The Best Smoothies in the World

The Best Smoothies in the World

Monday 6th - Tuesday 7 January 2025

We have continued to work on boat jobs the last two days. We have now completed our sunshade project (see photos below), and this afternoon I added a final third coat to the varnish on the cap-rail. We re-provisioned at the local Waitrose supermarket and the fresh fruit stand across the road, our fuel and water tanks are full and we are pretty much ready to go. We have twice stopped at the the Fresh Food and Juice Truck behind the marina, and they have great smoothies. Today we both had “Halley Berry” smoothies, and a couple of days ago we had a “Yellow man” smoothie (pineapple and turmeric) and a strawberry, pineapple and banana smoothie - all of which were amazing!

It’s been mostly lazy and relaxing here in Jolly Harbor. I personally am not great at just hanging out, but even I have enjoyed being here. We have been monitoring the weather very closely, and tomorrow morning will pull up anchor and head over to Montserrat. It’s not a long passage - some 25 nm or so - but the issue is whether the anchorage will be reasonable in the current conditions. Winter storms in the Atlantic are now pressing down into the northern Caribbean, creating large northerly swells. We are quite comfortable here in Jolly Harbor, but Little Bay of Montserrat, the only anchorage that is open since the island was devastated by a volcano, is basically an “open roadstead” on the north west coast. The guide book describes it as “often rolly in north-eastern trades, best avoided in bad northerly or northwesterly swells, when the anchorage can be horrible and getting ashore impossible”. The swells are supposed to moderate for a coupe of days, but still essentially from the north, and we hope that it will be comfortable enough for us to anchor for two nights and spend one day ashore touring around. 

If the anchorage is untenable, we will continue on to Nevis and St Kitts, but once again we need to be aware of the next storm system that will bring northerly winds and swells at the weekend.

We are entering a new phase of our expedition as we make our way westwards to the Virgin Islands. This is exciting, but  takes quite bit more thought and planning. We will let you know how it goes!

Mike

Our new sunshade (tan colored). We now have a "dodger" (burgundy with vinyl windows) and "bimini" (burgundy at the stern) which are up constantly, then there is a fill-in white section (actually two pieces, you can use one, or other, or both) and now the "sunshade" (that provides protection from the sides).

Our modular shade system from inside the cockpit. As we point mostly to the east (where the trade winds are coming from) at anchor here in the Caribbean, the sun is often to the south and below our "dodger - bimini - fill-in". The new sunshade is easy to get up and down and is rigged so we can put it up on either side of the cockpit. 

We have had many squalls over the last couple of days. This is looking westwards after one passed through the anchorage

Does anyone know what type of catamaran this is? .... I want one!

Gloria with her sun-downer in the captains chair .... fizzy water (i.e. water with pre-dissolved burps) and ice.