Sailing on Aloisius

This past weekend we had a chance to go sailing with our friends, Barb & Dave. They recently acquired their sailboat (of which I'm not very good at remembering details, other than the name of it!), and have been spending most of their weekends aboard since. Since our only experience on sailboats has been on Windjammer's tall ships, we consider ourselves complete "boobs" when it comes to assistance in getting us from point A to point B! So although we are happy to help with the work required aboard, most times we're probably just in the way. (But it was really fun to have the chance to learn a little about it!)

Our plan was to sail around the southwestern tip of the island, up along the west coast to a place called Flamingo Bay... where the snorkeling is considered to be quite good. This was actually the first time Scott & I have been on a small sailboat, so when the wind really got us going, I was a bit nervous about how much the boat was leaning (heeling) to the side. Of course, I had visions of the mast falling over and landing in the sea... but I'm sure that really wasn't about to happen! As long as Barb & Dave were still looking calm... no worries, mon! (They even entrusted each of us with the wheel for awhile!)

It took us a few hours to get there, and since we didn't really get going till around noon it turned out that we only had time enough to take a quick dip in the water & have a bite to eat. We came upon a few little rain showers during the day, but nothing that didn't pass by quickly. They wanted to get the boat back before dark... easier to see the markers in the shallow waters to the bay, so after cooling off in the water we headed back.

It was such a beautiful day for sailing! We were so happy they invited us along with them... especially since we hadn't been away from the house much in the past few weeks. We noticed how much drier the land is in the southern part of the island. And it's a lot hotter! We are getting near the end of the dry season, and the grass is really brown down there. (We still get a few rain showers here at the house, so things are a bit greener because of that.) The cruise ships have stopped for the summer, and next month begins the hurricane season... hopefully, it will be a quiet one.

(The photo to the right is a house that's built into the side of a hill... with that fancy boat out front, I guess you could call it the "bat cave" with the "bat mobile"!)