Commodore
March 20, 2025

Bizarre living in a closed down Sea World theme park

It was a mad scramble as Eddie the harbour master arrived cheerily at 8am to move us to a calmer berth. We had asked to move yesterday but it was a bit too choppy so we agreed to this time today, forgetting how us Gormley’s like to sleep in.

Looking over to the seal enclosure

We don’t have neighbours here so a bit more discreet although we do have poor old seals in their pens just across from us. We can only see the seals heads over the wall when they are being fed, they are obligingly very quiet neighbours. The English guy who has lived on his boat here for a couple of years, assures us we should be glad the place is quiet, as they play pumping music all day long. Three times a day they have a seal feeding show, accompanied by ‘Who Let the Dogs Out’ at full volume. Apparently the casino normally pumps out music until 1am, so perhaps this shutdown is the only thing I am grateful to C19 for! We also hear the place has gone bust, but this could be idle gossip, so Rowan and I are hoping that all this sea life may be released, if they can survive in their new found freedom.

We fiddled about with the boat and got loads of ropes out to try and reduce the bounce of the surge. I’m always so impressed when R gets out from some locker with yet another enormous roll of rope. Thank God he did so much research.

We decided to go for a walk in the opposite direction to yesterday, as it looks rather lovely green countryside with cows in it. We first of all had to leave the marina via the rather overgrown boat yard onto the black sand beach. I have never seen so much plastic pollution in my life, very sad and depressing. I couldn’t get over the amount of shoes washed up.

We crossed a little stream and climbed over a fence to get into the area where the cows were. We found an old abandoned road and walked along the coast and then up the hillside until we found a large fence we couldn’t cross, and this is not bundu bashing territory! Dense spiky vegetation up the hill. It was boiling hot, but lovely to be away from any humans, getting some good exercise puffing up the hill while enjoying the Turkey vultures soaring all around us and beautiful little butterflies too.

We returned to Pole Pole and enjoyed a cool breeze out front on the trampoline. We are endlessly going round and round in circles as what to do next. The BVI appears very closed, and if they do let you in it’s for two weeks only and then you have to move on. You can only get fuel and provisions. So Rowan is doing lots of research and phone calling. The US Virgin Islands allowed our friends in after being rejected at the BVI, but they have proper American visas. We only have Estas and mine expires 1 April, and supposedly they have stopped issuing all visas. We need to get the boat somewhere safe for hurricane season mid June. We are only insured in the Grenadines and the US, everywhere else is a risk and we will not be covered. The building at the marina entrance which I thought was a lighthouse is actually the Navy, they have a fairly menacing boat stationed here, which I won’t dare photograph!