17:01.35 N

61:46.47 W

After a very long (14 hours) and bumpy sail to Anguilla (wind on the nose the whole way - but luckily no one was sick!), the Skipper allowed us a day of rest the next day. We spent it chilling on this beautiful island with lunch on a tiny islet called Sandy Island (see photo) about a mile out from Road bay where we were anchored, which is a perfect desert Island with a white sandy beach, palm trees and just one restaurant on it.

We had an early start the next day, but not so far to go to St Barts, a French Island a bit like Nice or St Tropez in the Caribbean. Gustav the Capital is full of very smart designer shops but we were more interested in the supermarket where we were able to buy French bread, cheese and pate, and most important French wines!

The next day we sailed to Nevis, another long sail but we were allowed a rest day so took an island tour. We circumnavigated the island which was once a major sugar cane producer - these days the main economy is tourism but the old sugar plantation estate houses have been bought up and beautifully restored and converted to restaurants and hotels. 

Our final stop before Antigua was Montserrat, an island that none of us had visited before. It was almost devastated by the volcano eruption about 20 years ago when the main town Plymouth was wiped out. Luckily most of the population of the town had been evacuated so there was little loss of life however the population shrunk from 12,000 to 4,000 as many people fled to other islands and countries including the UK. We took a taxi tour of the island and although the area around the volcano is still restricted we were able to see from a distance the wave of molten lava that settled on the town which now is covered in vegetation, however you can still see the roofs of some houses sticking up through it.

The volcano eruption wiped out tourism causing all the hotels to shut and today the only industry on the island is the excavation and export of soil which is rich in minerals ironically because of the volcano eruption.

After a very bumpy night spent on anchor (we now know why there were so few boats in the bay!) we set off on our final leg to Antigua where we said good bye to Jos and set about preparing Safiya for our forthcoming trip. We flew home on the 9th and left the boat in Declan's capable hands. He is supervising a haul out and re anti foul and various warranty works.

Our next blog will be in January when we start our world trip!

Happy Christmas

H & S xx

PS The photos are: Sandy Island, Anguila. Two of the restored sugar plantation houses in Nevis The still smoking volcano and a sunset in Montserrat.