Texas cohorts that we know from Corpus Christi, chartered a 51′ monohull called “French Maid” here in the Virgin Islands. We hadn’t seen this group in many years and we were long overdue!  Chip and Brenda (aka Sandy), Mark and Brenda (aka BB), and Bill and Jan have been coming to the Virgin Islands for a few years and as luck would have it we happened to be in the area at the same time. Sweet!   Matt and I headed over to French Maid to get a tour and catch up a bit before dinner.  We all met at Foxy’s and this time we were going to have dinner instead of just drinks. It wasn’t their normal buffet extravaganza, but it was really tasty.

French Maid with Chip, Brenda, Mark, Brenda, Bill and Jan.

The next day, we snorkeled Great Harbor Bay which was pretty uneventful except for a cool flounder that Bill found.  The coral was not particularly pretty and the species were low in quantity.  But, never a bust to swim in the Caribbean waters.

Hanging out at Soggy Dollar Bar with our Texas Friends.

Mmmm, Pain Killers. a Brenda sandwich with me in the middle.

Then we decided to take the big boats to Diamond Cay, an anchorage we had not visited yet.  French Maid left earlier than we did and were able to secure a mooring.  By the time we got there all the moorings were taken which left either 12-13 meters of water or the shallow edge – we chose to go to the shallow edge and anchored in 2 meters of water.  French Maid came over for a tour and for some of Matt’s famous ribs and our new yummy Blueberry Spritz drink.  Now we needed to go for a swim to work off our meal. Matt had found a spot in the guide book that looked promising so we headed that way.  It was pretty rough over here so we beached the dink and headed out for our swim.  What an amazing snorkel!  There were tons of fish of all species, tons of new and aging coral, huge sea fans, huge sea urchins, and oh so much more.  The water was clear, it was only about 12-15’ deep and there was so much to see.  I have to admit that I exhausted myself a bit as we did a lot of swimming, but so worth it!

On our last night together we decided to go to shore to dine at Foxy’s Taboo.  It is owned by Foxy but a completely different atmosphere than the other Foxy’s location.  We enjoyed a delicious meal together, swapping stories, and relished our time together.

Foxy’s Dinner

Just another night at Foxy’s!

Love my Brenda!

Thank you for your hospitality and generosity – we hope to see you again.