Position           14:28.10N 60:51.97W

Date                2100 UTC - 19 December 2010

(All times in this entry refer to local time, UTC -4 unless stated as UTC)

The time came to leave Rodney Bay and head to Le Marin in Martinique for two days with the Amel team there. 

Of course it was raining.  It may not be the dry season here but it certainly is not the wet season either.  Perhaps this is the warm end of the weather upset that is occurring in the UK.  Torrential showers eventually settled in to a steady downpour.  We got away eventually at 1330 and made our way around to the fuel berth where with the help of a high volume diesel hose the skipper managed to cover himself in diesel on a blow back.  Fortunately the high pressure rain seemed to remove most of this.

Out into the St Lucia channel and Andrew had some experience of what squalls are before he decided to study at some length the inscription in the bottom of the cockpit bucket.   It was only a three hour crossing to Le Marin but three hours to windward with an Atlantic swell running through the channel was probably a rather unfair introduction to laid back for Caribbean cruising.

Fortunately the Mate and Crew recovered as we got into the shelter of land and just in time and in fading light we secured in the marina with the guidance of the staff; for a brief period it stopped raining.

We will now be here until Tuesday afternoon whilst Amel attend to a halyard problem and the fixings to the bearing out pole.  We have an engineer coming to look at an air conditioning unit, repaired in St Lucia but which now keeps tripping the mains supply and a check over of the VHF radio.  We are finding out at first hand how much maintenance is required to keep a complex boat that is used continually in full working order.

There is also of course the prospect of French style shops; but more of this later.