A Vorpal Slice of Hogmanay

Position: 18°30’02″N 64°21’57″W

Last year we celebrated New Year’s Eve in Charleston, South Carolina. Avid readers of this blog will recall the ‘bomb cyclone’, aka freak snowstorm, that brought the city to a standstill. Our big celebration was to crawl out of Aleta’s snug salon and watch the fireworks while listening to the din of a party on the flight deck of the USS Yorktown.

This year we joined the crews of Loon and Moonlight Serenade at the Leverick Bay resort beach bar on Virgin Gorda for happy hour and the pirate singalong show starring Michael Beans. Turns out Beans founded a grammar school in Haiti that needs help with fundraising and development. Carol introduced herself and cards were exchanged. After which we retired by dinghy to Moonlight Serenade for snacks and chats until the curtain on 2018 fully ran down.

Half way across the sound in the darkness, Kenny from Loon’s outboard engine crapped out. Adrift without a radio, he was lucky Bill and Rebecca from Moonlight Serenade weren’t far behind him and offered a tow. Despite the wind and the booze, we all made it safely back to Moonlight Serenade.

Rum Doings

Once there, Bill fell into his berth thanks to an early and extensive withdrawal from his Rum Fund. We weren’t about to let a little thing like that slow us down. Rebecca, meanwhile, had outdone herself. The treats and snacks kept appearing from the galley and we caught our second and third breaths.

For entertainment, Rebecca broke out her well-thumbed book of poetry. Putting on my ‘hoots mon ya didnae’ Scots accent, I did my best to massacre Rabbie Burns’ “Ode to a Mouse”. Rebecca replied with her favorite poem, Carl Sandberg’s “Chicago”. We finished the readings with “Jabberwocky”, Lewis Carroll’s version of the Lord of the Rings in seven stanzas (instead of three tortuously long books). And the source of many phantasmagorical neologisms.

Around us lights blinked on, parties raved, and eventually, at the stroke of midnight, conch horns blared. Any talk of resolutions was quashed with general derision. Rebecca was holding out for an all-nighter, and (only marginally) failed to convince the more exhausted members of the party (i.e., the rest of us).

Clambering back into our dinghies, we made our way back to our respective boats and turned in, completely unconcerned about what 2019 has on offer.