14:36.00N 61:04.25W

Neroli left St Lucia on Tuesday morning after clearing customs on Monday and spending a quiet night at anchor in Rodney Bay. A fine 4½ hour sail to Martinique with a steady 20 knots of breeze under slightly reduced sail gave the crew a chance to adjust to the conditions and to Neroli. The weather was fine, but very warm indeed with humidity at 100%.

We cleared customs in Fort-de-France, tracked down five gas cylinder refills, purchased one or two other missing items, but found we couldn’t visit the remarkable 17^th century fort except on an official tour.

Late afternoon saw the major excitement of the day with Charlie taking to the bosun’s chair to go the masthead. The block for the spinnaker halyard (used also and importantly for hoisting the dinghy onto the deck) had been damaged and needed a temporary fix. This was accomplished briskly and Charlie returned safely to the deck.

For this and one or two other precautionary maintenance issues we’ll need the attention of a rigger in Antigua. Allan (our fourth crew member, awaiting us there) has been asked to find someone to do the work but it means we will probably not leave Antigua now until Tuesday 4^th May.

 With the block fixed we weighed anchor early Wednesday evening (28^th April) for a delightful overnight sail, forty miles on a broad reach and under a full moon to Les Saintes.

We arrived Thursday morning, will stay here until tomorrow evening and then sail the final leg overnight to Antigua. Our timing is determined partly by the need for the rigging work and also by the fact that English Harbour is currently full of boats for Antigua Week.