We did the math the night before to compute the bearing to Anegada. It looked like coming out of Scrub island was a better point of sail despite a bit longer motoring, so at the crack of dawn we got up, moved the boat, and then setup the sail. The transit was a little rocky, but not bad. It was very strange to see the trees of Anegada pop up into view as we headed towards it.
We arrived at 10:00am, plenty of time to find a mooring ball (there were plenty), order the lobster dinner at the Anegada Reef Hotel, eat lunch, and then head onto land, bringing all our snorkel gear with us.
First stop, was to see the flamingos:
Then, we headed over to Loblolly beach, where the taxi driver told us he'd be there to pick us up at 5:00pm before the mosquitoes got really bad! This place was amazing, the complete opposite of Hawaii. We got the entire beach to ourselves for a 15 minute walk. It was uncrowded and beautiful.
The kids went for ice cream and lollipops, and we didn't deny them, after which Arturo, Mark and I went for a snorkel, which was also pretty amazing. We saw manta ray, jelly fish (which we were careful to avoid), and a huge ball of sardines that were being herded by a giant barracuda.
After we had dried off, we each had drinks at the bar, including the kids. And then we started getting a preview of what the night would bring, which was the mosquitoes/midges: too small to see yet irritating and would leave a rash on Xiaoqin's arms.
We went back to the boat to prepare for dinner, but just before dinner time, the bilge alarm went off and wouldn't shut up! We checked all the bilges and called Conch's technical support, but when it wasn't resolved by dinner time I sent Arturo with the family to shore for the lobster dinner and stayed on the boat while being on the phone with Conch. After passing through to 2nd level technical support, the conclusion was to just cut the wire to the speaker. We tried several places but eventually gave up on the speaker and just cut the wire from the starboard bilge float alarm. That done, Arturo picked me up just in time to help eat the lobster, which Bowen didn't like as much as he thought he liked.
It was Lobster Festival Night, which meant that the hotel had loud music playing the whole time. We made up our minds to now avoid any event with the word "festival" in it.
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