Hello – I’m Mary.  A friend of Brian’s, although things may have changed!

I was lucky enough to be invited to join Brian on the delivery of Cat-Man-Do from St Lucia to Antigua, where he will prepare for the long trip back across the Atlantic.  So all eager, I packed a small bag (for a woman) and flew in on Friday, a day after Brian.

When I arrived, he told me that due to various problems, we were lucky to be going anywhere.  3 days in, he is probably wishing that we hadn’t gone anywhere with me on board!

Preparing to cast off on Sunday morning I managed a classic backward somersault down the starboard hatch.  Brian thought I’d probably sustained a broken leg at the least.  But loosened up by a touch of rum the night before, I managed to perfect the move with very little injury.

Lunch on Sunday was in a small cove in Martinique, followed by a small swim.  The small swim was initiated by my good self, having managed to wrap a rope around the propeller of the new engine (sorry Peter!).  That sorted, much fun and frolics were had.

A quick motor up the west side of the Island and we anchored for the night.

Monday – left Martinique and headed for Dominica.  Sailed through a pod of Sperm – whales, that is!  First saw a mother with her calf and then up ahead saw another few, and wonderful to see one of them dive under, with their tail going down through the crystal blue sea.  Must confess to a few girly tears at the sight (me, not Brian).

We saw a number of yachts on route to Dominica, but there was once when we could only see just one and it happened to be a friend of Brian’s!  It was Jeremy, the Skipper of Maximus, who also did the ARC.  Having contacted him on the radio, Jeremy asked our position.  Brian pretty much said look out of your window!  So that culminated in a guest for dinner, once we had anchored in the beautiful Prince Rupert Bay.

And now to today (we think it’s Tuesday).  Anchor up.  Hmmmmm…nearly stayed up, never to go again (Peter, look away).  I was a little heavy footed on the anchor and managed to wedge it rather firmly in the pulley.  A little swearing from Brian and a lot of heaving and it was free again (Peter, you can look back now).  So a nice pootle up to Guadeloupe, with some decent wind at last.  Currently anchored in a marsh – not very pretty.  Waiting for a bridge to open at the very unsociable time of 5am.  But it’s that or wait for 12 hours.  And having seen a twister on the West side of the island earlier, thank goodness we didn’t anchor there!

So in general, being a bit of a numpty crew for Brian.  The only other crew is an inflatable cactus, who I think may be more help at times, but at least I can fetch beer and cook, so not all is lost for my Skipper!

Back to normality on the blog next time, when Brian can regale you with the rest of our stories.  In the meantime, I will try not to try and break any more things.

It’s been fun – apart from seeing far too much of Brian’s bottom!

xxx