March 19, 2008

We’re sitting here in Georgetown with the wind honkin outside. We’ve had about 30 hours of 20 to 28 knots and we have another 18 hours of 15 to 20 knots to look forward to. It’s not all that bad as we’re hanging from a well set anchor and are as close to the beach as anyone. Christy even went shelling with the girls today while I changed the engine oil and did some other small jobs. But this has given me time to reflect…….

Let’s talk about Regatta. The big event during the winter here is the Cruisers Regatta. This year it was about eleven days of madcap fun unless of course, you have a life.

I was under the impression that most of the sailors here were “out and about” to taste what the world has to offer. I was wrong. It seems that a majority of these people are here to force what they have to offer on the rest of the world. Regatta used to be about racing your boat. Now it’s morphed into some type of geriatric Olympics. There’s still a day of racing but there’s also beach golf, softball, volleyball, bocce, bridge, funny hat day, sand sculpture, Texas holdem’, you name it, they got it.

It’s bizarre; everything is organized to the minute. Some of the volleyball teams practice twice a day, there’s commitments and responsibilities. Whatever happened to sitting on the beach and reading a book? There are opening ceremonies and a talent show, it’s a regular circus. The VHF is alive with commercials for the various events, there’s volunteer recruiting, you must, you should, you gotta……gimme a break.

At first there weren’t enough cruisers interested in playing softball this year. You should have heard the chairman of softball cajoling people into playing on the VHF. “We play softball every year and this year there isn’t enough interest, find it in yourselves to uphold this regatta tradition” He was pathetic. Each event has a chairman and I guess the pressure to not drop the ball was evidently weighing heavily upon him.

A great number of people live for these events. They can’t wait to see what’s going on where. On the other hand, we found that’s there’s actually a counterculture to these organized events. It’s called the BAR, Boaters Avoiding Regatta. When we were in Long Island we ran into a good number of members of the BAR. It seems that when Regatta is about to start, they flee for parts less traveled. As boaters are sucked into Georgetown to attend Regatta the out islands become even more deserted and thus more attractive to members of the BAR. We were headed for the Jumentos and had timed it to avoid the madness of Regatta. We just didn’t realize that by doing so we had joined the BAR.

Another interesting facet to Georgetown is the social calendar. There’s been a few dances, live music, alcohol appreciation nights and AHOY (Alcohol Hors d'oeuvres & Other Yummies) gatherings. The ugliness of some of these people came to the surface just the other day though, alcohol may have been involved.

Theres a guy I’d classify as a boat bum that lives here. He’s an average sized guy but he only weighs about 125 pounds. He’s one of the skinniest people I’ve ever seen. He lives on a 24 foot sailboat that obviously hasn’t moved in a long time. He might be a French Canadian, he speaks with a very heavy accent and can be hard to understand, especially for the people that seem to ignore his existence. When we first met him someone else told us that he is a talented artist and lives on less than 2000 dollars a year.

Anyway, it seems that the other night there was a beach party down at Hamburger Beach. As usual everyone brings a bowl or plate of something to share. This guy rows his dinghy, sometimes over a mile and attends all of these events and dutifully brings something with him. Its usually a plate full of nicely laid out leaves, each one decorated with some type of condiment. It literally looks as if they’re leaves with some ketchup or mayo drizzled across them. You couldn’t make me eat them but at least he’s trying.

So it seems that someone had the balls to publicly chastise this guy. They said he brings crap to the parties, he eats too much and nobody wants him there. Sometimes there are a hundred plates of food there. The man is obviously starving and some drunken asshole and his cronies are counting how many munchies this guy is eating. The next day on the radio it turned into a big brew ha ha. Then the Christians started calling each other on the carpet, and then it turned into a who was the more devout Christian thing. After all was said and done it did end up as a positive thing for the skinny guy as most people were appalled by the lack of compassion that a few cretins had displayed.