Wow, what an absolutely horrible way to wake
up! I was sleeping nicely. For those of you who know our boat, we have
two ports on the stern (right by where I sleep) and they allow for some awesome
fresh air during the night. Well, last
night was probably the last night I will ever open those ports. About 7:00am, a massive wave hit the stern
of our boat and flooded in through those open ports. A ferry passed a little too closely and THEIR wake became OUR
wake-up call. Saltwater was
everywhere! We quickly closed the
ports, stripped the bedding, grabbed towels and tried to soak up as much of the
water as possible. But … our mattress
was already heavy with saltwater. It
was a disaster! We spent the next
couple of hours trying to dry things out.
We hand washed the sheets/towels in fresh water and hung them around the
boat to try to dry. We removed the
mattress from the rear cabin and it is now standing in our main salon. It will not be able to be used for some time
while we try to dry it out completely.
It was a horrendous start to the day!
But hey … it can only get better from here … right?
Wow … it did get better! I’m proud of us. We could have let this little disaster completely ruin our
day. But … we both kept it in
perspective and refused to let it ruin anything. We dinghied to shore to hike the island as planned. We met a guy who actually lives on this
otherwise deserted island. There is an
abandoned hotel and this guy has taken up residence in it. Ilet a Cabrit … population ONE! He has quite the set up too. He makes clay masks and part of the hotel
has been converted into his art studio.
Larry is very jealous of this guy.
He’d love to find a little hide-away just for us.
The hike was amazing. There are stone paths that lead to many old
ruins. This place must have been
amazing before all these ruins were … well, ruined. And the views from the hilltops are exceptional! We hiked all the paths and ended up at the
highest peak where Fort Josephine sits.
We’d brought a picnic lunch and dined with the goats. This island has MANY goats who call it home.
I want to tell you that our picnic lunch was
picture perfect. We sat on one of the
stone walls of the fort and dined on crab salad sandwiches, oranges, chips and
of course no picnic would be complete without a nice (few) glasses of
wine! Herds of goats cautiously watched
us from a distance. The picturesque
town of Borge de Saintes could be seen far below and the surrounding waters
shimmered in the sunlight. Everything
was perfect … and then … they found us!
The bugs hit with a vengeance. I
guess they figured, if we could stop and eat … so could they! Our paradise had been invaded. We quickly soaked ourselves in bug spray in
an attempt to ward them off and gathered up all our “stuff”. As long as we were moving, we seemed fine. Once we stopped, ouch! It sucked!
We kept moving.
Now this is the way to hike. I had a glass of French Bordeaux and Larry a
glass of our homemade chardonnay (he didn’t care for the Bordeaux). The remainder of our hiking was done sipping
wine from our plastic, stemless wine glass.
Nothing was going to stop us from enjoying ourselves today. Even when the rains came and we were
completely soaked to the core, our moods remained high. We were having a blast!
During our hike we saw two spots where
lightning hit from the last storm. The
inside of the branches were burnt right through but the outside barely looked
damaged. The trees still
smoldered. It was lucky the fire hadn’t
spread and stayed contained to the effected tree.
Back on Soulmatie, we quickly shed our wet
clothes and donned our bathing suits.
Within no time, we were gliding along with the fishes. The water felt refreshing and soothed my
aching back. We are moored very close
to shore so it was a very short swim to the rock/reef along the coast. As Larry describes it … it was the best
snorkel ever! We saw so many unique
critters and lots of sea anemones. Make
sure you view our “photos” page because we’ll upload all our snorkeling photos
so you can see for yourself how beautiful it was.
Once playtime was over, we had more
chores. We had to set up the rear berth
with cushions from the salon so we had a place to sleep. We used the one cushion from the long settee
and the two from the bench seats around the table area. It wasn’t ideal but it was a great deal
better than sleeping on the hard fiberglass!
Luckily, we have a clean set of sheets. The other set is hanging in the cockpit with
all the towels trying to dry in this damp air.
It may be awhile!
So … considering we had such a miserable
start to the day, it has ended up being one of our best days ever! So, as we so often find … along with the
good comes bad … but fortunately, along with the horrible comes amazement! This was a day we will not soon forget!
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