The Queen Princess Cruise Director decided that our next stop would be White Bay on Jost Van Dyke so that we could grab cocktails at Ivan’s Stress Free Bar. Ivan’s is a dumpy little hole in the wall that, for whatever reason, attracts celebrities like Keith Richards and Kid Rock- not that we’ve ever seen any but, hey, a girl can dream.
Ivan’s is an honor system bar meaning you make your own cocktails, grab your own beers, keep a tally and then, when it’s time to pay up, you tip Ivan who just sits behind the bar and watches his world go round. It’s quite the gig Ivan has going.
It all sounded like the perfect plan. But there were two little flies in the ointment of The Queen Princess Cruise Director’s planned day- Captains MoRon.
Captain Ron had saddled himself with the navigational duties of the trip. Unfortunately he’d been up half the night battling acid reflux brought on by Miss Carol’s cooking AND he’d had to return the safari rental truck that morning so he never bothered to look at the chart.
And since Captain Ron had to sleep off Miss Carol’s cooking, Captain Mo was gonna be on the helm for most of the trip. Never a good thing. Captain Mo loves him some gadgets and not only had he somehow managed to key in the coordinates for White Bay into his GPS, he’d figured out how to sync up his GPS with the boats’ autohelm. Oh boy.
In theory this should have been a good thing in that the boat would’ve steered itself freeing up Captain Mo to stare at the horizon and think about whatever it is that Captain Mo thinks about.
In practice, however, the autohelm didn’t want to work very well on the tack we were on. I noticed this fairly early but didn’t want to say anything lest I incur The Queen Princess Cruise Director’s wrath. After about 3 hours of watching the compass swing through 60 degrees, 30 to each side of our course and watching the island we were aiming at trotting from side to side, I finally mentioned it to Captain Mo.
I know, he said. I’d been noticin’ that, he said.
I was just about to suggest that maybe he take THE GODDAMN BOAT OFF THE GODDAMN AUTOHELM AND STEER when Captain Ron staggered up from his nap and offered to take the helm. A half hour later Hennifer, looking a little green, plaintively asked how much longer the trip was going to take prompting Captain Ron to fire up the engines and motorsail the rest of the way. Thank you Jeebus.
So we get to Jost Van Dyke and of course all the mooring balls were taken in White Bay, ditto Big Harbour, which left only Little Harbour. This was a tragic blow to The Schedule. Not only were we not in White Bay, we were in a place NOT ONE OF US had ever visited.
We were waaaaay off The Schedule.
After we settled in, the four of them went ashore to make dinner reservations (quick side note- in most of the islands you HAVE to make reservations because the kitchens only make enough meals for the dinners reserved) so I timidly asked Miss Carol to take a shower with me. She tilted her head and looked at me over her sunglasses for a minute and said- No.
I was crushed. I mean, who wouldn’t want to get into a tiny, cramped, hot, humid, marine shower stall with a sweaty, sunblock greasy man who’s been drinking since noon and hasn’t bathed in six days?
Well. Apparently Miss Carol, that’s who.
So I fumed and they got back and we changed into different t-shirts for dinner and Miss Carol dinghied us over to Sydney’s Peace and Love for dinner.
And I don’t know why, but that place and that island were my favorite of the entire trip. Arguably it was the same kinda lush green mountainous island and gin clear turquoise water we’d grown tired of but for whatever reason it struck a chord. Secluded and remote, it was small and cozy and felt like home.
Except at home, Miss Carol will take a shower with me.
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