(I forgot to include a link to read a little more about Junkanoo if you’re interested. Feel free to check this out if you’d like to hear more about this tradition.)
Happy New Year!
Sabrina and I took the dinghy around to Settlement Creek on New Plymouth yesterday afternoon for the local festivities. The amount of people compared to Friday was astounding, check out the two photos of the “Jail” below to see what I’m talking about.
We were able to raft off the dinghy at the public dock and head ashore. The parade was definitely running on “Island Time,” it was advertised to start at 2:00 and finally kicked off a little before 4:00. My theory was that this kept all the visitors milling about town and going to the numerous conch stands and bars. There was a stand on the public dock operated by a man and a woman with another guy cleaning fresh conch in the water nearby. The gentleman at the stand painstakingly made conch salad fresh about 10 servings at a time. You had to get a ticket and wait in line for over an hour to get one of the salads, but everyone said it was worth it. I didn’t have the will to wait so I purchased the conch fritters which were delicious.
The Junkanoo parade was wonderful and I couldn’t believe the size of some of the “floats” that the dancers wore in the heat. The drummers tirelessly beat on makeshift toms or 55 gallon drums with their bare hands. The locals followed the parade, dancing along to the beat and waving hello to all their friends.
We made it back from New Plymouth before dark, I cooked a nice dinner and we headed to the bar for a drink around 10:00. The island was pretty quiet and we ended up ringing the New Year in back on the boat.
Sabrina and I are starting our New Year’s Resolutions today- our most important one is to pare down our possessions and clean out the boat! We’re using GTC to finish up some things on the internet that we didn’t have time to do before we left, and we can’t wait to anchor out in some peace and quiet at Manjack Cay in the next couple days.
Hope you all had a safe and Happy New Year!
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