18:10.51N 76:27.12W  The journey started brightly enough, rapid passage across/with the gulf stream in the first 24 hours, plenty of nausea (save Jas who has a cast iron stomach for the sea) and a little worse but once we were in the Old Bahama channel the wind deserted us and on with the engine. All well at first but a gradual loss of maximum revs due to ‘dirt in the fuel line’.  We had no CW Moss to do the oily stuff so Tom changed filters (with advice from afar) and progress was resumed.  Fishing was spectacularly successful with David landing two Mahi mahi 15lb and 30lb.  The fuel situation continued to deteriorate and the weather picked up from the East.  We made the easternmost point of the Bahamas, Great Inagua.  By then with an adverse current, winds building to 20 to 25 knots on the nose, with more to come, we sought shelter – Haiti?, Cuba?, Jamaica?.  The latter turned out to have a welcoming port, Port Antonio, with a modern marina, Errol Flynn (it has one long pontoon appropriately enough).  We made the turn and ran downwind arriving in 48 hours, the last 15 or so with bare poles and winds gusting at 45knots across the deck.  Into the harbour at first light on Sunday 9^th December, the channel lights were as predicted on the chart.  The windstorm turned out to have a name TS Olga.  Sadly Jas, David and James had run out of time so flew back to the UK from Jamaica. 

Phil Oliver of Antilles Yachts in the BVI arranged for two crew, his son Justin and an old sea-dog Harry, to help me over the last leg to Tortola.  We were confined to the marina for a week owing to continuing heavy weather and this should have allowed for new fuel filters etc but Jamaica has almost no spares available.  We rinsed out the existing filter sets with petrol and set off on Sunday 16^th.  The trip was uneventful save for a severely underperforming engine, engines being so helpful up current and up wind.  Later we threw in some transmission problems and finally arrived in Nanny Cay with 8 hours to spare for my flight home, it was 23^rd December, right down to the wire for Xmas!