Last night’s supper was at a simple, local restaurant where we had chicken with curry sauce, by the light of a citronella candle because  we had forgotten to perfume ourselves with eau de deet, and very tasty it was too.

I was awoken early again by Bob who has learnt that appearing with a cup of coffee and not telling me what time it really is, is the perfect way to get me up.  It works.  By 7:30am we were off and away towards Mustique, the wind direction was in our favour for a change and we set sail with a very light sea and a steady 12 knots of wind that at least had us sailing along with the sails full.  It started spitting with rain from a front that was escorting us along and once again it was time to put on the cagoules.  The wind direction may have been right but the wind just phutted out to a measly 6 to 8 just as we were passing the end of Bequia, skirting Bullet Rock.   The sea suddenly got up so we had to turn on the engine pretty smartly to drive away from this not inconsiderable lump of hard and solid danger.  There was a teensy weensy sense of urgency from Bob but the helmsman nonchalantly uncurled herself from the shelter of the spray hood to attend to matters.  The engine remained on for the rest of the trip and we puttered in to Britannia Bay at about 11:30am, picked up a mooring buoy discretely and elegantly with the boat hook and decided that although it was a little early for a beer it has become traditional to toast the end our voyages with a bottle of Carib, the local brew, or perhaps Bob was still thinking about that close encounter with a hefty old rock.

The water is picture postcard turquoise and clear and we both snorkelled on the reef which is only about 10 yards from our parking place seeing sea urchins the size of footballs, a shoal of yellow striped fish just hanging and chilling as the waves drifted by and a beautiful black specimen with blue disco lights on its back.  Just every colour of the rainbow.

We had a run ashore, chuckled at the sand piper type birds scurrying about hysterically on the shore in mad rushes, investigated the fish market where a whole slag heap of empty conch shells is building up, avoided the silent but deadly golf cart like transport that prevails on this tiny, impeccably kept island and tried to pay our mooring fees with much polite and increasingly loud “hellos” but gave up as the open to the world office was patently empty.  It transpired that it was because the harbour master was doing the rounds of the boats.  He found us.

The sunset was wonderful this evening and the sky continued to put on a show for some time after the sun had actually disappeared.  It is really beautiful and peaceful.