{"id":6459,"date":"2017-01-13T13:31:20","date_gmt":"2017-01-13T18:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=6459"},"modified":"2017-01-13T13:31:20","modified_gmt":"2017-01-13T18:31:20","slug":"norman-island-classy-til-the-sun-goes-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/?p=6459","title":{"rendered":"Norman Island, classy til the sun goes down."},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Friday and we are motoring into 20kts of wind, headed to a new anchorage at Cooper Island for tonight.\u00a0 The wind is strong and blowing from the NE which makes running east along the BVI islands a slog to windward.\u00a0 With a short chop and a bit of an adverse current, it\u2019s a very slow go.\u00a0 Our goal for the week is to make our way to the windward end of the chain, spend a few days at the Bitter End YC and then have a leisurely run back west with the wind at the end of or week cruising together.<\/p>\n

Yesterday\u2019s run from Soper\u2019s hole was about an hour and took us to Norman\u2019s Island, a well protected harbor full or moorings featuring a very nice waterfront beach bar\/restaurant as well as the notorious floating boat bar William Thornton or \u201cWilly\u2019s\u201d as it\u2019s known in the charter community.\u00a0 With some 50 moorings in the well protected harbor there are plenty of charterers on hand to keep these two businesses humming day and night.<\/p>\n

The beach bar, complete with terrific free wifi, is as nice as any Hilton resort and yet it\u2019s only accessible by boat.\u00a0 Of course, there are plenty of day trippers who come over on tour boats from the nearby USVI for lunch.\u00a0 It\u2019s a nice spot.\"\"Beautiful view pf the harbor and clear water. \u00a0\"\"I went there for the afternoon to relax, check my email and make some wifi phone calls.\u00a0 An all around nice afternoon.\u00a0 My crew went snorkeling nearby.<\/p>\n

As the sun set and moon rose above the mountains it was amazing.\"\"And, after dark the \u201canimals\u201d came out to play.\u00a0 Willy\u2019s boat bar, and it\u2019s a sort of converted small freighter, is on a mooring in the cove and is THE spot to be seen after dark.\u00a0 And as well kept as the beach bar is, Willy\u2019s is the exact opposite and the PERFECT place for the charter gang to \u201clet their hair down\u201d, way down, well into the wee hours.<\/p>\n

The bar tenders were eager to serve and serve they did early and often.\u00a0 The guy on the left was also busy dealing in what one reveler called \u201cColorado Salad\u201d on the side and in plain sight.\u00a0 No need to be secretive in the BVI mon.\"\"As the evening ramped up, two boat loads of charterers, festooned in flashing lights arrived ready to rumble.\"\"After a few beers there was a handy sign on the head to keep everyone up to speed on the rules.\u00a0\"\"Willy\u2019s also has a particularly charming custom of putting four shot glasses of who knows what into specially drilled holes in an old waterski.\u00a0 The idea is for four to stand together and as the board tips, everyone drinks at the exact same pace.\u00a0\"\"And the pace is really, really fast.\"\"After a few rounds with the waterski, this fellow decided it was time for a nap.\u00a0 Doesn\u2019t he look cozy in his dink? He even took time to peek over the side from time to time.\"\"After a while his girlfriend, well that\u2019s what I think she was, decided to keep him comfortable. How sweet for her to support him like that.\u00a0\u00a0\"\"There was pounding music and plenty of dancing.\u00a0 I was particularly amused by a group from Ukraine headed up by a sort of soft and pudgy \u201cmini oligarc\u201d holding court with his girls.\u00a0 The girls seemed way more interested in impressing him than he was in them.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0I guess he thought that he was \u201call that and more\u201d on his 50\u2019 Moorings charter cat.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps the girls didn\u2019t realize that his father moved in circles where the boats were about 10x that length. \u00a0\u00a0Perhaps they were in \u201ctraining\u201d for bigger things.<\/p>\n

As the evening wore on, I was even lent one of those lovely flashing hairpieces.\u00a0 Even when I was all dressed up and totally awesome, I was only asked to dance once and by a Brit in her late 60s.\u00a0 Perhaps she thought I too was a mini Oligarch. \u00a0I did my best not to break her bubble. \u00a0 I don’t know, seemed like some sort of angelic halo to me. \u00a0For sure, compared to the “dink nappers” was was a perfect angel.\"\"Norman\u2019s Island is a must stop spot for charterers and the beach bar, well very nice and with GREAT WIFI.\u00a0\u00a0 I recall clearly that I had fun.\u00a0 However, I have a feeling that many of Willy\u2019s customers, while they aren’t sure what they did they were pretty sure that it was fun too. \u00a0 Better them than me.<\/p>\n

I guess, as they say, \u201cyou had to be there\u201d to appreciate it.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Yes, Norman\u2019s a classy spot, well at least until the sun goes down.<\/p>\n

Sure, I\u2019ll have another Caribe.\u00a0 No, perhaps not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Friday and we are motoring into 20kts of wind, headed to a new anchorage at Cooper Island for tonight.\u00a0 The wind is strong and blowing from the NE which makes running east along the BVI islands a slog to windward.\u00a0 With a short chop and a bit of an adverse current, it\u2019s a very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","_s2mail":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6459"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6471,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6459\/revisions\/6471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailpandora.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}