Outta Control: Fun times with Gregg and Cyndi, part 1

Monday, April 23, 2012

Fun times with Gregg and Cyndi, part 1

C. S. Lewis once asked, "Is any pleasure on earth as great as a circle of Christian friends by a good fire?"

I am sure that he would agree that spending time with Christian friends sailing, diving and sharing adventures would be a great joy, also.

Yep...that's them

Gregg and Cyndi flew down from Idaho to share their time with us...what a great time it was! We met them in Red Hook, St. Thomas and made a short sail to Christmas Cove. Straight off the dock, they were introduced to sailing, navigation in narrow channels, anchoring and mooring...all in the dark. This turned out to be a precurser for almost every evening afterward; we were having so much fun filling our days with activities that it was difficult to get to the daily anchorages before dark. Of course, when this happens, It becomes quite a challenge...you can't see where you want to be, the person at the helm (Karen or Gregg) can't see the person on the bow doing the hand waving and guiding (me.) Gregg and Cyndi had a lot of fun teasing us about our lip-biting commentary during it all.

Our first morning we sailed along the south side of St. John, headed to Lameshur Bay. Full sails and having a ball in 8' seas...right up to the point we were hit with a rain squall. We were going east and the cloud was coming west. We almost made it. If there's too much sail up, it gets kinda "sporty" on the boat when the wind goes from 15 knots to over 35 knots in seconds. Like the quote on our blog...experience is a good teacher. And we sure got some experience this time.

Tube sponge

Diving at Great Dog Island

Large pufferfish near "The Rhone"

We should leave a brick also...
but what should it say?

I always thought "The Chimney" referred to a large
hole in the rocks. Nope! This is it...a narrow opening
between two rock faces.

We spent some time visiting friends in cool places...such as Kim at Rob White Bar on Marina Cay. We were there to see her boyfriend, Eric Stone, and enjoy his nightly singing performance.