Day 18 Tortola Re-Visited

We arrived in Road Town, Tortola around 08.00 this morning, with the weather looking a little uncertain.  Although the sun was shining through the broken cloud, there was a high hazy cloud that just took the heat out of the sun.

After a light version of a full English, we decided to take a walk into Road Town as we only drove through it last week when we were here.  It’s not a sprawling town and does not give an appearance of being overly wealthy, although more so than places like Dominica.  In contrast, one of the many marinas we walked through was packed with very expensive yachts and motor cruisers highlighting the opinion that the islands future lies in boat charter/tourism.

We returned to the ship around 11.00 and retired to the Costa Coffee shop for a sit down before a lie down on the sun deck.  By this time the sun was showing its face less frequently as the cloud had gathered throughout the morning.  The temperature was down a couple of degrees as a result of the gathering cloud, but that was no real problem as a day of hazy sun was quite welcoming.

Shock of the day came as I was lying on my back watching the frigate birds circling overhead on the thermals and the pelicans that were flying at low levels before plummeting into the sea to get a mouthful of fish.  As one of the pelicans was flying over the ship at low level I suddenly thought of the devastation that would occur if it were to relieve itself over the sun deck!  Judging by the mess on the quayside I reckon a single pelican could take out about 6 sun beds in one dump.  I made sure I kept my mouth firmly closed whilst napping on the sun deck  after that thought.

No lunch today as we were still feeling the after effects of our fantastic dinner in the White Room last night.  Well just a small ice cream to cool us down mid afternoon.

We slipped away from the quayside around 5.40 with the clouds looking blacker and rain almost inevitable overnight.  We are now en route to St Kitts, an island we have never visited, so we hope that any rain will cease by the morning.

At 6.45pm we have covered 9 nm since leaving Road Town Tortola and have122 nm to go before arriving in Basseterre, St Kitts. We are currently enjoying a cooler temperature of just 26 deg C whilst cruising at 11 knots with a wind speed of 19 knots.  The sea state is pretty much flat calm as it has been for days.

It’s Tropical dress code this evening, so an opportunity to show off the new shirt.  I think that the Welsh eating machine has regained his place in the Olympic team tonight by managing two main courses; one roast lamb and another of sirloin steak.  Joanna had ordered the steak, but it did come with a most peculiar curry butter sauce, not what you would expect with a steak.  Joanna doesn’t do spicy so her plate was pushed to one side. The hawkeyed waiters almost take it personally if you don’t eat your dinner as they think they must have got something wrong with the order.  Our waiter immediately pounced to find out what was wrong and offered a fresh steak with no sauce.  I thought that Vincent the waiter was going to have his hand pinned to the table with a fork as he attempted to remove Joanna’s original plate of food from under Glyn’s nose.  That steak was going nowhere!  The head waiter also walked into the trap of trying to remove the offending plate of food.  Once Glyn had finished his Roast lamb with all the trimmings, he promptly devoured the sirloin steak with all the trimmings.  I could understand why he declined the cheese and biscuits this evening.

After a few photographs of the new shirt we decided to pass on the evening entertainment which was a choice between an after dinner speech by Lembit Cheeky Girl or a song and comedy act by Linda Lucardi’s husband, Sam Kane . Pity I thought she was on board for a bit of page 3 work in the photographic dept.  I must remember to cancel the courses with Fifi le Snapper tomorrow.