Celebrations

We still haven't slept properly! Each day, the amazing team here has arranged another wonderful experience for us, culminating in a rally sail to the north today. We stumbled into our first full day ashore last Friday in a haze of rum and spent the morning sorting out odd jobs aboard and finding our feet again. We've had some teething probelms with the cruising kit - we managed to take both outboards out of service and the rib has developed a slow leak; and the shore power here is two-phase 110V and there are no adapters for us. We're settled now and James has jsut taken he children round to the beach in the rib for an early morning dip. Even Matthew has loved swimming and got his head wet and splashed without trauma.

Friday night was the cocktail party at the Barbados Yacht Club with another free bar and some stirring speeches from the officials. Barbados is genuinely pleased to greet us as they try to improve their image as a yachting destination.

The drinking hadn't even finished when the next yacht arrived. We were waiting on he quay at 3am as the excitement amongst those of us already here grew and the drinks flowed. At 4am we heard she was near and we raced out in the dark in the support boats to greet her. She looked stunning, bowling in on a broad reach under full sail - traditional red cotton mail and staysail with white genoa and topsail. We left her to stow her sails and rushed back to the quay where we greeted her with cheers, flares and, of course, rum. As the bars were closed, the three immigration officials had to use park benches as their offices to clear the crew in.

The sun was rising by then so we stayed up to greet the day. The team had arranged a visit to the local Mount Gay Rum factory so the drinking resumed early. We were treated to a welcome rum punch, three tastings and then more rum cocktails. We then hurried back to greet the next yacht home, Cipango.

Cipango had lost her engine so James and I took Francois out in our rib to help guide her in. Again, the applause was mighty as she entered the docks and, you guessed it, the rum flowed. We then spent the afternoon on the local beach before returning to greet Gimcrack. She entered just after sunset.

We had meant to have a quiet evening with no official events, but the arrival of these three meant that the boats all hosted an informal party. We ended up on Gweneven drinking more rum punches until the early hours. She is a wonderfully fitted out race machine, and our steady progress literally got the wind up her as she raced to pull away in the final days.

We have been greeted by fellow BCYC members, Peter and Jo and hope to be joined by them for today's sail if they can get over here in time. Dave and Ollie have an invitation to sail on The Blue Peter and Morgan from Artaius will join us. We'll return in time for another quick swim and then it's the official Prize Giving Reception and dinner tonight on the west coast of this wonderful island.