As we near the end of the holiday we decided it would be gala dinner night and booked ourselves into the luxurious Jalousie Plantation.  We were told that dress code was “long trousers and filled in shoes” so we duly brushed and polished ourselves to come up to scratch and not let the side down.  Unfortunately it was a long dinghy ride in across a very choppy bay, wind over tide, but fortunately we had our decoratively styled bin bags and cagoules to keep us dry, and my maxi dress tucked into my knickers, and did a Superman switch on the jetty before approaching civilisation.  Dinner was served impeccably by beautiful girls who would knock Naomi Campbell into a cocked hat and a sommelier who had the most hysterical high pitched giggle in complete contrast to his otherwise unimpeachable demeanour.  We tried not to laugh but it was very, very difficult.  It was all served in the most exquisite modern setting with the tables floating like islands in the grand and airy dining room with lazily turning colonial fans, quirky design ideas such as beds hanging from the ceiling in the bar and uniquely different artistically shaped plates and bowls. Did I mention the delicious yeasty bread rolls?   Mine was carrot flavoured while Bob went for the onion.  Oh my.

We returned gung ho, full of G&Ts and Sancerre, Bob leaping athletically into the dinghy from a great height to release it where it had tucked itself under the jetty, and didn’t care that we were sloppily wet by the time we got on board.

We love this setting, nestled between the soaring Pitons, so much that we decided to stay on an extra day rather than return to the clamour of Rodney Bay Marina.  With the holiday nearly over we decided to spend an utterly lazy day and only left the boat to go snorkelling, the most amazing sights of herds of zebra fish, hoards of blue fish nibbling nervously at the rocks and a long yellow tubular thing.  Wonderful.  We were reprimanded by the water taxi man who told us, most severely, that if we stayed on the boat all day people would think we were old.  Sometimes old can be supremely good.  The mooring balls are so far apart that Bob braved a German moment and whipped off his swimming trunks on deck, rather than besmirch the dry downstairs, on his return from the snorkelling safari but dived rapidly below when the Ranger came to collect his dues.

The only problem is, having decided to take it easy, that we are running low on supplies and there is no local supermarket to pop into.  We are reduced to drinking gin and orange juice which really isn’t too bad after the first pint.