Lemon Valley revisited

Saturday was a full day for us all in one way or another. Nick was at the Sandy Bay Chapel at 9 am to join with several church folk for a morning of prayer and fasting. They prayed for many aspects of the church life and island including the Ascension outreach, the people in and out of our church, the restoration of the buildings, the youth etc. Meanwhile the boys and I caught a lift into town with Claire, as Tom was wanting to join the Good News Club kids at the pool – since Nick, Nick and Enid would all be praying, we decided to organize swimming for the kids instead of having me trying to run a meeting single-handedly. This was a satisfactory arrangement all round!

By noon, Nick was back from the country and we were ready to meet up at the landing steps at the wharf with the Jessons and Spiers (I’ve finally figured out everyone’s surnames). Claire had arranged, as an extension of Rob’s 40th birthday party, for a small group of us to be ferried to Lemon Valley for the afternoon. The sea was a little rough, but getting on to the ferry from the landing steps was uncomplicated. The 20+ minute ride across was excellent. We spotted a few dolphins in the distance, straining our eyes at the horizon until they hurt to see the antics of these supple mammals. Getting off the ferry at the other end was tricky. There is no pier or nice smooth wall to come alongside, simply a metal ladder leading off a small metal platform where the rocks are the most even. When we went to Lemon Valley with Sarel and Elza we had no trouble disembarking from the dinghy as the sea was smooth, and so of course we were anticipating a similar scenario. However, strong rip and metre-high swells meant that the ferrymen had to make several attempts to get us off. We had to wait for a lull before being able to get close, and even then we could only offload three or four people at a time before they had to pull away and wait again. We were all nervous about getting little Arthur off, but one of the men simply jumped off the boat onto the rocks holding him. Once we, and all the bags and bags of food, towels, swimming gear, flippers and goggles were offloaded, we could relax and enjoy the afternoon, which we all did thoroughly – apart from Tom falling on some rocks and slicing his knee open, and Phil cutting his elbow on a slippery bit of an exploratory walk later in the afternoon. For the most part we had a very relaxed afternoon. The sea was too rough for swimming (although Nick, Claire and Rob braved it), but we found an awesome rockpool which was perfect, and I really mean perfect, for the kids (and me). It was protected on all sides but the shallow water is constantly renewed with sea water which stays in long enough to be thoroughly warmed up before evaporating.
At 4 pm we packed up all our stuff in anticipation of the returning ferry. Reversing the procedure to get out of Lemon Valley was even harder than landing – again, the waiting for a lull and loading up only a few people at a time. We had to just literally grab a hand and jump from the steps onto the ferry with slippery feet – again, we waited nervously for Arthur and Milly to be handed aboard, but it was all good.
We navigated right over the wreck in James’ Bay – I suspect the ship was the Witte Leeuw but I can’t say any more about it with any confidence or certainty.