It felt very strange to be back to just three of us heading out for the evening.  Sadly Francesca’s wedding reception venue was closed, as were many other restaurants in the Dockyard because of as mega farewell party, hosted by Eddie Jordan, being held for the Oysters before their round the world trip, and we ended up in a French restaurant which turned to be rather a good choice.  The gazpacho amuse bouche was delicious but if Bob had been a dog his tail would have wagged off at the Middle Eastern butter served with home made bread.  Fortunately the waitress noticed his ecstatic writhing and delivered a second pot once he had licked the first one clean.  For my main course I had to cook my own meat on a ragingly hot volcano stone which I thoroughly enjoyed. 

I downloaded a grib file for the morrow’s weather and it looked perfect  and then we were early to bed for an early start, leaving the oysters partying on the dockside.  An easterly wind and 20 knots of wind.  Lovely sailing to look forward to. We all were leaping about several times in the night as the rain swept by and Francesca, in her newly reoccupied cabin, didn’t sleep very well in the heat after a week on deck.

We set off out of the shelter off English Harbour and met bracing winds, which whipped off Fran’s hat, a near lost overboard moment, and a bulging sea with waves reminiscent of the Atlantic Crossing, lumbering, long and large.  We watched a big black rain cloud stealthily moving in on us which was so cunningly disguised that we didn’t realise until it was upon us that it was in actual fact a storm with winds gusting heartily from 30 knots up to a peak of 39, a Near Gale Force 7 peaking at a Force 8 Gale.  Windy loves a big sea and we rode along relatively comfortably, except for the great buckets of water that the sea kept chucking in Bob and my faces with Fran cackling with glee from under the spray hood.  The sea was so frisky that it first of all ripped one rope from the dinghy, fortunately leaving the second stronger one still in tact and then upturned the dinghy acting like a weighty drogue that was definitely holding us back.  Once Bob had valiantly turned it the right way up it added another know or two and we were bowling along keenly at 8 knots and even reached 8.9 at one point.  An exciting sail.

Bob then asked Fran and I if we had seen the dinghy lately.  It had sloped off and was nowhere to be seen.  The remaining rope was still attached to the ring from the front of the dinghy but unfortunately the ring had parted company with the dinghy itself.  It was a hopeless case of dinghy disappearing “overboard” silently and without us knowing.  Bob scanned the horizon urgently but we concluded that we had to let it go free and fend for itself.  (Must practice our man overboard tomorrow to make sure the same thing doesn’t happen if it is me that absents myself next time).

We headed for Deshaies and are anchoring off, with French restaurants tantalising close but out of reach, and hoping that we can get to Basseterre tomorrow for the opening of the chandlery to buy a replacement.  The sky is as grey and precipitous as a winter’s day in Wiltshire so we are hunkering down to watch DVDs, revise Chemistry lectures and read.  I will leave it to you to decide which is whom.