Sunday 11th was a very special day being Mia’s first birthday. We took our rib to the nearby beach and joined all the other guests at Mia’s birthday party. There was another baby present, Archie, a seven months old boy, very sturdy, with his mother and two older brothers. There were several other boys between about ten and fifteen as well as lots of male and female friends of Caroline, Mia and her daddy Igor.

Lots of pink balloons decorated the palm trees. Igor’s brother Bruno had modeled some fish from gaily painted paper which hung from the umbrella of palm leaves covering one of the tables, on which a selection of yummy food was available.

Mia blew out the candle on her cake and the throng of about thirty people sung “Happy Birthday”.

As it became dark, rain threatened but we all managed to get back to our boats and homes before the rain started.

On Wednesday, we again returned to the beach with Caroline and Mia but this time we were celebrating Caroline’s first year of motherhood. When we received the bill after lunch, we had been charged $62 EC (£15), for a sprite.

“I made a mistake” said the waitress and altered the bill to correctly read $6 EC!

Graham and Chris arrived in the bay on Eowyn having taken their time to reach Antigua. They had been delayed leaving Grenada as Chris couldn’t even get on their boat for three weeks, so bad was her back due to sciatica. They stayed in the bay just one night and then moved on to Falmouth where a repair was made to the top of their mast. Apparently Hallberg-Rassey had recalled a number of boats and theirs fell into the category which had the faulty part.

We had met Graham when we all participated in the WARC. He sailed with a couple of other chaps and his wife Chris flew out to various destinations to meet up with him.

On Saturday 21^st, the round the island race took place, starting from Falmouth Harbour. The first of three classes set off at 8am, the second at 9am and the third at 9.30am. The local weather forecast on VHF channel 06 coincided with the start instructions at 9am.

Last year, a record was set by the winning boat at four hours, three minutes and fifty two seconds. The boats made a splendid sight as they passed the entrance to English Harbour,  heeled over in the wind.

Saturday evening, Sue and Andy from Andromeda joined us on board for drinks. We had last met them in St Lucia; they also manned the ARC finish line. We hadn’t realized before, that getting to St Lucia completed their Atlantic crossing from the previous year. Apparently they lost their mast when they crossed in 2010 and their boat was repaired in Barbados, before spending the hurricane season in Trinidad. Currently they are delayed in Freemans Bay, waiting for their generator to be fixed; rumour has it that it could refitted on Monday.

Sunday, we frolicked on the beach, running in and out of the waves with Mia who is suffering from her first ever cold, then had lunch, most of Mia’s ending up on the beach restaurant floor.

Jenny from Tzigany has been unwell, spending several days in hospital following an operation on an abscess; she reacted badly to the anaesthetic. The friends who had been staying on the boat have taken themselves off for a few days.

The chap who sailed with us from Gibraltar to Tenerife and then cruised the Canary Islands with us in 2009, had shown an interest in buying Tucanon. We gave him first refusal for a couple of weeks but are now going to proceed with marketing the boat properly as no progress has been made. The boat is in excellent condition and fitted out for ocean sailing. It has just about everything on board with the exception of a dishwasher, broadband and a satellite TV. It really must be the bargain of the year as we are being very pragmatic about the price, wanting to sell.