| Davide Ha Cinquant'anni
Friday, January 23 We are really excited about this trip, which will be the first of four trips that we have planned to the BVI this year. I finalized the plans for our June bareboat charter yesterday. We will have a Moorings 3800 catamaran June 5-15. It will be just Nancy and I on the charter, and we set those dates so that Davide and Cele will be able to get away and join us over two weekends in that time span. In making plans for the year, it has been very difficult to not slip and mention this trip or give any hints about it to Davide. To keep up the secrecy, we even mailed Davide a birthday card last week saying that we wish that we could be with him to celebrate.
While we are on the way to Miami, Nancy expresses concern that Davide might try to call me on the telephone today and someone at my office might let slip that we are gone to the BVI. I tell her no fear -- my phone is set for direct phone mail. When we land in Miami, I ask Nancy what she thinks the chances are that American Airlines flight 1305 to San Juan will make it in time for our connecting flight to Tortola. She answers that she has been afraid to even bring the subject up, for fear of bringing on bad luck. Flight 1305 from Miami to San Juan is a crap shoot, but it was the only flight that we could get today that would get us to San Juan in time to make Davide's party tonight. To increase our chances of making it all the way through to Tortola on time, we are not checking any baggage, which is a first for us on our trips to the islands. We only have two carry-on bags and our trusty old backpack. The backpack must have 100,000 miles on it by now. Along with our clothes, we have packed Davide's birthday gifts. In addition to the apron, we have a couple of pair of chef's pants, a bottle of Jacopo Poli Merlot grappa (the best grappa!), and a bottle of Tuaca (Davide has never had Tuaca). We board 1305 on time and, at 11:00AM (our scheduled departure time) I say to Nancy, "It is time for the captain to make an announcement." Less than fifteen seconds later, the captain turns the intercom on and gives us the news: some electrical connectors in the belly of the Airbus A300 were knocked loose by the baggage handlers when they were unloading cargo from the previous flight, and some of the airplane's avionics are not working. Maintenance is working on it now, and they anticipate that we should be underway within another fifteen minutes or so. Half an hour later, the captain comes back on the intercom and announces that the connectors have now been fixed, but that the flight's baggage could not yet be loaded because the maintenance crew has been working in the baggage space of the aircraft, so we will have to wait a bit longer while they finish loading the flight's baggage. We finally push back at 11:50, and are in the air shortly after noon. The connection in San Juan will be close, but we should make it safely. The story could be different if we had checked any baggage. After we take off, the flight crew announces that headsets for the in-flight entertainment can be purchased for $2.00 for those who wish to watch "the sitcom". (On American Airlines, the "sitcom" is the CBS "Everybody Loves Raymond" show). Shortly thereafter, they announce that the airplane's video system is not working, so there will not be "a sitcom". I am guessing that whatever was disconnected down below caused the failure of the video system, and I wonder what other avionics systems are also still dead. The A300 is a "fly-by-wire" airplane... But, there is a bright side to this misfortune. For once, we get to make the trip to the islands sans the whining Ray Romano family! The flight to San Juan is very pleasant today. The air is very clear and the surface winds on the Atlantic are very light, so the colors of the water across the Bahamas are extraordinarily vibrant today.
We don't have to wait for our baggage this time, so we are the first people through BVI Customs. There is a new wrinkle, though. The BVI government now has a green form for customs declarations (in addition to the white immigration form). The new form is quirky in that it has a couple of questions on it that are somewhat ambiguous. At the end of the form is a section that asks if you are importing anything or bringing in any gifts and, if so, what is the value. I check yes and declare $100 as the value for Davide's gifts. When the customs agent reads the form, she asks what we are declaring and I tell her that the $100 declaration is for birthday gifts. She says that the duty will be $10. We pay her in cash and she places the $10 under her counter without giving us any receipt. A short taxi ride later, we are at the Hodges Creek Hotel, where Cele has made reservations for us. Originally, we were to stay with her and Davide. However, since Davide's mother and father are now staying in the guest room at Tiffany House, we are staying right next door at Hodges Creek. We check in and are in room #203. The rooms here all have names -- ours is "Little Thatch". The rooms here are very nice -- very clean and comfortable with nice bathrooms. "Little Thatch" is a waterfront room with a nice balcony out over the marina. The marina is full of Sunsail boats. There are numerous Sunsail bareboats in slips or on the bulkhead with charterers aboard that have elected to spend their night before their charter actually begins sleeping aboard their boat. We drop off our bags and walk down to the bar for some rum refreshments. The bar is area is at the east end of the Calamaya Restaurant. The restaurant's design is very striking -- Euro-modern with classic touches. No surprise -- Davide designed the restaurant when the hotel was built and was the executive chef at Calamaya before he and Cele opened Brandywine Bay. As we take our seats in the bar, Nancy looks at her watch and says, "Only another hour and forty-five minutes!" The party at Brandywine Bay is set to begin at 7:00PM.
A couple of rum drinks later, it is time to get dressed for Davide's party. Nancy and I change into matching black and white Jams World. Tropical, but definitely in the fiftieth birthday party motif. We share a taxi with David and Sharon and arrive at Brandywine Bay Restaurant at 7:00PM sharp. We walk in and I catch Cele by surprise, asking her if she thinks that they can make room for dinner for us, even though we don't have a reservation. We both get big hugs and kisses from Cele. She looks very excited, and we sense that she must be about to explode with the pressure and tension of getting this party off without Davide knowing about it. She tells us that Davide has been called to Capriccio di Mare to keep him away while the guests are arriving. There are already quite a few guests. We see a couple of people that we already know -- cohosts Ed and Barbara Pascoe, who we met during festival at Malcolm's party over in Carrot Bay. We go out on the terrace where we met Val and her husband Mike. We talk to them for a couple of minutes before we realize that they are TTOL'ers. Val is "island_girl_123" and Mike is "chef_mike". They are a delightful couple and have accumulated some fantastic experiences over the thirty years that they have been married. The two of them have lived in just about every imaginable part of the world except Antarctica. They have been living on Tortola for the past two years. Mike is the head chef at the New England Culinary Institute at the H. Lavity Stoutt Community College on Tortola.
While we are waiting for Davide to arrive, I go into his office to see how the TTOL "Davide Ha Cinquant'anni" thread is going. There are now about 20 very nice replies in the thread wishing Davide a happy birthday. At 7:50, we see Davide drive up. We know that he will be coming up the back way into the restaurant, through the back door into the kitchen. I move to position myself and get my camera ready to get good shots of Davide as he enters the restaurant.
Before I lower the camera, Davide spots me, and I get a photo of THAT facial expression! Davide is speechless as Nancy comes forward. After another couple of moments, Davide spots Sharon and David. He simply cannot believe that we are here. He tells me that now he knows why I did not return his telephone call when he called me at my office this morning... Before being absorbed into the crowd, Davide introduces us to his mother Cecelia and his father Orazio. I tell Orazio "Mi chiamo Walker e Davide č il mio fratello." Orazio is ecstatic to learn that he has a fifth son.
The bar at Brandywine Bay has everyone well lubricated with champagne, wine, and mixed drinks. By the time we sit to eat, this group is in full-swing party mode.
The dinner, which Davide and staff have prepared for the faux Rotary dinner, is exquisite: a nice sampling from across the Brandywine Bay menu.
We sit with Val and Mike and have a great time with them. They are really entertaining and definitely have our type of humor.
Cele drops us off at Hodges Creek about 1:30AM, telling us that he will pick us up round 8:00AM for breakfast. We wisely take a couple of ibuprofen before collapsing for the night. Saturday, January 24 When I get back to the room, I take a quick shower to freshen up. Just as I get out, the phone rings. It is Davide; he is out front, but needs to run back down to Brandywine Bay. He will be back to pick the four of us up around 9:00. We have time to dress and get a cup of coffee at Calamaya.
The beach is nice, and I find some mahoe seed pods that I gather to take home with us. Maybe we will be able to add mahoe trees to the bits of the BVI that we have in Houston.
We have a taxi take us to Brandywine Bay for dinner. Instead of the normal five-minute trip, it takes over half an hour to get there. The Blackburn Highway is closed right at the college while the BVI Road Department installs a large drainage culvert, so we have to go back through East End and up over the Ridge Road, coming out at the Purcell Estate, then back east to Brandywine Bay. It is clear, and you can see the lights ashore on Anegada from the top of the Ridge Road. We have another wonderful evening with Cecelia and Orazio. Orazio does not let the fact that he speaks no English stop him from telling us jokes that, of course, we do not understand. He particularly likes a joke that apparently involves birds. The joke is accompanied by hilarious gestures of wing-flapping, flying hands, and bird faces. We laugh and laugh: the telling is far funnier than the joke itself could possibly have been. My study of Italian really does pay off, though. I can communicate with both Cecelia and Orazio. Sometimes it is painful, sometimes we reach a dead-end and have to take an alternative route, but we do have fun. The study was worth the effort, and I will continue. Orazio and Cecelia (who, by the way, have been divorced for 45 years) each offer earnest invitations for us to come and stay with them in Tuscany. We assure both of them that we will come and visit. When the evening's restaurant work finally slows down, Cele and Davide join us for a while before we all crash. We are still fairly exhausted from last night. Sunday, January 25
We carefully tie Ed's boat up at the T-head pier at Donovan's Reef. The road over the top of Scrub Island to Cele and Davide's property is still impassible form the November rainstorm damage, so Pam has given us use of the facilities at Donovan's Reef for the day.
The weather today is absolutely perfect for a picnic. The sky is completely cloudless and deep blue. The air is clear, the wind is light, and the water is smooth. It is one of the prettiest days that we have ever seen in the islands. Cele takes Davide and me on a walk up the part of the road on Scrub that is now paved with concrete. The heavy rains of the past November have severely washed out the underlying soil, leaving the concrete badly undercut on both sides of the road. Serious repair work will have to be done before the road is usable for vehicle traffic over to Cele and Davide's property.
I spot some frangipani seed pods and ask Pam for permission to take them. She gives me her blessing and I pick four nice pods. Pam calls these plants "the wild one". For the past two years, we have taken cuttings of the wild frangipani back to Houston, but have been unsuccessful in getting them to root. I am confident that we can raise them from seed.
Davide and Cele drop Sharon, David, Nancy, and me off at Hodges Creek, and we all agree to meet in half an hour at Fat Hog Bob's/ We shower and dress and walk to Fat Hog Bob's with David and Sharon. In no time at all, David manages to have the waitresses in stitches. He jokingly accuses them of sneaking up on him. You have to know David Lowery: he has and endless well of humor, and you never know what to expect next. The four of us are seated at the west end of the outdoor dining area at a large table. Davide, Cele, Cecelia, and Orazio arrive and, not seeing us, sit at the far end of the outdoor dining area. We are so busy cutting up with the waitresses that we don't see them arrive. Ava, our waitress, tells us that she has one other table of four that she is also serving. We tell her that we pity the people at the other table, because we are taking all of her attention. After about fifteen minutes, Davide spots us; their table is Ava's other table - the one that we are feeling sorry for! They have been sitting down there wondering where we are! They come to our large table and we all have a very nice dinner. Orazio again tells us stories in Italian, and we smile and pretend to understand. Davide and Cele are able to fill in enough of what we cannot understand so that we actually to get most of his tales. Orazio is quite a raconteur. It is early to bed for us tonight, as everyone is once again exhausted. Nancy and I are sound asleep by 10:00PM. Monday, January 26 Cele and Sharon join a group down on the Tiffany House tennis court for a morning yoga class. Davide is taking David and Orazio into Roadtown this morning. David and Sharon are buying property on Tortola, and have been waiting eight months for their license to buy property. David is meeting with their local agent today, hoping to get the process moving. David is also meeting with Cele and Davide's construction people today to try to resolve the impasse that currently has all work on Wali Nakiti stopped. Orazio is returning home on Thursday and wants to do some shopping before he leaves. Nancy and I say our good-byes to Davide, Orazio, and David before they leave. We promise Orazio that we will come visit. Nancy and I have a very pleasant morning with Cecelia. Cecelia is very patient, and spends time helping me with my Italian. Learning from her is much easier than learning from the book.
When Cele and Sharon finish their yoga, the four girls and I have a nice lunch. The pecorino cheese is delicious with the really nice salami that Cecelia also brought over from Italy. They go well with the baby spinach salad that Cele and Sharon put together. At 12:15, we finally have to leave for our 1:30 American Eagle flight. We say our good-byes to Sharon and Cecelia, and we promise Cecelia that we will come over and spend a week with her in Florence. She really is a vice lady, and she never missed an opportunity to tell us how much she loves Cele. We will be seeing Sharon again soon. We have made plans to spend a few days in late July lobstering in the Florida Keys with David and Sharon before the four of us come to Tortola on our August trip, when we will be sailing with Cele and Davide on the COCO 2004 bareboat charter. We will be seeing Davide and Cele again real soon -- in only seven weeks we will be back to spend the week of Spring Break on Tortola. Cele has also promised that she and Davide will join us for their anniversary on Easter weekend in San Francisco. Davide loves to tell that he did a very wise thing: he got married on Easter. That way, he can never forget the date of their anniversary....
The flights back through San Juan and Miami are relatively uneventful. However, imagine our surprise when we walk out of George Bush International Airport in Houston to wait for the parking shuttle, still dressed in T-shirt, shorts, and sandals as we left Tiffany House this morning. The temperature here is 45° and the wind is gusting over 30mph. Welcome home! Epilogue The expression "the apple did not fall from the tree" is certainly true regarding Davide and Orazio. It wound up being one heck of a week of contrasts. We were enjoying the islands on Monday. On Tuesday, I found out that I was going to spend the rest of the week in Chicago, where the week ended with the coldest weather that Chicago had for five years. Single-digit highs, and -6° when I went into work on Friday morning.
This page and the contents thereof are
the property of Walker Mangum |
||||||||||||||||||||||
Click
here for the photo album (240 images)
