Here we are back again after what seems like aeons but is actually only 5 months.  Our journey to get here was classically British with the chatty taxi driver taking us to the station, the delayed train that meant we missed our connection at Reading and trains to Gatwick only go every hour.  Fortunately Fran came and rescued us from Martins Heron (yes, it really is the name of a station) and drove us the rest of the way joining us for a slap up dinner at the Hilton.  She was on good form.

We had an uneventful but very stuffy nights sleep and were ready to be on our way when the fire alarm went off – just for a short burst.  We pottered down to checkout only to be waved out of the hotel to safety because apparently it wasn’t just a practice.  We could have fried.

Our plane boarded in plenty of time but we then had to wait for an hour while someone’s luggage had to be taken off because they hadn’t shown up for the flight.  The only reason we could think of that you would check in luggage and then not turn up was illness or death so we tried not to be too annoyed.

We arrived in St Lucia to be met by a full on blast of Caribbean heat.  Lovely!  An equally chatty taxi driver took us up to Rodney Bay.  After a lot of nesting and squirrelling things away we went out to our most used restaurant and were served by the lovely Sandy.  Did she recognise us from our last visit?  We are not sure.

Early bed because of the time difference meant an early rise from Bob.  I as ever snored on soundly.  He got stuck into his list of jobs using all his treasures that he had bought on e-bay before we left the UK and the brand new outboard engine that had greeted us on arrival.  The gadget to fix the problem with the generator not charging at full rate proved not to agree with the instructions provided so Bob decided to leave it to the electricians as an over the summer job.   While Bob fixed and fiddled over 2 days and collecting the mended cruising chute, I planned a passage up to Martinique.  It involved a visit to the Marina office where I chuckled over a rotund German woman who was outraged by meeting a rat on her boat.  Obviously the fact that she had left her rubbish in the cockpit overnight had nothing to do with enticing in these unwanted visitors.  We are being very careful about such things now.

We checked out of Customs, loaded on the dinghy and were ready to go at 0900 on Friday 4th as planned.  A graceful exit and we slipped away out of the marina avoiding the coconuts and dead dog floating in the water (too sad!).   There wasn’t something quite right though.  The throttle only revved up to 1500 when in forwards gear.  It was fine in reverse and in neutral.  We couldn’t risk going abroad with this not checked out so returned to harbour.  Bob had only just finished stowing the fenders and the mooring ropes so was not best pleased. I overshot the berth in my desire not to scrape us along the pontoon but got us in safely if inelegantly. 

Bob then went to the DSL office to get assistance.  Everyone convinced themselves that there were barnacles on the propeller.  A man even popped down to look and said that there weren’t too many to be be worried about but the DSL crew in the absence of the head honcho Ulrich were determined.  So off we went out into the bay, not quite such an elegant exit, past the coconuts and the dead dog (really sad!), and anchored to have our bottom scraped.

It seemed a bit pointless betting on whether it would do the trick but we did anyway.  Needless to say it made a couple of dits on the rev counter difference and we returned.  Parking started brilliantly despite the dinghy wafting by across our bows but ended up a bit all over the place when Windy bucked and wiggled when the nice man pulled on the bow rope too hard.  Bob persuaded Lawrence to come and change the fuel filters tomorrow but he didn’t seem keen and wanted to wait for Ulrich to return to diagnose the problem.  I secretly bet that Bob is right with his solution!  We will see.

We are going to go out and have a really good meal tonight to compensate – if we can stay awake.