"Farniente"

The Italian art of "doing nothing"

January 2003

This trip was planned at the last minute as a present to me for the 11th anniversary of my 39th Birthday.....Once again just the two of us for a return trip to paradise.

Due to the short booking we were not able to sail Mama Cocha and ended up with a brand new Foutaine Pajot Belize 43 "Hazelnut", weird name and as it turned out weird boat. The "thing" was big but for whatever reason sailed very poorly and was not very comfortable....

It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Instead of focusing on sailing and spending time on "our" boat we ended up spending a lot more time ashore just limin' with locals and making new friends.

It took us a whole week just to go around Tortola with most of the time spent on Jost practicing "Farniente".

We, of course, anchored ourselves to the Soggy Dollar Bar with our friends KC and Claire but also "discovered" Ivan's where we spent wonderful afternoons. 

Ivan's

One of the best moments of the vacation was just hanging there listening to Reuben in an impromptu jam session with two campers.

Reuben

Some how we found the strength to move on, Thank God for autopilots and diesel, and ended up at Marina Cay on my birthday.

This was another great evening up the hill with Michael Bean followed by a wonderful dinner at Donovan's where Jim and Bob treated us to a bottle of champagne to celebrate our joint birthdays.

Michael Bean

We had to move again the next day as it was our last day and sailed to Peter's Deadman's Bay  for the afternoon and an unexpected run in with Mama Cocha and her crew for the week. They were French and I spent sometime with them giving some advise on how to best sail "our baby" and other tips on the BVIs. I hope they enjoyed her as much as we do.

We returned to the base that evening and went out for our last night to Brandywine where we enjoyed one of the best meal ever.

The food was excellent, the full moon was bathing the patio with milky light and the palms were gently swaying while Davide entertained us with his tales and his best Grappa...unforgettable.

This was another great trip and we are now trying to figure out how to take 3 weeks vacations so we can practice "Farniente" all over the BVIs.......