Well, I guess it's true what they say: you get into the Bermuda triangle and you disappear!
Or at least, that's what it must have looked like to all of you with no blogs coming from Pure after we announced we'd be sailing to Bermuda....
We had a brilliant Caribbean season, starting down south in St Lucia and Martinique, before dropping further south to spend some time in the Grenadines, with some of the most beautiful spots that we know. Turquoise waters, rimmed by white and pink beaches, framed by green palm trees and an azure blue sky with some puffy white clouds. When you get lucky, you might see a little candy pink Carriacou sloop complementing the colours in your Kodak moment...
We got lucky not just on the pink Carriacou but also managed to get the first beginnings of our kite surfing down while waiting for the guests to arrive in Union Island! Quite a nice spot to do so too! (some would call that the understatement of the year).
Luke, our great crew that we've done lots of adventure sailing in high latitudes with, decided that it might be nice to do some fair weather sailing with us as well and joined us in Union to sail the boat to Antigua. Great sail, with yet another green flash! Gone from never
having seen one to seeing 3 in 6 months! For you non sailors and no meteorological adepts, no, a 'green flash' is not a Martian girl showing you her boobs, it's the sun setting on a perfectly clear sea horizon and as the sun drops below the horizon, the briefest flash of green lights just winks at you. Quite incredible I must say and a rather rare occasion. With all my miles, I still had to wait about 10 years to see one!
Antigua was a short stop - get the surveyor on board, get some more kiting in at one of the best Caribbean spots (Non such Bay, go and learn with the guys and girls from 40 Knots, they're a great bunch!) and see some friends who spend their winters here, be it on boats, cottages or running their restaurants. Needless to say those three combine nicely and I'm pretty sure Pure was lying a little deeper in the water when we set off for St Maarten!
We made it in time for the famous Heineken Regatta and had secretly been entertaining hopes to join one of our friends' boats to do some racing again, as we definitely have itchy feet to be on a startline again. Pure must have felled threatened and slightly scared we'd leave her and she retaliated straight away, with some new issues for the job list that just had to be fixed before the guests were arriving at the end of the week. We lived vicariously through Luke, who raced on a yacht that was moored not far from us and got to be front row at the spectacle of all the racing yachts coming back in to park in the marina. Rather entertaining when you're sat in the cockpit with a glass of rose and already tied securely to the dock!
A short but intense trip just after the Heineken, left us very little time to get our stuff together - literally this time and we almost missed the plane for our skiing trip. We made it in time, but even I got a little worried which is something to say for those of you who know me and my flying attitude personally! It might have been a little warning of the doom to come - towards the end of what had been an amazing skiing and snow boarding trip, I managed to fall on the simplest of descents and rip off a little tendon in my thumb. The right one to be precise. As it would be! Despite the Swiss doing an excellent job on tying it all back together with a little titanium anchor (now I'm a real sailor girl!), I still couldn't do the cheffing on our return...and with two trips scheduled we had to find somebody to help us out. We couldn't have wished for more with Jojo joining us for the two trips, St Maarten to Antigua and another around Antigua.
It was a befitting end to our Caribbean season and high time we got the boat ready to disappear to Bermuda.
But more on that in a next blog!