Hunting in Ireland and sailing in the Caribbean: can both be Paradise?

Paradise: white-sand beaches, sapphire waters and endless rum? Or muddy fields, terrifying fences and copious pints of Guinness? An easy question, one might think, but if I had to choose between them, I confess I’d be hard pressed.

 

 

Where would you rather be? In the British Virgin Islands or in the west of Ireland?

 

Standing in the carpark at Ashford Castle Lodge in Ireland in the pouring rain, preparing to spend the day in the saddle, we all agreed that it would be difficult to explain to outsiders exactly why we choose to do this. It was our annual trip to chivvy foxes across the Emerald Isle, tackling impossibly huge fences along the way and washing it all down with Champagne and, a new one this time, Cointreau bombs (thank you Sarah!). Led by the intrepid Rosie van Cutsem, the assorted crew of Tania Buhlmann, Sarah and Aoife Byrne, Ashley Parasram, Orlando Bridgeman and me saddled up for stone-wall day with the North Galway Hunt. Typically, after a spell in the bar, we started in chaos, when we realised we couldn't find hounds... We had slotted in behind the locals, but after we'd gone back and forth past the lodge a couple of times, it became clear that no one knew where the hunt had gone. After scrambling around for 20 minutes in the woods around Ashford Castle and charging through a village, we finally glimpsed waving sterns through the murk and cracked open hip flasks in celebration.

Ready for the off at Bunratty Manor

 

Er, weren't there supposed to be some hounds somewhere around here?

Tania takes a slog of the necessary fuel

From then on, things seldom stopped. The masters later called it a 'serious jumping day' and we were all thrilled by the message that they were delighted 'not only to have visitors, but visitors who can really ride'. We must have jumped 50-odd stone walls, some 5ft high, although they were usually a little lower by the time a few people had gone over. My brilliant horse Top of the List, owned by the legendary Aidan O'Connell, was absolutely in charge and gave me the most fantastic day - proving he didn't need me in the slightest when my reins broke over an enormous drop fence and I had to jump the next four with no brakes or steering. Oddly, perhaps due to Dutch courage, it wasn't at all scary, merely exhilarating, and I couldn't stop laughing by the time I'd slid to a halt next to Rosie. It just shows, all you have to do on an Irish horse is hang on: 'if ye fall, ye fall'!

Our field master Jackie Lee, sporting fetching pink britches...

Still smiling! Rosie and Orlando, plus raindrops

The Old English hounds of the North Galway

 

Aoife, Ashley and Orlando were all unlucky enough to have close encounters of the muddy kind, with Aoife's horse face-planting on landing and sending her flying over its head. Not sure if her coat is clean yet... Ashley met his nemesis at the very last wall of the day, and, shamefully, none of us knew about it until he turned up at the boxes when we'd all dismounted. One of our oft-repeated phrases is 'Wheeerrrree's Ashley?', so we hadn't been worried... Orlando had the nastiest moment when his horse got tangled in a treacherous strand of barbed wire - the curse of Ireland. If I could change one thing about that country, it would be to destroy every scrap of the pernicious modern invention that holds hunts up and injures horses. Thankfully, no one was hurt this time, but, on the Sunday, there were places where it prevented any equine passage - if Flurry Knox had ever encountered such a barrier, sparks would have flown.
 

Orlando exhibiting the traditional Irish camouflage

 

 

Aoife with her own extra layer

 

Ashley returns at last!

 

The owner of this shapely derriere shall, of course, remain nameless

 

Now that we're all around the 30-year mark, late nights are a little harder to cope with - except in Ireland. Friday night was spent at our beloved Bunratty Manor Hotel in Co Clare, where Noel Wallace always gives us the most wonderful welcome. Entering the hall and giving him an enormous hug is the signal for the fun to start! Shenanigans finished at 4am after a night of wine, scrumptious chowder and music; the large group celebrating in the bar turned out to be a choir in fine voice. No night would be complete without Tania's rendition of Patricia the Stripper, of course, and there was a pleasing symmetry in the fact that one of the best hounds at the North Galway is called Patricia... Saturday night was spent at the North Galway hunt ball, when we set the dance floor on fire, not to mention rocking some random blow-up saxophones. Our poor driver, Paul, not only had to wait nearly two hours after our scheduled 2am pick-up, but dropped us off only to encounter an upturned car and spend the rest of the night helping the ambulance men. Not ideal after some not-quite-clean limericks and a rendition of Broad Hairy Assie, but they look after each other in Ireland.

The usual state of a Bunratty plate post-meal: Tania loves her chowder!

Sarah and our darling Noel!

Ashley gets due attention from me and Aoife...

 

Who would have thought this elegant young lady could

come up with something as naughtily nice as Cointreau bombs?

Ashley and Rosie, smouldering

Tania for huntsman! Her sister Lisa's performance in a horn-blowing

competition at a previous ball is part of Irish-hunting legend

                               

Orlando sets the stage on fire as Aoife channels the Russian princess look...

 

Me and the legend that is Aidan O'Connell

 

 Ladies in blue!

 

The Irish crew:

Ashley, Sarah, Rosie, Noel, me, Aidan, Aoife, Tania and Orlando

 

Sunday was sunny and crisp, gorgeous when on the move, bloody cold when standing on a lane in the teeth of a lazy wind. But all regrets for the button that had come off my coat the day before (surprising how much difference that third one makes) vanished with the sight of a beautiful fox slinking through the long grass and disappearing into a wood with the Premier Harriers hotfooting it behind. Due to saturated ground and the pernicious wire, we had to take to the lanes to follow, but we were rewarded with gorgeous views across Tipperary to snow-dusted hills beyond. The next draw took us up high onto grass at last, and Charlie crossed obligingly right in front of us, hounds strung out in full cry close behind as if they had emerged from a painting by Lionel Edwards. Glorious!

Not bad for a tiny camera: Charlie in flight

Hounds in full cry. Moments like this are what it's all about

 

Hunting selfie, obligatory I believe!

Happy hunters!

Tally ho! Aoife in full flight...

...with Orlando hard on her heels

Surely there must be some left at the bottom?

 

Premier Harriers

Calling up on a sparkling day

Sunday's survivors! 

Me and my game little horse, whose name sounds

a bit like Delhi-belly, but isn't...

Thank you to Ashley, Aoife and Rosie for additional pics

Sadly, we had to leave a little early to catch a flight from Cork airport, where the staff cruelly forced me to remove my hunt boots at security. Do you know how hard it is to get long leather boots that have recently been soaked off and on?! I had already broken one of my boot pulls. Surprisingly, the security staff at Heathrow had been happy for me to wear them through, although when coupled with my hunt whip, a few days after the release of Fifty Shades of Grey, they caused a few odd expressions. I had to hastily reassure them that I had something very different planned for the weekend. Rosie's boots were the biggest casualty of the weekend, when she managed to rip a sole half off before even getting on a horse...

The sad tale of Rosie's boot:
 Before mounting...

After Saturday...  ....and at the end of Sunday!

                        

Pouring rain might be par for the course in Ireland, but it wasn’t the weather I expected when I stepped off the plane on St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands. For about five minutes, it was a near monsoon, and it wasn’t the last such downpour I saw there, but the weather gods seem to know when there’s something life-changing happening and the sun donned his best hat for all the moments that mattered. I was in the Caribbean for the wedding of Maxine Emerich, with whom I bonded over horses, wine and sushi in California last year, and Paul Jaquish, world-class BMX rider. I was honoured to be one of Maxine’s four bridesmaids and was thus lucky enough to attend the kind of wedding that doesn’t seem to belong to real life. This place really is the image of Paradise: I never realized water really could be that colour and I am now a firm fan of Cruzan flavoured rums (Coconut is the best). Maxine grew up on St Thomas, one of the three US Virgin Islands with St John and St Croix, to the west of the British Virgin Islands. It's a quirky island - cars are right-hand drive as in the US, but everyone drives on the left, as in the UK. Dense undergrowth blankets precipitate hills, on which houses cling in a precarious fashion and pot-holed roads wind around hairpin bends. There's certainly no point in having a smart car here! Randomly, there's a racetrack, although there seems little space for horses - we saw one chestnut tethered by the side of a junction, entirely unconcerned by the traffic. The shores are white sand and rocks, with deep water close in and myriad fish exploring coral reefs. Tourists abound, of course, but there's plenty of real life, too; even a theatre, Pistarckle, where Maxine's mother Nikki is founding artistic producer. Hurricanes do tend to shake things up in the summer, but it's still easy to see why Camille Pisarro fell in love with this island.

Storm clouds looming near the Emerich home

 

Ah, that's better!

 

The bachelorette party - or hen party, as I have called it hitherto - was spent on board Alternate Attitude, a powerboat captained by Kevin Goodrich, and was a sun-soaked cocktail of swimming with turtles, strolling along the beaches of San Jost Van Dyke in the British Virgin Islands and feasting on conch fritters, my new favourite form of seafood. I was delighted to welcome everyone to British soil, the white-sand kind, although I had to apologise for the over-zealous bureaucracy that gave maid-of-honour Stephy a grilling over the shabby state of her passport. Her dog had, literally, chewed it to pieces two days before the trip. Safely through the red tape, we gazed over water that shaded from aquamarine to darkest sapphire. Yachts chafed at their mooring lines and the wooded hills of St John loomed to the south. Captain Kevin proved great company - although, as Paul pointed out, having five girls in his charge was probably rather a good day at the office - and saw us safely home in gathering dusk, sunkissed and salty and sleepy.

The flag we made so painstakingly: 'Max's last sail before the veil'.

Unfortunately, it flew off, pole and all, soon after I took this.

If anyone finds it floating in the Caribbean, please let me know!

Lexie, Maxine, Jenna, Stephy and me at the Bubbly Pool

 

Our trusty vessel moored at San Jost Van Dyke

Caribbean sunset

Mmm... rum...

Captain Kevin!

Happy captain and crew

Powerboating is great fun, bouncing merrily over the waves with a roar of the throttle as you flex your legs to the movement (all five of us are horsey, which I think helped us ride the motion), but I'd take a sailing boat any day. Maxine's father, architect Brian Emerich whose commissions include rebuilding the family home after it was destroyed in a hurricane when Maxine was seven (he added guest apartments that are available for rent, and are currently being renovated - I thoroughly recommend booking), agrees with me and has a beautiful 37ft yacht named Augora. To my eternal delight, he took me out in her when the wedding party had left and the house was quiet. In light winds, we slipped gently across the water to an anchorage off St John in Cinnamon Bay and swam to the beach and back before settling in for the night. Warmed by the sun and a bottle of rum - if it was good enough for pirates and the sailors of the British Navy, it's good enough for me - I lay in the cockpit and looked up at a star-dusted sky, rocked to sleep to the sounds and scents of the sea. I wonder what it would have been like arriving here from England in the 18th century, when sand the colour of cheesecloth had never been seen by ordinary men and the forested hills were unblemished by houses or powerlines. Landing on St John Robinson Crusoe-style - especially as, without my hearing aids, I was in something of a dream world anyway - I had the smallest sense of what it would have been like to set foot in an unknown land, to not know if the inhabitants, human or animal, were hostile, to see exotic plants for the first time and feel water warm and silky after the bracing English Channel. That sense of mystery is almost lost to us these days, with our ubiquitous technology, but to arrive somewhere by boat, wafted by the winds, still retains a very special magic.

Brian's beautiful yacht Augora

 

Moored in Cinnamon Bay.

We swam to the beach - which is a lot further than it looks!

Happy feet!

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely seas and the sky.

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by...

 Rum! I do like the thoughtfulness of the boat's designers

in providing such convenient cup holders

 

View before bedtime, looking back towards St Thomas

Captain Brian and his willing first lieutenant

At the helm!

There was only one blot on the week: the behaviour of Chris Sageart, manager of the St Thomas  Frenchman’s Cove and Morning Star Marriott Beach Resort. For some reason, the booking that Maxine thought she’d made for her and the bridesmaids – a suite with enough room to sleep five people and for a dozen people to get ready in before the wedding – didn’t materialize. At 10pm on the night before the wedding, Maxine, her mother Nikki and I asked Mr Sageart what could be done to improve on the room we'd been assigned, a small room far away from the main hotel with two ‘queen’ beds. Instead of apologizing and doing his best to alleviate problems for a tired bride, he blamed her for the whole thing and offered no solution. He was rude, arrogant, unhelpful and obstructive. He had no ideas for what we could do the following morning and no consideration for the fact that the Emerichs had long-standing connections with the Marriott, nor did he look even slightly abashed when we told him of my work as a travel journalist. A long way into the conversation, I suggested that he might like to say sorry for upsetting a bride the night before her wedding, whereupon he parroted ‘I’m sorry for upsetting you the night before your wedding’ in deadpan tones without a glimmer of sincerity. Unbelievable. On seeing the room, with beds barely big enough for two small people, Maxine returned home in tears. Good public-relations job, Chris Sageart!

A so-called 'queen' double bed in our tiny room

 

Thankfully, Mr Sageart's colleagues proved far more understanding and helpful the following morning when maid-of-honour Stephy Evans and I went up early to the hotel to find a room for us all to dress. Manager Margaret, event planner Rebecca and even security guard Natasha pulled out all the stops to find a pretty, decent-sized conference room, complete with complimentary Champagne. (Mr Sageart had promised us some the night before, at our suggestion, but it had never materialised.) Their work improved our opinion of the Marriott no end, and was the kind of service one would expect from such a well-established hotel group. Thank you, you three! We were soon giddy with the delights of Champagne and hairspray, and Maxine was smiling. She looked gorgeous, as did the groom and the house, and the whole thing lived up to its billing as a 'wedding in Paradise'. The photo session was capped by the serendipitous arrival of a horse, even more serendipitously wearing headcollars in the wedding colours of deep orange and pale green. As Maxine and all four bridesmaids are riders, Stephy and I immediately pressed him into service for an extra photograph.
I don't have many photos from the wedding - I left snapping to the professional! Thank you to Paul's brother Randy for these beach-side ones.

Setting up the equipment...

Thank you Marriott for a super room!

Nikki Emerich and her lovely daughter

The beautiful blushing bride

We found a horse!

The gorgeous couple

Up at the house for the reception, the sea turned dusky purple deepening to violet as the breeze kept the mosquitoes away and Maxine and Paul wowed us all with an elegant first dance. Crab cakes and mahi-mahi, a luscious cake in coconut, lemon, passionfruit and chocolate, billowing muslin and orange silk, candles and a poolside bar: yes, it was pretty close to Paradise. Congratulations, Mr and Mrs Jaquish!

Not a bad spot for a party

Golden flowers and burnt-orange silk, the colours of the Caribbean

Maid of Honour Stephy Evans and me