We left Salt Whistle under a grey sky and very little wind coming from precisely the wrong direction so took the easy option and headed to Bequia rather than fight our way to Mustique. We think we will save Mustique for a sunny day. We hoiked up the mainsail and reefed it in when the clouds got very dark but despite rain and more rain the wind didn’t really pick up beyond 11 knots.  After getting through one rain cloud we decided to put up the full mainsail again in order to make any progress at all as we were floundering along. We were a little bit caught out when the next cloud came through accompanied by belting 30 knot winds, the auto pilot couldn’t cope, the helmsman could barely hold on to the wheel and Bob rapidly released the main sheet to spill some wind.  Not an ideal sailing angle but we were making good speed!  We re-reefed in the mainsail when we saw the next black cloud but the rest of the sail was spent just plodding through more and more, ploppier and fatter rain with wimpy winds.  We were soaked to the skin, despite wearing our waterproofs, the temperature under the pram hood dropped to an all time low of 25, Bob’s hands looked as if he’d been in a bath for hours and I was getting distinctly shivery.

We arrived in Admiralty Bay, stripped off every piece of wet and soggy clothing and hunkered down in the saloon for hot soup and DVDs.  It is still raining several hours later so we are very happily going to stay on board this evening.  The wine and nuts are open, Katie Melua is singing to us and when I get round to it I will cook us a spot of supper.