We had planed to visit Ile de Pinel, but expected it to be quite rolly, as it was on the east side of St Martin, anyway after doing the generator jobs we set off mid morning. I was sat at the helm driving at had us a good way off in 10m of water on the chart when all of a sudden one of my system alarms started, I instantly suspected depth and there it was 3.8m, jut over 1m under the keel, in a very rolly sea. Quite dangerous – I went hard astern and got Suzanne to go aft to guide me off the reef, which took us a couple of boat lengths, but we didn’t touch so no damage done, except we decided not to head into the beach.

 

That was a bit of a shame, as in the bay Orient Beach is the nudist beach and Suzanne is keen to get rid of her triangles, but would rather do it in private, so I guess it worked out fine. We set sail and had a great run back down to St Barth’s into Anse de Colombiere and then snorkelled miles again – our new dive fins are brilliant and it was quite a good reef – I even saw a squid and some crabs and we got back for a late BBQ lunch on board.

 

BTW – Have you seen that Auntie Irene’s sister Beryl is beating up the coast of Florida where “X” marks the spot – What !! 2 Named Storms and it still isn’t June 1 and these seem to be developing over the shallow warmer waters of the Bahamas. Then you can see another Tropical Wave above the ITCZ (which is quite a way north at the moment as the earths rolls on its axis to bring the sun up to the Tropic of Cancer) north of French Guyana, but for the moment we have 10-15kts easterly. I’m not sure how I am going to find 6 days from Antigua to Bermuda, 2 weeks in Bermuda and then 4 days to Chesapeake, 24 days, all without any systems developing – despite the forecasts saying a normal year.