"sailing family"

March 19, 2011
Saturday

Hi All,

It’s about 3:15 p.m. on this pretty Saturday afternoon and half way through Rose, Paul, Karen & Rick’s weeks visit. Yesterday we checked into the British Virgin Islands and spent the afternoon and night at Jost Van Dyke. We awoke this morning with plans to head to Trellis Bay in Tortola for the full-moon party, but, “Island Spirit” (our boat) must have partied too much at Foxy’s last night because this morning the sail drive on the port (left) side wasn’t working correctly. So we are currently at Roadtown, Tortola where we wrestled up Joseph, one of the mechanics who has worked on her before, to come out and give her a diagnosis and hopefully just a “couple of aspirin” and get her back in shape for us.

In the meantime, four of our seven travelers are napping! Yes, we had a good time at Foxy’s last night too! Rose is reading, “The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo” and Savannah is on her umteenth episode of “Little House on the Praire” (or Little Outhouse on the Prairie as Tom says.) Savannah’s having movie day and has been watching shows since she got up. Rose & Paul brought her the first season of Little Outhouse, but she was grounded from her dvd player for the last few days for, “slacking” during school. So, I guess she’s making up for lost time.

If you ever have a chance to visit the Virgin Islands, Foxy’s on Jost (pronounced “yost”) Van Dyke is a must, especially on Friday or Saturday night when they have their bbq cook-out. It’s buffet style (one pass only please) and they fire up the grills in the early afternoon. The fabulous smell of chicken and ribs and the call of, “Painkillers” took us to Foxy’s much earlier than we expected; and following in suit of previous trips to Jost, we had a lot of laughs! (and I got some great stuff for this blog!)

A ‘Painkiller’ is a rum drink well known in the virgin islands, but not that well known to Rose & Paul; that is until yesterday. After Paw-Paw, Paul treasure hunted with Savannah & her metal detector and the collection of 30 bottle caps, the six of us plopped down at Foxy’s on their picnic table style seating and ordered up a few cocktails. Savannah was there too, of course, but she made friends with a little girl who was, “4 and 3/4ths” years old and they played together a few yards away all afternoon. Tom was the first to honor us for a good laugh when Lizzy (the 4 and 3/4ths little girl) yelled out, “daddy, daddy… “ for ‘her’ dad and Tom answered, “Sweetie, I’m over here!” Honey, I said, that isn’t your daughter; well, unless there is something you haven’t been telling me!

A little later and still at the same picnic table, Savannah presented us with a rather large hermit crab. (He was about 3 + inches in diameter when outside his shell, legs extended) Rick and I enjoyed him the most especially since he didn’t take long to unfold himself from his shell and travel over whatever necessary to make an escape. (yes, we are easily amused) I was having one of those, “duh” moments and stuck my finger right his pincher claw. And ‘duh’, guess what happened… he frinkin pinched the H_ _ _ out of me! Before I knew it I screamed and flung him as hard as I could.. (he wouldn’t let go!) And then there were trickles of blood from the two holes in my finger! Karen announced she thought this was one of the funniest things she’d ever seen and I, late last night awoke with my finger throbbing! ‘Duh, duh, duh’!!!

The afternoon wore on with more funny events that I can’t remember and a couple I’m choosing to forget, but my biggest surprise was the decoration Rose left behind on the wall/ceiling at Foxy’s. As you may or may not know, Rosemary is my sweet mother-in-law who is always… I mean, usually, well behaved. Foxy’s is an open-air restaurant/bar, meaning, no walls, just a wood planked roof and an occasional railroad tie looking board holding it up. The ‘walls’ and ceilings are decorated with everything people either inadvertently or meaningfully leave behind, I.e., shirts, underwear, license plates, drawings with permanent marker, etc.

So, the next thing I know Rose was taking off her bra! Now she didn’t flash or anything, she did it like all us girls know how, where you slide one strap through the arm of your shirt and off at your hand, then unlock and take off.. Anyway, that’s what she did. Then we all signed it and wrote stuff on it with pen and now it’s hanging at Foxy’s for all the world to see! And because those of you who know Rosemary wouldn’t believe me I took pictures… he, he, he!

Now, Savannah didn’t sign and we didn’t let her see either. She’s being corrupted way too much by this family as it already is and Tom, he kept saying something about Freud, the Oedipus Complex and incest and he adamantly refused to touch it. But I promise you it’s there and when we go back next week with my friend Dana, I’m putting an extra tack or two in it so it’s sure to stay!

All for now.. Rhonda