Wednesday and Thursday in Nanny Cay have been a busy couple of days for the participants of this year's Caribbean 1500. Coulicou, Avanti and Moonshadow all arrived Wednesday afternoon (just in time for yesterday's happy hour on the beach!), and all but Miramar - who departed Hampton one week late - are in port!
"Hello, we lost our winds Tuesday morning, so spent the day beating east with the motor," wrote Jeremy from Mirarmar. "We caught a NE wind last night at 11pm, and have been riding it through the night and today. Nice ride, 8-10 foot swells, a little sea state. It sounds like we'll be able to keep up this easting until the weekend, at which time winds will push us south again. Our best to all that have made it already!"
Henry from Horizon Yachts, a local charter company here in Nanny Cay, started Wednesday morning off with a 0930 seminar in Horizon's 'Chart Room' on cruising in the BVI. The room was filled with aerial photos, marked-up charts and local information on everything Virgin Islands, and Henry spent over an hour sharing his local knowledge with the group.
"I was so impressed with his talk that I think I'll bring the family down and charter here!" said one participant, who'd' initially thought he'd go from St. Martin or points east. Another is considering putting his yacht in charter management with Horizon, which several current and past participants have done over the winter months to save on the cost of keeping a boat here all season.
 The afternoon saw Sam from BVI 360 Tours lead two vehicles full of rally participants on a tour of Tortola. Sam and his co-driver showed up right on time (island time, of course!) a half hour late, but made up for it with cold beer at each stop during the trip around the island.
The first stop was Soper's Hole in West End, the little anchorage where the 1500 traditionally used to use as their first port of call in the BVI (and has since changed thanks to the local authorities now offering custom's clearance right here in Nanny Cay marina for all rally participants). Soper's Hole offered a chance to grab lunch at Pussers for Merril, Mary and Fred aboard Serenity, and chance for ice cream cones for the family on Helia and the lads on JAC.
The group reconvened on the vehicles - which were open-air affairs, called 'tap taps' in Haiti, we've heard - and set off towards the windward side of Tortola, up and over a serpentine mountain road and past local churches and schools, the driver pointing out landmarks along the way.  The next stop was the world-famous Bomba Shack, where several crews sampled the 'Bomba Punch' and got a little taste of what the atmosphere can be like on a rowdy Full Moon party night by all the underwear hanging from the ceiling of the rickety little building (it truly is a shack, right on the beach). The sign outside is clear - this is an adult establishment.
The beach beyond the bar was post-card perfect, surfers playing in the waves on the flat calm Atlantic - "definitely not the same ocean we sailed in on!" joked one participant, alluding to the squally and rainy arrival they experienced. The girls from Helia skipped the bar and played in the sand, getting their feet wet in the waves and watching the surfers offshore.
The next stop was another typical Caribbean scene. Sam took us up and over another mountain road and down into Cane Garden Bay, made famous by the Jimmy Buffett song. We stopped off at the Callwood Rum Distillery, a 400-year-old establishment that still makes everything local and on a very small scale.
 "It's the only place in the world where you can buy this rum," the resident rum-master told us, before offering each participant a swig of four different varieties. The building itself was right out of a pirate movie, with crumbling stonework and open-air roofs, and they still use the same techniques that they did centuries ago.
Finally it was up and up again, to the top of Tortola and an old restaurant that offered panoramic views of the island and it's surroundings. Sam pointed out all of the BVIs and USVIs you could make out through the haze. The air was nice and cool, a respite from stagnant heat of the sheltered marina. The tour concluded back at the marina four hours after it began, just in time for last night's pizza happy hour at the beach bar.
Thursday morning, participants filled the upstairs area at Peg Leg's for a seminar on the 'rest' of the Caribbean, given by event manager Andy Schell. Favorite spots on islands from St Martin to Grenada were covered, and several participants chimed in with their own experiences from having been there in the past. Many of the yachts in this year's event plan to head further afield - "we're thinking about Christmas in St. Lucia," said Ginny from Helia - so the morning was a great way to talk about the leeward and windward islands and what's on offer down island (the link to the photos from this morning's Caribbean seminar will be online Friday).
Tonight is the last BBQ on the beach by Peg Leg's super-duper chef Vaughn, who will be cooking up burgers, fish and chicken. Tomorrow night's prize giving ceremony and dinner at Peg Leg's concludes the 2012 Caribbean 1500. Stay tuned for the results from the competitive division as well as all the special prizes!
UPDATED: Here's the link to the photos from Andy's Caribbean seminar yesterday...
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