Polite Compromise

We arrived in Georgetown on Tuesday, Feb 23rd and we are anchored off of Stocking Island, near Sand Dollar Beach. A little further north on the island is an area called Chat & Chill - with a restaurant, bar, beaches, conch stand, volleyball courts, yoga in the mornings on the beach, water aerobics, etc., etc., etc. I think people come here and just never leave…

Georgetown is in the middle of their 36th annual Regatta and it has been busy around here. Lots of events over the course of two weeks. Started off with the dingy poker run. Next up was volleyball, softball, bocce ball tournaments, in the harbor big boat races, around the island big boat races, small boat racing, conch shell blowing, variety show, scavenger hunt, and I can’t think of what all else. Ron and I signed up for something called the coconut challenge. Here’s how it goes: There were about 30 teams (4 persons each) signed up. Each team had to be in a dingy without a motor. Everyone had to be wearing a life jacket - and it didn’t matter how you wore it - which was pretty funny in itself. A couple of guys wore ski jackets by sticking their legs into the armholes. And you had to propel the boat through the water using a flipper on your hand. The organizers filled the lagoon with coconuts - hundreds and hundreds of them. The object is to paddle madly around the lagoon and scoop up as many coconuts into your dingy as you could until they were all captured - without getting your boat swamped or sabotaged by another dingy crew. That was the first event. Next we went to the sand volleyball courts for the coconut toss. There were rings made in the sand on one side - and you had to toss two coconuts over the net and try to get them to land in the rings. Each ring was worth different point values. And lastly, there was the coconut catch. Two team members wore protective head gear and were given one large trash bag with which to catch nuts that were tossed by the other two members. The one who tossed had to face backwards so they could’t see where they were throwing, the other member was the loader and handed the nuts to the tosser. Ron and I were catchers. We did pretty good and caught 15 nuts. Our overall total score was 126 points! Pretty good - but the top teams had 190+ points. We didn’t win anything, but we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. After the prizes were awarded, everyone went to the ARG party (Alcohol Research Group) which was a BYOB pot luck party further down the beach to watch the sunset. Lovely way to end the day. I can see why people plan their sailing vacations to be here for the regatta every year. Lucky us - we found it by accident!

Cheers!
Karen