My 60th Birthday

Well, the time has finally come, and I have hit the BIG 60!!!! I'm amazed I have actually reached that age! I remember when I was much 'younger' and I looked at my Grandparents when they were around 60 and they had grey hair, they sat around for most of the day, possibly pottered in the garden, came over to ours for Sunday lunch and special occasions, and I used to look at them lovingly, but think to myself "boy I don't want to get to be that old" and now I am!!

So, I decided that on my 60th birthday I was going to gather a few good friends and take a sunset cruise. We all made something to eat, brought along an alcoholic drink of our choice (which for me was a flavored Gin) and waited at Bago's Bar in Tobago. The girls had been told not to be late, or they would miss the boat, and the lovely ladies were all on time. Marcus, the Captain, turned up in a little dingy, loaded us, our food and our drinks and took us out to the beautiful Catamaran Picante. We were helped on board by Tanya and Marcel, put our food and drinks away and had a safety briefing.

Then it was off....

Tanya was a wonderful host and made drinks for everyone on board, asked what sort of music we liked, which I naturally said the 80"s and off we sailed to the World Heritage Park, Pigeon Point. Thankfully it was a fantastically calm sunny evening, and the girls just chatted and drank soaking up the amazing scenery, enjoying the sea air and listening to the water. I video phoned a friend back in the UK who was part of our girl group and we carried on sailing. After about an hour the anchor was released and some of us decided to have a quick dip in the sea. I had decided that I was going to face my 'Sexy Sixties' with horns blaring and lights flashing so I jumped in from the platform at the back of the boat and splashed away, the water was unbelievably warm. I did a quick trip around the boat, tried to get into the hammock they have underneath but discovered that being 60 I wasn't quite that athletic, but at least I tried!!!! The others left on board decided they were hungry, so the swimmers got out, dried off and went to get some food. I MUST say everyone did a fantastic job and the selection we had to eat was brilliant, Aloo pies, chow Mein pies, different cheeses, veggies with delicious dips, boozy cake and yummy Accra - feast for a king, or in my case a Queen!

After food we all made our way to the bow of the boat and settled down on either cushions, bean bags or on the 'trampolines', relaxed, drank, chatted and sang to the songs of my youth.

It was over all too soon when we had to make our way back to the beginning, However going back we were able to turn off the engine and put up one of the sails, it really was great and so very very relaxing. We sang and drank right back to the mooring and just as the sun was setting, we started to disembark the boat. I was fortunate to be in the last group to get off, so I was able to watch the sunset from the back of the boat listening to one of my favorite songs (Dancing Queen!!!!).

We got back to shore and made our way to Bago's bar where my lovely friends had organized a birthday cake, had a couple more drinks and that was it - the end of my 60th birthday celebrations

Thank you to my wonderful friends, to the crew of Picante and to Bago's bar for making this a special birthday.

As my brother said to me - 60 is the new 40's as I sure don't feel like 60 years old!!!