We were so pleased to be leaving Rodney Bay this morning after such a draining doing frustrating tasks day and yet another night of robust foreign singing and noisy late night revelry.  Perhaps we are getting old?

We rose early, Bob’s coffee trick working its charm to get me to rise from my bunk, battened down the hatches, stowed everything moveable (giving special attention to the two crates of beer), tried to remember what else we were meant to do before departing, made a tidy, no fuss exit and keenly headed for the open sea like an over eager migrating whale.

As we came out of Rodney Harbour we were met by classic Caribbean conditions, bold boxy waves and a confident wind.  The sails went up, after rather a lot of remedial rerouting of misplaced ropes, and we dashed off on a broad reach at a jaunty 7 knots.  We sighed with pleasure and the tension started ebbing away as we remembered just how much we like sitting do absolutely nothing for hours on end while undertaking the sport of sailing.  Bob got very excited when he saw a spout of water and a larger than normal fin.  I didn’t see it.  Was it a whale?  Or was it the Stugeron?  We will never know.

We are cracking on a bit in order to make the most of the Virgin Islands so our first port of call is St Pierre, the amazing town that was wiped out by a volcanic explosion in 190something, where we are making a quick pit stop.  We pottered into town, tried visiting Customs, it was closed, bought the rather tasty, very French, potted duck that we like from the Huit a Huit supermarket (that is actually open from 9am to 6am),  attempted to book into our favourite restaurant with the mature French couple that don’t speak any English but serve delicious French country food, only to discover that it is under new management.  How sad but the mature couple were obviously older than even we realised.  We will go and try it out for old times sake and report back tomorrow.

As I write, Gerry is humming happily, a far better sound than the Germans.