Jolly Harbour, Antigua to St  Croix, US Virgin Islands

Met Terry, on Margaret Alice, who once lived in Ramsgate, he is topping up his sailing fund by fitting kitchens, seems the locals can’t produce the quality required for the top end work in the up market villas. Baxter and Molly from Terrapin (met in St Martins) turned up as promised to talk about their crossing to the UK in a couple of weeks. They were kind enough to hoist me up the mast for an inspection. And to let me use their camera with a fish eye lens.

The view from the top and, possibly, the ultimate selfie!

Barbuda and back to clean off the bottom again, it’s getting dirty with all this sitting around at anchor. On the way there I passed a small pod of humpbacked whales, which were having fun breaching. One did the full flying bit not 500 feet in front of me. Amazing!

Sailing or flying? 11Mile Beach Barbuda.

Kate arrives today. Lovely to see her again. Unpacking of 3 cases full of “boat bits” – a lot of which get fixed today!

Spending all my air miles, I travelled First Class – loved it, from the free facial to the pre-flight champagne and in-flight high tea complete with tablecloth and cake stand!

Ready for the off, with appropriate nail art!

Pics: Lunch with Mickey, afternoon tea with Sandra and one very silly question!

As we arrive Falmouth harbour, the Antigua Classic Regatta is underway.

Pic: Had to put this motorboat in because of the little classic sailboat on its deck!

Lots of classic boats and appropriate sundowners. Met up with Terrapin again and out for belated birthday supper with them, after watching the “gig” racing.

Pic: “Gig” racing ladies start and beautiful little rowboat with pup dressed up accordingly, sadly-she didn’t win!

St Georges Day Falmouth Harbour

We finally collected our life raft, which had been in for belated service and got “ouched” to the tune of £585! S Lovely evening spent with “Terrapino” celebrating St Georges Day with Pimms. Odd collection of things cooked in drunken stupor. We will miss them, particularly Molly’s English accento!

Lovely fast broad reach under full sail to Monserrat where we anchored with virtually no rolling.

  Pics: Crabs being eyed up by heron and pelican!

From sun up till sundown – flies abound in the boat, adding Monserrat to the list of anchorages to be avoided!

Depart with Joe for a tour of the island. Should rename it the “keep telling Joe what a great guide he is” tour. It WAS a great tour but we didn’t need to keep being told so!

“Drink from this byrn, and to Monserrat you will return” – not until the flies have left tho!

Oddly, we had to check in at this police station to enter the “day entry” zone, but didn’t have to check out so, in the event of the volcano erupting again, how they know who’s still in there defeats us!

During the eruption, from Joe’s I-pad, and now

Before and after

Geo-Thermic

Plymouth and its church spire under tonnes of ash

The remains of the Emerald Isle Hotel and before and after of it’s swimming pool. What Hurricane Hugo didn’t devastate, the 1995-7 eruptions of the volcano did

Parked up in Ballast Bay St Kitts. Nice big tuna for supper, blue clear skies as we pass Nevis and lovely clear water when we arrive.

They are starting to build a marina in the back of this bay where they’ve dug a channel into the interior salt ponds. So far they have a gatehouse and a wifi antenna so we spend part of today catching up with the rest of the planet

Arrived Saba and picked up a mooring buoy.

Pics: Of the lump of rock that is Saba and……………spotted a turtle but he was a bit camera shy.

Pics: a small cart for pulling stuff up to the “road that never should have been built!” and more Saba rock

Bold try to make malt loaf in the bread maker running off solar power, not bad result bearing in mind we have no measuring scales! Then set sail for St Croix (Americans pronounce this St Croy, of course!) Just about to wang a pizza in the oven for supper when we catch another tuna, so it’s dark by the time we get supper after filleting and freezing it.

Pics: Hunter gathering prey (top left of pic!) and successfully landed

The guy who checks us in at St Croix Marine is called “Bless” – bless him!

Pics: Massive fish at the dock and………………ailing radishes!

Pics: Don’t ever recall having been in a Tsunami Hazard zone before and St Croix’s solution for a disused petrol station and car wash … turn it into a Mexican bar and, ermm….carwash!

In February, March and April, we’ve managed the princely total of 1096nms! Total this trip 5944nms