We made it.

Wow! What a trip - and what an arrival.  We knew it would be an early morning finish for us, but despite anticipating it, when the time came it all seemed to happened rather suddenly. 

We spotted land in the distance around 5/6 hours away, a faint glow in the sky, first over Martinique and soon after over St. Lucia.  Then we started to see lights on Martinique, but no visible land really as it's just too dark (no moon).   

We had expected boats to start converging on the finish line from a day or so out, but congestion really only became noticeable during the last few hours.  Suddenly there's radio traffic, half a dozen ARC boats calling in ahead of us and also local fishing boats and ships and all manner of things to look out for.  It felt like a such a change from having the ocean to ourselves - almost an intrusion on our own little bubble.

We first aimed for a buoy, marked on the chart roughly 4 miles North of St. Lucia, but when it became apparent the buoy wasn't there, we cut the corner and headed straight for the finish line. 

Not easy to find in the dark.  It's quite stressful entering a strange harbour for first time, especially in the dark.  Add to that the knowledge that there's a welcoming committee watching our every move, and probably recording it.  We were relieved to spot the single flashing yellow light against a brightly lit shoreline that marked the end. 

As we came round the North of the Island, we turned to sail closer to the wind - which decided to pick-up a notch or two - and increased the pressure.  The asymmetric sail started to become more of a handful so we furled it and put the genoa out (should have put up the main sail, but couldn't be bothered for just a mile or so).  We also tried to start the engine, just in case we needed it.  There was a momentary panic when we thought we'd picked up a rope around the prop, but the engine started and if there was a rope there, the rope-cutter saw it off. 

The ARC finish line committee boat called us up on the VHF with finishing instructions just as we realised we'd not be able to sail in with just the genoa.  Thank goodness for the motor!  

At the same time a little dinghy turned up to take our photo. There we were, all hands on deck trying to keep an eye on the finish line, avoid the obstacles, plan how to get the genoa furled, make the right radio calls, and the dinghy man asking for a crew photo with all hands on the desk smiling. All at 3:30 in the morning. I'll be interested to see how we looked!

But we made it!  A final last minute hitch just after the finish line getting the genoa furled away (we lost a critical drill-bit and had to spend 10 mins doing it by hand) before a gentle motor into the marina.  David parked Qing beautifully in our allocated spot and we were able to step off onto the pontoons to a welcome drink of iced rum punch.  

We've been drinking rum with one of our neighbours (who'd arrived an hour or so before us) ever since.  It's now 0630 and the sun's up, but I'm not going out to take photos now. I'll have a few hours kip before breakfast and save the shower and photos for later. 

All safe and sound. Mission accomplished.