New Guests Arrive

Our new guests, Nural and Selcuk came from Toronto via Trinidad on the 22^nd of March. They took the red eye flight aboard Caribbean Airlines which we had taken on our first sailing trip with some other friends around St Vincent and the Grenadines years ago, which was the starting point of our present odyssey. During that adventure I tested my affinity for sailing in the ocean as well as living in close quarters for longer than two days at a time. Al and I were the only ones among our companions who utterly enjoyed the trip; Deniz was the skipper, who could only rely on his son Mehmet for any real help in the less than ideal circumstances of high seas, his wife Zeynep had just broken her finger and had to be reminded of not using that hand while sailing in a chartered mono-hull; Bahadir was tending to his wife Christina who had been suffering from nausea. All in all, I should have been scared of the rough sea, but did not. I remember thinking that we managed the worst, and it was exhilarating! Hence the idea of living on a boat flourished.

Anyway, we met Nural and Selcuk at the airport around 8:00 am, took them to Port Louis marina where we had moored, to unwind and settle till the next morning, and took off, “all the way” to Belmont (around the corner from the marina actually!) for a couple of days. The weather was fine, so we just lazed away on the first week, swimming from Ruyam II and walking about in St George’s. The furthest we ventured was Moliniere Point, to let them do some snorkelling. They claimed having enjoyed looking at the underwater sculptures, despite their small size and stature.

After the first week, which passed pleasantly, Al thought of showing the south shore of the island to our guests. We went as far as Prickly Bay as the first step, but the weather did not cooperate. It was windy and overcast which made the already murky waters dark and choppy. Swimming was not very pleasant, but kind of obligatory, after walking about in the swanky neighbourhood overlooking the bay. Our guests are not much of sun worshippers like us, Selcuk even hates a west facing home, and favors awnings and pulled curtains at all times, so he was not enjoying the sun in the least; Nural had acquired a sun allergy lately. They both wore long sleeved shirts and long pants, even while swimming. Selcuk is notorious for his loathing of the sun, so he kept his cap and even his sunglasses while swimming, while Nural wore a long sleeved t-shirt. During that time I suffered from an ear infection, and did not venture much into the murky water myself.