked. He handed me and Kent a business card, "Ivan Chinnery, Local Herbalist, Jost Van Dyke, BVI, 284-495-9358" The wind is still very strong, some sandblast action going on if you're in the wrong spot. <br><br>Diane gets the attention of Brian on Shamu, she flashes the boat I think, kidding, he picks us up and takes us over to the Soggy Dollar Bar, aka KC's Sunshine Bar. We park ourselves there for the rest of the afternoon. Running short on cash we called Shamu on the FRS radio, no more flashing, and Brian drops us some cash at the beach. We met some interesting people, drank plenty of painwackers, took a lot of pictures, Diane had her cheeseburger in paradise and we had fun talking to KC. Most of the day trippers left before we did. A solo guitar player played all afternoon without a break, he was pretty good. I left some drinks for a few TTOL folks who I owed, if I forgot anyone I apologize.<br><br>I thought this was a little strange; Diane's sitting at the bar, the bar stool closest the back wall, her favorite seat. I'm standing at the end of the bar facing the beach. The girl who runs the gift shop is sitting along the back wall where the guitar player was sitting earlier. Diane mentions that she keeps getting bitten on her back by flys, I did see a few buzzing around so I start keeping an eye on her back so I could shoo them off. I found that it wasn't flys at all; the gift shop girl had a three ft. long piece of grass that she was using on Diane's back. When I caught her I grinned at her and ratted her out by saying something like "you're bad." Apparently she expected me to play along, she gave me a look that would kill, she broke the grass in half, got up and stormed out throwing the grass in the trash on her way out. Somehow I suddenly felt I was lacking in social skills, like I did something wrong, we never saw her again. <br><br><br><br>Motored to Great Harbor before sunset. Wonderful dinner on Shamu, Wahoo, then on to Foxy's yahoo! Foxy isn't playing, it's Sunday, and Elvis was on the steel drum, pretty good stuff. Brian dropped us off and he and Ann came in later. The police were having some sort of problem with a local; one Officer had a rifle pointed in the direction of the gentleman whom he was having an animated conversation with. Brian and Ann saw this while walking to Foxy's from the dock. Not quite sure what was going on but we smelled a little "smoke" later in the evening coming from the direction of the guys who drew the attention of the police. Don't know for sure what happened.<br><br>I was on a multi-pronged mission here tonight; last year I'd put up a license plate that was signed by everyone on our charter and we wrote the wrong url for TTOL so this needed to be fixed and we had two more plates from home that we needed to install. Mission accomplished on all points, the cordless electric drill from Shamu helped and no one even fell off the chair. Look for two DUG69 plates and one LEPPARD, all three Illinois tags. Back on the boat, a few nightcaps, everyone told some lies and off to bed. No rain overnight.<br><br>*Jan. 6,2003. We left Jost at 9:10am. Norma Jean hailed us on the radio when we were about half way to the Indians, Barry's leaving STT and headed for the Bight on Norman Island. Snorkeling at the Indians was great as usual. On to the Bight, we moored close to the center, Silver with Kirk and his crew was already there as was mike's boat Freebird. Norma Jean rolled in a little later. Calypso Quean moored on the starboard side of Shamu. We all made it with the exception of one of Barry's crew, flight problems. We spent the afternoon relaxing interrupted by a dinghy ride to the caves for snorkeling and we visited Pirates for a few beers. The bartender was upbeat and friendly, we got our pictures taken with her. Some construction was going on behind the place. Kneafsey's name was written in permanent marker on a 2x4 on the celing in the restroom. We visited all the TTOL boats via dinghy and set the time of the party for 7:00pm on the Willy T. Charmaine, Stella and bvibound/Diane hitched a ride over from Tortola unable to connect with the Wet Willy shuttle. I'll leave out a lot of the details of the party, mainly because I can't remember, but mention a few of the highlights. A body shot for me, Barry broke out big cigars for all. My Diane trying to talk everyone into climbing up on the bar for a body shot. The light sticks seemed to be a hit, I think even some non-TTOL'ers ended up with them. I took a trip over to Norma Jean; it's a two story air conditioned floating resturant/bar/hotel just as described. Upon returning to the Willy T in the dinghy, a guy standing on the dock offered to hold my beer while I climbed on to the dock, I declined, good thing, he fell down on the dock then his buddy fell too….too funny. <br><br>Eric gave us a ride back stopping by Calypso Quean, it's a brand new boat, beautiful. I didn't misspell Calypso Quean, whoever named the boat did. Some of his crew were feeding some sharks off the back of the boat, Diane and Jill dangled their feet in the water but not for too long. A side note, Eric's crew bought out the complete inventory of Callwood's Distillery, 34 bottles I think. I scored a Norma Jean Cruise 2003 hat from Barry and a bottle of Callwood's from Eric, thanks guys. We ended the night a little after 2:00am. Great people, great fun, great memories, we had a blast
![[Linked Image]](/images/icons2/cheers.gif)
<br><br><br><br><br>
