07.30hrs Cloudy morning, we had a little rain overnight, but not much.
We had a light breakfast before going ashore for our trip to the Botanical Gardens. Fats decided to stay on the boat while we went off on our trip, he needs lots of rest. The bus ride to the Gardens was a laugh, the bus was old, very old, certainly the last century. It was held together with string and wire, and well rusted. However, it rattled along nicely for 30 mins over the bumpy road to the Gardens, a good crowd on board, maybe 40 in all. We were greeted by Lucy, one of the Matriarch's of the Gardens, and she was good.
Lucy, took us on a 2 hour tour of the Gardens, fascinating stuff, ranging from opening coconuts,and tasting the contents,
not just the milk and coconut flesh, but the brains, ...................that is what the milk turns into before sprouting a new shoot, a sort of spongy stuff, and only ok to taste. the locals have it for breakfast most days. Then there was the Vanilla demonstrations, from drying the flowers and seeds to making vanilla essence.Of course, there were lots of different tree, shrub and plant types to be seen, all very interesting, but hardly a bird anywhere. Scottty, the twitcher was very disappointed at that, and so was skipper. as he always had aviaries in his garden, so birds are always of interest.
12.30hrs We went to the beach restaurant for a prepared lunch, which was included in our package. All the staff in the restaurant and gift shop, were all the same people as in the Gardens, no demarcations here. Just happy to have a job.
Lunch was excellent, and included a baby roast pig, corned beef wrapped in leaves (real tasty) and a host of other tasty bits. After lunch, we had a floor show, but this was different, this was with basically children, and excellent, and of course very funny at times when the real small ones did their own thing. The girls were stunning, and beautifully dressed up in the local costume styles. The girls were all cover in vanilla oil to show that they were still virgins (as Lucy says, once their flower has been plucked, then no more oil).
15.00hrs All into the crocky bus and off back to town, where Aileen, skipper and Margaret had some coffee in " Cafe Trpoicana " plus doing some cards.
17.00hrs Skipper went to the skippers briefing, this was delivered by Paul from rally control, and basically covered our trip to Fiji. This lasted an hour or so, and then we returned to the Mermaid for a beer before joining " A Lady " again for dinner.
Dinner was already cooked by Fats and consisted of a lamb Curry and a Wahoo curry, bit with rice......
Skipper went to bed early, wrecked from all the rushing around, the girls remained in the cockpit chatting about, god only knows! And the other two, Fats and Scotty, went ashore for a few beers, to the yacht club.
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
That's it for now,
Signed :- Stephen Hyde (Skipper)