Chapter 53

"Good morning," I called with a friendly wave as I passed an anchored yacht on entering the harbour at Philipsburg under sail. Once clear of its bows I turned WorthIt II directly into the wind using the autopliot and furled the last bit of the roller main as the slowing boat moved on under its own inertia to a clear spot where I walked forward to the winch and let the anchor chain run out as the gentle breeze pushed WorthIt back down wind until with about 120' of chain was out and I put the brake on and we stopped. All secure I stepped up onto the cabin top and bobbed a curtsey to the other anchored yachts

That was the moment when in my mind there would be a thunderous round of applause but in reality the boys came whooping out of the cabin, Michael threw back the hatch behind which he'd been surreptitiously filming and Tracy started the engines to securely set the anchor upon rising from her position hidden on the cockpit sole!

It was Daniel's idea originally but Jacob, as an equally entitled twin put the kibosh on Daniel getting the limelight. I was chosen for my sailing ability? No, I was chosen to get maximum reaction from onlookers as the least likely looking to be single-handing an 82 foot yacht! Still whether it was a put-up job or not I had done it without help which left me with an ear-to-ear grin for ages.

Our only reason for leaving St Barts early for the 14 nm hop to St Maarten was that Daniel and Jacob wanted to go plane spotting so they came into town with all of us but Michael and Sam, then grabbed a taxi as soon as Tracy had cleared customs and immigration. Quite why anyone would be excited by watching planes eluded me! Boys gone we got on with helping Sheila shop for fresh produce and which we dinghied back to WorthIt in huge quantities because Christmas was only 5 days away.

Sam and Michael were ready to go for a tour when we got back and, unlike the others, when it was offered I wanted to join them. Having a day out with your boss is probably odd but this might be my only chance to see this island and in a couple of weeks I would be back in cold wet Britain while the rest of the crew were in the Bahamas - QED! It turned out that the high point of the trip was the Butterfly Farm, so definitely a low adrenalin day although they did have the butterfly I'd chosen to show the colour scheme of the new boat being built back home.

To get to the butterflies we crossed, without problem, from the Dutch to the French halves of the island just like in any other part of the EU and I realised that as an EU passport holder I could have moved here to work - an idea which, looking at at the skin colours around me, had occurred to a lot of others.

Once back on the boat plans were made to push on west but I didn't understand the rush until Tracy said that as Samantha wanted to be in St Thomas on Christmas day next Monday, we had to clear US customs into the US Virgin Islands by Friday or risk having to wait at anchor 3 days until the officials finished their holiday! That wasn't going to stop us hitting the casino this evening though, and with the boys back aboard with their video camera we even had time beforehand to see what was so exciting about watching planes landing then taking off again. For some reason it had never occurred to me that someone would stand directly under the aircraft at the end of a very short runway!

I'd never been to a casino before so was warned to take only as much money as I was prepared to lose. In my mind it was going to be like the old James Bond movies and donning my new white dress I felt both glamorous enough to play the part yet, maybe for the first time, impatient for the surgery to be over on what was held tightly back between my legs so that I could get on with my life.

"All ashore who's going ashore," called Tracy and leaving my cabin to join the others in the saloon I realised I hated Sheila, Tracy and most of all Samantha for looking that good. Still, I told myself I'd have my revenge in 10 years when they were all ancient and wrinkly!

They gave us money when we entered the casino, or rather vouchers that we could use for gambling or buying drinks. Maybe it was because we looked so good compared to most of the customers or maybe it was because casinos are run by kind generous people? More likely it was to get us into the habit of spending rather than just watching. The process of having your money extracted is quite painless and the only one who wasn't quickly cleaned out was Bruce who mostly watched the blackjack table where I played using my limited experience of playing pontoon back in the UK. Although on a winning streak at the time Bruce was happy to leave with the rest of us when we agreed to a drink and dance before setting sail.

"Were you card counting?" Michael asked Bruce when we'd arranged a table at a nearby club. "Because I was impressed that you could leave the table so easily when you were winning."

"Nothing that sophisticated." Bruce laughed. "Watching Venus lose I saw it was because lots of low cards had come out of the shoe which meant that I would have an advantage from then until they reshuffled the cards. It's like boom and bust in economics - to come out on top you join in early on an upturn then watch for changes that precede the bust. Back in England I got a mortgage to buy a house relatively cheaply in 1995 which I've rented out but I hope to sell the house in 5 years and then buy my own boat the next time after that when boat prices drop."

"Too serious!" said Sheila jumping up. "We came to dance so on your feet everyone." That meant Tracy and I got the boys and we didn't let them off the dance floor until they were ready to drop. Walking back to the dinghy Tracy complained "That's the trouble with men. No stamina!"