What To Do When Life Gives You Watermelon Juice.

Where the heck IS this island of St. Vincent? Let’s have a look:
It’s right under that star. Now let’s zoom, zoom zoom……..We basically operate here along the west (left) coast, from Kingstown to Fancy.

Our morning swim today was planned for a previously un-swum (by us, and perhaps by anyone?) stretch of coastline south of Chateaubelair. We jumped off our yacht Dlokoko and swam toward shore. The closer we got, the more “stuff” there was in the water: lots of biological bits, mostly ctenophores - jellyfish-like little guys that feel like skinned grapes when they slip between your fingers. We also felt a few sea lice stings, more of an annoyance than anything else. But soon we spied a Caribbean box jellyfish, one you definitely do NOT want to tangle with. Their stings aren’t lethal, but getting stung is no picnic. So we swam back to the yacht and headed south, finding clearer waters in Petit Byahaut, a favorite of ours. 

Uh-oh, the onboard watermaker broke. Not a huge deal but this coastline is so remote that there isn’t another way to fill the water tank, so we motored back to the marina, had lunch there, filled the tanks, and headed back up the coast to the bay at Happy Hill. After a somewhat challenging morning, we were glad to find glassy calm waters, no wind, and mostly friendly creatures in the water column. Rick and I swam about 2 miles together. We saw an electric ray, which was pretty cool. 

A lesser electric ray, also known as the torpedo ray (Narcine bancroftii) stole an already pretty great wildlife show on our afternoon swim. - HP

Chef Mal had juiced some watermelon for me, so I made up a cocktail with the other ingredients we had around:

The Happy Hill Cocktail

2 oz Tequila

1 oz Triple Sec

1 oz lemon juice

4 oz watermelon juice

Shake with ice and strain into whatever glasses your yacht has, over ice. 

Dinner was outstanding - seared tuna with an orange and ginger glaze over a roasted red pepper and cauliflower puree, with grilled vegetables. Baked cinnamon pears with boat-made orange and nutmeg ice cream for dessert. Uncle. 

Thunderstorms roll in over Happy Hill. Dlokoko rocks us to sleep.

Hopper