TravelTalkOnline

By Tuesday the grand plan pretty well evaporated and we were not sure whether to head for JVD or someplace else. Then I remembered that Quito plays acoustic on Tuesday so we headed in the general direction of Cane Garden Bay with a stop at Monkey Point.

The sail back from Anegada was blessed with a steady 15-16 knots out of the east so again it went very fast. I had the boat trimmed for best speed but Trey was still eating my lunch. Trey is good because I taught him but he ain’t that good! I had downloaded the design specs for the 523 and referring to them I found we were a full knot and a half below the polars. Something was definitely wrong.

After stopping at Marina Key for more water we motored over to Monkey point. The balls were full at Monkey Point with several boats waiting so we backed off in about 60’ and dropped anchors. The freezer on my boat had quit working and we had a small mountain of meat thawing. I decided to stay on board as anchor watch and cook up burgers for lunch while most of the rest snorkeled. It was just after noon so I figured we had plenty of time to eat and get over to CGB but getting 14 people ready to snorkel, onto the dinghies, snorkel and then back to the boat takes a lot more time that one would think. By the time everyone finished eating the sun was about to kiss the top of Jost Van Dyke. We were just barely legal when we picked up balls at Cane Garden Bay. By this time I had a very tired crew so after the first set we made it a short night.

Wednesday was a good day. We sailed to white Bay and I released the crew to the Soggy Dollar while retired to Seddy’s to prepare for my geology class in the big chair. Susan at the Preservation Society was bringing 15 kids over to Ivan’s after school where I would spend an hour talking about how JVD came to be and tell them how to start identifying rocks.

About 3PM I walked down the Ivan’s and started setting up my material on one of the picnic tables which attracted the attention of the employees. I explained what we were going to do and showed them one of the pocket magnifiers I brought down for the kids. What followed was one of the most satisfying experiences I had on this trip. These adults had never seen the environment that they had lived in for years up close! Suddenly I was teaching a pre-class class explaining how the rocks were formed as they sat in rapped attention.

Susan and the kids arrived right on time and I have to admit that I kept their attention for 50 of the 60 minutes before the tire swing won out. All of the kids brought rocks that they wanted to identify. One was a dirty gray pebble and I asked if I could break it open to see the grain structure. One blow of the hammer revealed the clear black volcanic glass of obsidian. You would have thought they had discovered a diamond. Suddenly we were breaking open rocks one after another as I tried to explain the grain structure and the structure of my carefully laid lesson plan fell apart.

Then I gave out the magnifiers and had 15 young geologists examining everything they could reach. Over all a really rewarding afternoon.

Back at the beached dinghy I decided to open the lower drain plug. A deluge of water lasting all of 15 minutes spewed from the bilge! The mystery of the slow boat was solved! I had been towing an extra 900 pounds of seawater around the BVI.

Next edition – Disaster!