Boats, Boats and More Boats

Tortola in the Virgin Islands.......

An island whose port is undergoing a major upgrade which meant we were being tendered in in the lifeboats and the opportunity for the ignorance of the Great British tourist to shine forth again.

The ship organised tours obviously took precedence for disembarking so the rest of us had to take a ticket and wait our turn. The first tender left the ship at 8am – SWMBO and I arrived for our tickets at shortly after 8.30am and expected a fairly lengthy wait. We didn’t even get the chance to sit down before we were all told to make our way down to the tender. That is when the family group of 12 made their first glorious comment...... complaining of the lack of organisation because they had had to meet in the dining room instead of on the gangplank. Then it was “We are having to go down again – why?” Maybe because you were 3 decks and about 50’ above the water where the lifeboat was? “Hurry up or we might not get on” – the tender takes about 125 people..... they were in the 60s on the counter. Trying to open the emergency escape hatch to let some air in wasn’t the best thought out manoeuvre either.

The town (in fact the whole island) isn’t reliant on tourism the same as most of the others – it is a ‘working’ island with banking being a major money earner so for the walking tourist there isn’t much to see or do (and I wasn’t much in the mood for a 3 hour open sided bus tour on hilly, twisty, rough roads. So SWMBO and I headed down to the marina and found a super bar where we spent very pleasurable couple of hours watching how the other (very rich ) half live on their massive yachts. There were a couple for sail, but SWMBO ruled them out – 0ne was a fibreglass hull (which she hates) and the other was too big (probably at least an 8 berth) which would require a crew to help sail it.

Ahh well! I will just need to keep looking.

We treated A & L to a fancy meal this evening before going to watch an excellent show with a couple of singers.

P&O are missing a trick when it comes to using (or not using) their onboard photography department. They don’t photograph any of the shows which I think is a big mistake. The lighting is superb and puts many a theatre to shame. Some of the department’s efforts should be put into producing some decent advertising shots instead of terrible (and often very tacky) shots passengers who are not interested and who are never going to buy them anyway. Mind you, the overall quality of the stuff being produced in good natural light on this trip is way below par I have to say so the chances of having anyone capable of shooting a stage show is probably extremely low.