Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
scribed how he would put dubbin on his boots in his heavy, Dutch accent, and for years
afterward one of us would point down to our shoes or boots with index and pinky fingers
and in a copied accent would say, “Put dup on da boots, dup on da boots” and do a little
jig. It's a twin thing; apparently twins are renowned for the secret lingo they create amongst
themselves, “Twingo” I guess you'd call it.
After a few cocktails and a pleasant conversation, we left Piet and Rita and headed ashore
to visit the renowned bar that was owned by Jimmy Buffet, the singing sailor who had
made his millions by writing and singing about sailing. Starting off as a humble busker in
Miami, he had ended up a multimillionaire. I was to see him playing years later on the little
island of Kauai which had been all but destroyed in the devastating hurricane Iniki.
We made our way through town to the pub and were disappointed to discover that Jimmy
wasn't in town. The pub had a lot of character, with low slung ceilings and dark oak fur-
niture. There were the usual alcohol-advertising paraphernalia as well as old marine ar-
tifacts and unusual bric-a-brac. We were greeted by a jovial barman and found the place
mostly full of tourists and locals noisily enjoying happy hour. Being twins we sometimes
attracted a bit of attention, and the barman kindly stood us a round when we told him of our
cruise from South Africa. We stayed on for a few beers chatting and finally headed back to
Déjà vu.
Gavin, ever the keen fisherman, set out baited hooks of leftover steak on two lines attached
to the primary sheet winches on either side of the cockpit. We turned in for the night, and
all was quiet.
Suddenly, it seemed, there was a ringing and a spinning out of the one winch. We both
raced up the companionway steps into the cockpit to discover that there was something
rather large on the line. Gavin started to haul in when the other winch started to screech
and pay out the hundred pound test line. I grabbed this and started to haul in as well and
discovered that we had both hooked huge manta rays that were scavenging the harbor sea
bed. We dragged them aboard and cut off the wings to sell to the French chefs at the local
seafood restaurant. We baited up the hooks and retired again. There were no more bites that
night.
In the morning, we took the wings to the restaurant and the chefs were happy to pay us
twenty dollars each for the two plastic bags filled with the fishy delicacy. We decided to
head off north to the British Virgins that morning and within the hour were motoring out
the harbor entrance, waving goodbye to Piet and Rita. “Dup on die boots!”
The trip to Tortola, the main island of the British Virgins where we were to clear customs,
was made in a rollicking five days with brisk fifteen knot trades all the way there. This is
