Green Turtle

Out here cruising on the sailboat, you’re always looking at the weather!

So it was that we saw a front coming and headed for safe harbour at Green Turtle Cay, an island three and a half miles long and a half mile wide, with 450 inhabitants.

There are two sounds that provide protected anchorages at Green Turtle — and we are most familiar with White Sound, which also offers mooring balls for $20 a night.

So we left Crab Cay early in the day with Tranquilizer and arrived just in time to pick up the last two. The wind had already piped up so it was a bit of a challenge to pick one up — also it had no pennant to grab — so it would have required lifting a 40 pound ball and chain, not an easy manoeuvre.

Luckily, a considerate Canadian fellow saw us and came over in his dinghy to give us a hand.

On the good weather days we rented a golf cart and toured the island, showing Beatrice and Marco some of our favourite spots and beaches and picking up some essential supplies in New Plymouth, the settlement — rum and coconut bread! We visited Miss Emily’s Blue Bee Bar, home of the Goombay Smash, and had one — one was enough! (Another day we went to Pineapples and had a copycat smash — and it was even stronger!)

While we were at Miss Emily’s, young Garrison came along looking forlorn. I asked him what was wrong and he said he had nobody to play basketball with — there were no kids on the court.

Marco, being a kind and sweet man — also 6 foot 5 inches –volunteered to have a go. Afterwards Garrison came inside to have a look at our cameras. I really wish I had had a polaroid at that moment to give him. What a sweetheart!

On bad weather days, we hunkered in the sailboat and watched the wind cause its havoc. One day Bob observed a family of four in a dinghy that appeared to be flailing in the sound. Their motor had stopped working and they were clinging to the pilings on a dock. It didn’t take him long to jump into our dinghy and go see if he could give them a tow. They happily accepted and Bob delivered them back to their cat. We all try to help each other out here.