I could not believe that Karen actually came and stayed on the boat. The fact that she took the plane on her own was miraculous to me. See, I have witnessed Karen going into mild panic attack just jumping on the tube back in London! Still she made it and we had a ball for 4 days. And she came bearing gifts, face cream that I have been unable to find, as well as oatcakes and bagels which I was craving.
A stroll on the promenade by the sea on the other side of the Isleta in the afternoon gave us the opportunity for a good catch up. After more than 4 months there was plenty gossip to be had. Karen wanted to know all about our trip so far, so we obliged and told the tales.
We went up to the old town in the evening as it was Halloween and the crowds in fancy dress were out. We bumped into Garry, our Australian Ginger Nut, and Adam, also Australian and we joined them for a few drinks and some tapas. On our way back to the boat, we gate crashed the ARC+ welcoming party which was still going strong, the music was good and we stayed dancing and drinking until the early hours… or to be more precise, I did the dancing and Karen and the boys did the drinking.
We were hoping to take Karen for a sail, but I wasn’t holding much hope she would agree to it without a load of coaxing, persuading and cajoling or even kidnapping. She completely floored me when, without prompting, she asked when we would be going out on the boat! Garry, our Australian Ginger Nut, was at a loose end so he joined us too. We could not have asked for a better day for Karen: light wind, plenty of sunshine and very little swell. Ian was kind enough to make the safety briefing as benign as he could but getting the important thing across without having Karen running for the hills. Fitting the life jacket on her was a scream. Once out in the bay, we got her behind the wheel without any difficulty (she was a natural at helming who would have believed she could concentrate on the job at hand) and even hoisting the mainsail! We even practised man overboard manoeuvre when one of the fenders was lost and we had to retrieve it. The previous night carousing had taken its toll though and she had to have a little lie down in the afternoon, and of course she had gotten up very early the morning before to catch her plane.
We had a beautiful day all round and I am so pleased that I have been able to share this with Karen. She must have like it also as she became extremely interested on where we would be next year, which island of the Caribbean would we visit and even mentioning that she would not mind it at all to stay on Mr X with us once we were on the other side of the Atlantic. She even thought that finding a boyfriend with a boat would be a good idea, guess she is hooked on the lifestyle!
Back on the boat in the evening, before I could even make a start on dinner, she had jumped ship. I found her on Arcanum, admittedly a bigger, newer boat. Our Essex neighbours, Margaret, John and Dave, had just come back to get ready to depart on the ARC+ and before we knew it we had an Essex party, complete with gangsters and East End stories in full swing. Needless to say that this wasn’t an early night.
We took it easy the following day, nattering and loafing around the boat when out of the blue Karen said that she would like to climb the mast. So up she went, after much laughter inserting her in the harness…I think she wanted some pictures of her up the mast so she could use them as her profile picture on “Lovesail.com”!
Last walk along the beach and we had diner on board. We reminisced of the good old days at LSHTM (we had skyped Hazel and Terri earlier in the day back at the school) and when I mentioned that I had my tarot cards on board, that was it, I put on the scarf on my head and tried to decipher the cards in the semi darkness . You can imagine how the evening went on!
Time for Karen to leave for the airport after breakfast, time went too quickly, it was just so nice to have her around looking so relaxed and happy, no fretting, no tantrums, up to try everything. I guess she is probably saying the same thing about me. And I do hope that she will be joining us at some point next year in a far more exotic place.