Where're are you from?

After the early start to yesterday, neither of us were in any hurry to greet the day but when we did get up it was already very hot.

I got the bimini deployed and we had a long lazy breakfast in its shade.
Finally at 12.30 we decided it was time to do a bit of exploring.

We headed ashore in the dinghy to St. Martin's, getting our feet wet in the surf as we landed on the soft sandy beach.
The sand on St. Martin's is very fine and white and used to be exported for drying ink before blotting paper as invented.

We headed for the hotel which looks like a row of two storey stone cottages from a distance and has a lawn sloping down towards the shore.
Or it used to! Now there is a wall at the bottom of the garden and rocks where I remembered the beach.
Is it my memory or have things changed in the 21 years since I was last here?
Anyway we sat under a parasol drinking a nice cup of coffee before we headed inland.

When we reached to island's church we enjoyed the coolness of the interior before heading back out and finding ice creams at the post office further up the road.

On the way back, we stopped at the 'Seven Stones Inn' and had a pint.
The barman asked me where I was from, I said "Ireland".
The reply was "Ya, I know that!, but what part?"
It turned out he was from Tralee in Co. Kerry but had been travelling the world and had ended up with a mixture of accents which is why I didn't recognise it until I listened closely.

We discovered they were serving dinner at 18.00 so we had a second pint and stayed.

That night a swell came into the anchorage when the tide was full, when there is less protection and that rocked us a bit.Read more