Last Day of Racing before the celebration, second only to the new years spectacle.  The awards ceremony ran a close second with fireworks, cold beverages and a DJ.  We celebrated with the crew from Contrary Mary, met some new comrades, chatted up with some of the racers and whooped it up!

After you buy your batch of $5 drink tickets you head to the bar and you can either get a pretty expensive beer for $5 (which should cost $2) or you can get a super duper strong mixed drink.  Which do you think we got once we discovered they were both 1 drink ticket?

Of course we were famished and luckily I spied a food line.  Hmmm, I bet there are food tickets so I went to investigate.  Unfortunately, by the time I got to the ticket booth they were “sold out” of food tickets yet there was still a ton of food.  So, I grabbed my partner in crime and meandered over to see what I could grab.  After a little smooching, puppy eyes, and a lots of smiles, Princess and I walked away with two huge plates full of shrimp and burgers for the boys. Score!!!  The rest of the night might be a little vague but evidently I felt the need to commandeer a chair in front of Perseus, probably only got away with it because we were being silly swabs.

Pics that take your breath away – so spectacular!

JClass Start

Just like that, they are gone

Good Start for Maltese

Pretty Kites

Hey you, got get that line

JClass Finish

Another great day of racing monster machines on the water.

Not sure I have a list, but the St Bart’s Bucket folks sure know how to live. By Invitation only, I can only imagine the invitation envelope covered in gold leaf. These sailing machines are a work of art and magic.  Love the J class boats.

Maltese Falcon with the hammer down.

Maltese Falcon

Its like St Patties but better

Nothing to do, nothing on the agendas.  So I get antsy and I talk Christine into exploring after bacon, egg, and home fries. Always wanted to explore the Rockefeller estate here in Columbier but always seemed off limits.  Today we found a way in without passing too many “no trespassing signs”. Oh my, what that place would have been if it was kept up to date. The structure has weathered the storms well, the grounds are awesome. The basic maintenance that hasn’t been done in decades would take at least another decade to put back together however.  Great hike, should have taken the camera the second time but forgot then too.

Main Rockefeller house, awesome stone work

While we were hiking we had left our dinghy on the beach.  Looked ok, just out of the surf. Dropped the dinghy anchor just to be sure and at every scenic over look we checked on Mrs. Sweet n Low.  Seemed she was doing fine, but when we returned either the tide had gone out ( no real tide here ) or she was moved.  As we got closer she was full of sand, some Good Samaritans had rescued her in our absence.  Thank you to them.  We learned later that the dinghy was bobbing and being thrashed on the beach in the surf so it took 9 folks to drag it up the beach farther and reset the anchor.

Went for a second hike, this time dragging our boat friends from Contrary Mary along and spent longer exploring, again forgetting the camera. Made it all the way out to the day house which had some serious teak work and huge beams still standing.

Weathered lots of storms, the teak work is amazing to this day

Afterwards I floated the idea of a beach BBQ, as we had 4 racks of ribs ready to go.  Game on.  5pm was the time it was 2:15, works out perfect. Started getting stuff in order. Using the newly learned recipes/secrets in the pressure cooker, I prepared ribs 2 styles for finishing on the beach and Christine had baked cookies earlier so we had dinner AND desert today. We were set.

At 5 pm we loaded up all the gear, just like the super yachts and headed to the beach to set up camp. We were going to take 2 dinghies but settled on one so it was a bit crowded but the captain made a perfect landing and what needed to stay dry did. We set up camp and enjoyed cold beverages and conversations. Then 2 nude guys walked by and quickly became the topic of conversation.  Another couple walked by and admired our set up, and wanted to be us.  Later while grilling some charterers on a 70 footer swam  ashore with their kids from Dallas Texas of all places.  Such a small world, I guessed it was spring break, and they were on their way back to St Martin with 4 days left on the Charter.

Ribs turned out decent, friends had brought appetizers and we were set. The only thing was that we had to run back to the boat once.  Propane ran out on the grill with mere minutes to go on the last batch of ribs. Ugh. Oh well John ran me back to the shack where I grabbed one of the other bottles and we landed and continued on.

We carted our stuff back to the boat, sand every where.  After enjoying a few more toddies we sent our friends off for the night. Just then our bag of trash fell overboard. I tried to retrieve it with the bucket I was using to rinse the sand off the boat but it was too far. A quick glance at the ladder, it was down. I jumped in and retrieved it and rinsed all the sand off of me in the process. Worked out perfectly, even if unexpected.

Awesome evening.  No green flash too many clouds during the day which ended up on the horizon. I was able to load music back on the iPod, apple needs to get the offline world sorted.

Tomorrow we chase race boats.