Unusual New Year’s Eve party

Seasickness, reparing daggerboard, turistic island and New Year’s eve party

We sail whole Sunday and it is really bad! It’s good we don’t burn any fuel and run on wind and slide waves, but the boat is shaked up and down and from one side to another. I’ve been sick from morning and go to sleep (10 days on land and one month in the intercoastal waterway don’t prepare you for such a day). I wake up around noon – still the same waves but at least I’m not feeling sick anymore. Jan is a little frightend, Joe is sliding left-right on the deck while steering and nobody thinks about going to galley to prepare some food.

With sunset we are coming to an island and see the waves scary crushing there. We park around the corner and don’t understand why there are waves on the leeward side! And the daggerboard is stucked and won’t go out – we try hammer, pulling and pushing to all sides, I’m going to water to tie a line from the bottom. After one hour trying the guys give up (I’m already warming up in sleeping bag after that bathing)

Jan is in bad mood and seasick. He swears on sailing and claims that this is the last time on a boat and is going to be just a theoretical sailor. If I want to go around the world on boat I should go just with kids. We go sleep really early to forget the wind and waves.

We get up to a sunny day, with slower wind and smaller waves – still not good enough for leaving but ok for staying. In the morning we repair the daggerboard – Jan pushes it up from water (naked) and Joe is able to get it finally back. We realize that today is the last day of the year so we make the first drink around noon and enjoy the free time.

I realize I was on this island 4 years ago (trip with my friend Miro on a cruise ship). Coco island is a private island owned by a company operating cruising ships. Every day a big cruising ship brings here thousands of tourists to enjoy the beaches with sunbeds, hammacks, restaurants, bars and shops. We go for a walk on at the time when the tourist are already leaving. We try to find out if there is going to be any New Year’s Eve party or if there is any bar open. First two employees are surprised that we are there and recommend us next island where is a normal village. At the way back we meet a friendly philipino guy who says there is going to be a party but we have to ask the manager.

Michelle is a nice curly Canadian girl. We explain we anchor here and are stuck here because of the bad weather. We ask about the New Year’s eve party and if we could join it. She says that it is a kind of family event just for the employees but she will let us know on the VHF channel 12 (this is much more than we expected on a foreign private island), we thank and leave. After a while Michelle shouts on us – the dinner starts at 7 and we are going to celebrate the new year at 9pm because there is a boat coming the next day early in the morning and we should bring also our captain. Yuppie!

Happy we go back to our boat (the guys take us in a cart and laugh that we want to swim from the boat to the beach in evening). Joe decides to stay on Dove. We make drinks and cheer for Slovak midnight – 6pm. We pack towels and some clothes to waterproof backpack and jump to water. It is nice warm just the wind is cold. Jan goes first and around him in the water the small animals light as he breaks the water. On the shore we dry, dress and go in the night to find the source of the music.

Michelle welcomes us and shows us where are the drinks and food. We’ve brought 2 of the last Pilsner beers we had on the boat – one for her and one for our philipino friend. We soon meet also Abner – he takes care of us during the whole evening. We join the crowd and meet the people there – they come from Bahamas, Philipinnes, Canada, SAR, Croatia, Mexico and Cuba.

A few specific people:
– Alex – the chief engineer, very friendly Croatian who almost burned his ass by the fireworks. He tried at least half an hour to change our mind not to swim to the boat but rather stay at his place till morning and he will give us a ride then.
– Abner – our friend from Philippines. In their culture the people take care that the guest are having fun and have all they need. He fulfilled this task on 120%. During the evening he took us to their house to sing karaoke (btw: he sings very good) and at the end of the evening he gave us a ride to the beach and was waiting till we get to the boat – to be sure we are all right.
– Eridinea – smiling Cuban girl who assured us that Cuba is a great place to visit
– Michelle – already mentioned manager of the island – with a big hearth. Thanks to her we could be part of the New Year’s eve party which we couldn’t even dream of here.

We thank to everybody and wish all the best in the next year – health, luck, love and success.

We go to the boat at high tide – the water is as high as our chins. We go to sleep before midnight (we celebrated at least 3 new years this day already:)

Dear our family members and friends: we wish you that this new year 2013 will be better that the previous one, you will have reason to smile every day, enough luck, health and love and that your dreams will come true!

Last thoughts: Coco island was in my memories just a touristic island with artificial feel but after this day it belongs to places with big value thank to the people we met here and the experiences we will not forget.

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