Tuesday 7 February – Beach Olympics

We had loads of chores to complete and then had to be on the beach at 10am for the beach olympics one of the Swedish boats organised, they have young kids, plus a big Catamaran from Argentina with loads of kids on it. There are a lot of you crew members on various boats, so it proved to be a very jolly time. It is quite a hairy beach landing with the big tidal changes and small breaking waves. Poor Widge got knocked yesterday and landed in the water. We were grateful to have lots of strong youth to pull JeldiJeldi up the beach as once again we had left her new beach wheels behind! We were put in a team with Canadians, South Africans and Australians called the South Canastrians. Thankfully the young members of the team took on the harder races, like wheel barrow racing and blind folded paddle boarding. We could join in on the sand castle building which we won! Jonny and Rowan helped in the tug of War which we also won. So we celebrated in being the overall winners, glad that it was all over by midday as it was seriously hot on the beach.

Our sand castle building winning team (Widge and I were taking photos)

Jonny and Rowan helping in the tug of war competition which we also won! The Canadian girls were power houses with lots of tips

Exhausted after beating the Swedes!

The whole World Arc fleet

The men went back to PolePole while Widge and I ventured into the village to try and find a supermarket to stock up on some fresh fruit which we are a bit low on. It was a roller coaster walk through the part of the island where the locals live. We finally found the supermarket which was pretty disappointing, we got a few tomatoes but no fruit. Rowan picked us up and we returned to the boat.

Widge and I found this happy family on our walk to the supermarket!

We gave Peter on Renegade (farmer from America) a tow

4pm was the big skipper’s briefing that Rowan and Jonny went to in the church hall. Thankfully there were loads of young to help us get JeldiJeldi high up the beach as we had forgotten our damn beach wheels once again! Widge, Edmund and I went for a walk around a different part of the island and found a lovely beach, sadly mainly private with big homes around it. There was a fresh water lake that the frigate birds were really enjoying drinking from. We returned to the church hall and caught the last of the briefing and then drinks at the pub. i am slowly getting to know who is who, which is quite something with 26 boats and all their crew. I’m still seeing new faces. One boat is called Amanzi which is a Zulu word, so we assumed there were going to be South Africans on board, but it turned out to be the previous owners. Currently owned my Mark from Holland and Claire from England, who turned out to have met our friends the Kirkpatricks from Norfolk. Jaxs and Ian were meant to be on the World Arc with us, but sadly have pulled out of it this year, we may catch up next year, we’ve been meaning to catch up for the past 3 years and have never quite made it!

Our walk around the the island

Loads of Frigate birds

Pelicans in huge flocks

Spikey thorns

One of the boats organised booking out the entire restaurant for dinner at the best rated (out of no more than 5 ) places to eat. It was a fantastic Italian meal cooked by Piero from Bologne, he has lived on the island for 25 years. He served the most delicious pizza and pasta. It was a very jolly evening ending with his home made ice cream which was equally delicious.

The Solana V crew from Canada were at our table

Piero serving his delicious pasta and pizza to the Dutch crew on Pippin