“Vooooo-Lay-Voooooo Quelquechose a Boire??”

Spontaneous brother-sister bartending gig at the Bora Bora Yacht Club…Happy New Year!!

New Year’s Eve and James and I sailed into Bora Bora around 3 pm after a glorious passage. We tossed the dinghy over the side and I rowed in to the Bora Bora Yacht Club to see what was happening for the festivities that evening. Everyone hurried to and fro, moving tables and sweeping and blaring sound checks over the speakers. I found Jess out back spreading a white tablecloth while little Kahiya ran naked around her in the white sand.

She looked at me with surprise… “Oh, hi!?”

And in another moment Teiva spotted me from across the yard and called out, “Liz! Hi! Can you work tonight?!”

“Well…uh…” I stuttered. “I’m here with my brother, and I’d really like to spend the evening with him.”

“Okay, then both of you can work!” He sang. “Look, we’ll give you this bar out here overlooking the lagoon.”

I rowed back to Swell, a bit nervous to propose the idea to my brother knowing we were both pretty tired after the time at sea.

“Sounds fun.” He said immediately. “Let’s do it!”

And so the brother sister duo slugged down a coffee and teamed up at the bar to serve the guests of the Bora Bora Yacht Club’s exclusive New Year’s Eve Party. We worked together like greased cogs, and as the clock struck midnight I was running back from the main bar with two liters of pineapple juice and a bottle of champagne. I dropped them on the bar, kissed my big brother on the cheek, and we toasted with Jess and the guests to ring in the New Year.

Then the drunk lady with the annoying laugh was back for more tequila. I had been giving her smaller and smaller shots, but I looked over and saw that James had a different strategy: he hand her a three-fingered glass of straight tequila.

“She’s already blacked-out, we might as well just finish her off before she gets herself into more trouble,” he smiled.

We turned the bar over to the staff as the party dwindled in the wee hours of morning, then shook a few moves on the dancefloor before piling into the Ripple to row back to Swell, congratulating ourselves on successful teamwork and marveling at the incredible quantities of champagne the French can drink.

I slipped quietly into the cool sea shortly after. Bobbing on my back and gazing up at the perfectly round moon, the whites of my flesh glowing and half-submerged, I thanked the universe for a perfect end to an incredible year. The full moon poured its soft light down upon the earth, casting hopes for peace and harmony in 2010.