We piled into the dinghy, sploshed ashore and found somewhere where we could alight, eventually, after a tour of most of the marina.  We fell into the nearest restaurant and had a tasty supper of battered conch (me), satay chicken (Matt, because he had been dreaming about it so it was an omen) and Bob surprised the life out of me by having lentil soup.  He must have been so tired that he didn’t realise that it had accursed lentils in it.  Bob then had a seafood kebab, I had the catch of the day, mahi mahi which was supremely tasty and Matt (putting aside some strange story that he had been told that all Caribbean fish were poisoned by some weird virus) went for his first fish of his visit, a particularly ugly, whole snapper that squatted baring its fangs at me.  We yawned our way back to the boat and slept, and slept and slept.

Bright and not too early, Bob set to to mend the sink pump while Matt and I went on a mission to chuck the bags of rubbish (a lot of beer bottles), find a laundry to wash the towels that had been used to mop the flood, and our salt encrusted clothes that had mopped up a lot of rogue waves and to check in and out.  On the dock we met a very friendly and helpful chap called Charlie who directed us to the bins (quite a walk away) and by the time we had returned had lined up Wayne to take our laundry off our hands, which he did with one withered arm, it turned out that he had been stabbed in St Martin.  We were then directed to the Customs office, not far at all, and trotted through a brand spanking new, modern mall of duty free shops, designed to entice in the thousands of people streaming in off the cruise ships, selling really useful things like diamonds and batik.  The Customs people, both women, were very impressed to find a lady skipper doing the checking in and out and we set about filling in the forms, only two this time so very easy, although it was hard to concentrate with the Immigration officer singing along to religious songs on the radio, unfortunately not in the style of a spiritual choir but an over excited cat.  Meanwhile, Matt struck up a conversation with the other skipper who was checking in, the American who had parked  in the same spot, who also turned out to be a surf junkie.  They hoped to hook up for some serious body boarding at a point on the north coast that the skipper had espied on his way in to St Kitts so Matt decided that a local SIM card was a necessity, so he picked one up before heading back to the boat where a contented Bob had mended the pump, (eroded cable), and done engine, and generator, checks.  We all had a beer to help him celebrate.

We then went off for an explore and tried to get Matt up to the surfing beach spotted by Jessie the surf junkie, but the taxi driver, Leroy, thought he knew better and took us to the south to Frigate Bay, a pretty enough beach with magnificent waves but the wind was wrong for surfing.  We asked Leroy to take us to a local restaurant where we could get fish for lunch.  We dived into the back streets, a far cry from the fancy mansions that we had seen on the coast, and entered the Texas Bar but unfortunately they didn’t have any fish, the weather being too inclement.  We then hammered at top speed to another bar that Leroy knew, but they didn’t have any fish either so we plumped for chicken instead.  It came served on tin foil, no knives or forks and we gobbled it up with our hands and sucked the last succulent scraps off the bones.  My, it was good.

Leroy then took us to a nice garden where they made batik, very interesting to see, and we bumped into Jessie again.  The chaps had a boatie conversation while I admired the batik gifts on offer.  Leroy then received a mystery phone call, hustled us back into his van and we returned to Basse Terre at great speed.  He dropped us outside the supermarket which we popped into (Matt somewhat inappropriately clutching his body board and flippers) to replenish the beer and Waldorf Slaw ingredients, and spotted hob nobs which we just had to have.  Returning to the dock with our spoils, we met Wayne who had left our laundry, washed and ironed, in the dinghy.  He kindly carried the shopping for us, nice chap, where we paid him.  Packed to the gunnels again (body board, flippers, laundry and shopping) we sploshed back to WIndy since when we have been chilling, Matt mostly so as he took a plunge into the sea.  I am about to take Matt on at Scrabble and we are hoping that the bar tender will magic up a gin and tonic for us to help us concentrate.