A few inspirational people.

This week we’ve got competitive, we had sandcastle designs and builds which were so spectacular I could have moved into a few of those bad boys. Eric showed off his skills and taught the kids and myself some sand building tricks.

We entered the BVI tag team surf competition, which was held on a stunningly beautiful day at Josihas bay, the conditions were perfect, no wind, sunshine and clean sets of 2ft coming through every few minutes. We put together a cracking team including James aka ‘man hack’, myself and Heath with Isla team captain and beach support aka ‘the boss’. It was set up – two rounds each with three heats, four teams in each heat and thirty minutes for each team member to get in there and surf three waves the best two being scored from each surfer. Right no pressure then, fast paddle out, hopefully straight into a wave as time was of an essence repeat three times, get out and tag the next one, you basically had 10 minutes each. The first round we were on fire and were in the lead by 30points, boom. The second round wasn’t so sweet but we were still ahead and so through to the finals. We kept the same tactics, Jim in first to bust out three huge point scoring waves quickly and get out, followed by myself as always at a more leisurely (middle aged) pace but leaving as much time as possible for the ten year old….. Now I’m not going to apportion blame but basically Jim went left when the rights were definitely the better, longer rides and that’s all I’ll say! Though to be honest the lady I was up against definitely had some bombs and was very nimble on her longboard. Our main opposition were out of the water having surfed all their waves and we were left with 5 minutes remaining and the small figure of Heath sat patiently out back waiting for the wave of the day, he’d already had two awesome waves but we knew that we were behind and we needed something amazing, time slipped by and I started chewing my fingers as there were no nails left, we were a sweaty mess on the beach watching and waiting. With barely a minute remaining lines appeared on the horizon and here it was wave of the day and it really was, with not a hint of the pressure we’d placed our small child under he turned and caught a bomb, not only that he tore it apart all the way to the sand, the whole beach cheered and as this tiny person made his way back to the team, well we couldn’t have been prouder. Now I thought we’d won, just on that one wave of Heaths but life’s not a movie and we got second missing out on first by a point or two, gutted, but still elated by how awesome Heath had been and writing this a week later it still makes me smile and fill up with pride just thinking of that last wave he rode and the smile on his face as he ran up the beach to us.

We’ve also had the pleasure of hanging out with Quest or the Welsh as we call them, these guys have been a joy to spend time with and have definitely improved the kids lives as one they have kids (immediate people to play with) and two a film projector which we have laid in front of, eating popcorn and watching Harry Potter and the deathly hallows, part one and two (Heath finished the book). Hannah (the mum) is very good for me, if I slightly moan about my circumstances, which I do far too often she is quick to shut me down, as we have it good and we do, I have two beautiful, healthy children, I have james here with me and we are having a great time albeit not as we’d planned but still awesome. Hannah and Jack are fun, super positive and the humour in that family is hilarious, they have two daughters Lulu and Delphine and the gorgeous Fin the Portuguese Water Dog. Now it’s hard to write this because they are all wonderful, friendly, generous people and I think they’re perfect but their’s isn’t a simple story either, Delphine who is nine has cerebral palsy and has had it from birth. I don’t know their life because I haven’t lived it and can’t even begin to imagine how hard it has been, it can’t have been easy and yet they are here, enjoying every second, full of life and laughter and to me it looks like both daughters are flourishing. 

Hannah is like myself in that we both fear the video blogging and instead prefer the old school writing method, you can follow this fabulous family on https://m.facebook.com/groups/1655385118052800

We had one lazy afternoon on Puffin which quickly bored the kids so they decided to retry the shell shop, off they went in the dinghy with the crate of treasure they’ve collected, I sat up from my incredibly lazy prone position and watched them head for shore, all of a sudden Heath zig zagged and shot off in a different direction. That was it my interest was piqued and I whipped out the binoculars only to see him coming back across the bay with six, yes six blonde girls all in his boat, “Jim, Heaths got a dinghy full of girls” I may have screamed but my husband didn’t even lift an eyebrow from his snoozing spot and instead came out with “that’s my boy!” Oh my goodness it’s like I shot into the future and suddenly saw my baby with girls, ahhhhhh! Well they’d rounded up a crew of workers and the next thing we saw of them was as we watched them dinghying around the yachts selling their wares directly to the poor unsuspecting sailors who’d stopped to relax for the day. They’d split up half on the beach with the shop and half mobile in the dinghy….. let’s just say they did much better than last time.

We got to experience the full moon party at Trellis Bay, full of fireballs, fire dancers and live music.

Finally we got to meet the legend that is Chris Bertish big wave rider, winner of Mavericks and the first person to stand up paddle across the Atlantic!!!! 93 days that’s all it took on a nineteen ft board with tiny cabin. He did an awesome talk at Nanny Cay about the journey and all the experiences/adventures of his crossing. Agadir, Morocco to Antigua, Caribbean. 1,944,000 strokes each one raising money for Operation Smile, Lunchbox Fund and Signature of Hope Trust and that’s what kept him going. One stroke at a time, One minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time until it was done. He travelled 4050 nautical miles standing just three inches off the sea. He had some awesome stories and did a truly inspirational speech which we were all chuffed to witness.