.......the other side of Summer

Anegada Days

Well it's already September 7th today and Summer holidays are drawing to a close with Georgie & William back at school on Wednesday and James off on his travels next weekend.

We had a good break over Festival Week sailing up to North Sound and then Anegada, where we lolled around eating, swimming and reading our books. We did manage to do the walk from Pomato Point to Cow Wreck Bay and didn't see another living soul the whole day. Amazing.

The boys also spent a lot of time whizzing around in the rib. Even the 8 year old was gleefully tearing around (don't tell the Moorings) whilst George belted out "We're on the Hiiiiiighway to Hell". Boy Paradise.

Please note the skipper has his RYA Level 2 Power Boat certification. 

We had our usual share of holidays dramas: Props falling off, over-heated engines, anchors that didn't work and then a sudden gale-force storm which hit us with all our full sails up on the way home - but despite all of that, we did relax and re-humanised ourselves again.

We spent a couple of weeks back on Tortola as I'm still working full time at Osiris and Tyler hung out with the boys and got busy with our new premises, which are cracking along. It all felt very civilized as our alarm clock only went off at 7am instead of the usual 4am.

Fire Proof Building

At the end of August we went over to St John's, our sister USVI island.  We did a day hike on the Reef Bay Trail which we really loved. Dotted along the beautiful rainforest path were fascinating sugar plantation ruins, 2000 year old petroglyphs and valleys of land crabs.  We had forgotten just how much we enjoyed  hiking and it's something to look forward to now that the boys are a little older.

We had an excellent meal at La Tapa, a grown-up sundowners at the rather jooshy Caneel Bay  and our little hotel was perfect for us. Once you look past the flaky-hippy veneer, we really loved St John's and it's definitely our new bolt hole when we feel we may be in danger of common assault on Tortola.

St John's National Park, USVI: Reef Bay Trail

Speaking of which, September is my least favourite month of the year on the island. It's stinking hot, the humidity runs at 100% and the mozzies drive one to distraction. Tempers are short and the invisible fault lines are tricky to navigate. It is very easy to offend someone in September. Then you have to live with it for the rest of the year and perhaps till the end of eternity even. Island life does have its shortcomings, as we know. In fact Island Life would be quite nice if it was in, say London or Las Vegas, but you can't have it all, I suppose.

The good thing about September however is that the island looks beautiful. Everything is lush and flowering. Coral trees are vivid orange, hibiscus and oleanders are everywhere. It's hard to be grumpy for too long.

Our driveway

Last week was our second birthday for the bakery's operations and the week previously was our fourth anniversary living on the island. With only about 6 weeks to go until we open the new premises, the days go by in a blur. We are fiendishly trying to recruit staff, order new equipment, deal with banks and shippers, work with the builders and not lose our minds. Some days we do. Some days we don't.

It's not so much exciting as it is terrifying, exhilarating and exhausting. Lots happening, lots of change and lots of lists.

Sounds about normal for us then.

Messing around with Anderson/Brockbank, the BVI Olympic Sailing Team