16:05.30n61:46.30w

Anse a la Barque, Guadeloupe

OK so the Frenchman was right. He said our boat was too close to his and we ignored him. So rather than up anchor at a reasonable time in the evening to move we waited till after midnight when we'd all been asleep. The wind kept changing direction and so we were swinging gently round in full 360' circles. Skip was woken by a big gust of wind and found our dingy wrapped around said Frenchman's mooring buoy with our boats scarily close to each other. Luckily le Monsieur was snoozing gently below and was blissfully unaware. We wrestled the dingy free and quietly slipped anchor by bright moonlight to the other side of the bay. However it took no fewer than 3 attempts to find an anchorage which satisfied Skip that it would hold for the night. And even then he spent most of the small hours fretting about it while his indolent crew slept soundly till dawn. Another boat, which appeared to be having similar problems and was approaching le Monsieur's bateau too, appeared to have got their anchor stuck. However come morning, calm was restored and we can only hope le Monsieur has been munching contentedly on his croissants in total ignorance of the perils of the night.

Jonathan