It was wonderful to leave Rodney Bay and the somewhat claustrophobic marina village living, indeed so close to our neighbour Robin that we could see what book he was reading, and even which chapter he had reached, while he pretended not to be staring at us as we sat eating our breakfast in our cockpit.  At least said neighbour gave us a willing shove so that we cleared the pontoon on exiting the dock, the driver being a bit out of practice and expecting the normal kick to port that for some reason didn’t happen on this occasion resulting in leaving the pontoon backwards and trying to look as if I had meant to all along.  We pottled out of the harbour at a gentle pace while Bob went below and removed the menagerie, mostly dead, that was stopping the speedometer from doing its appointed job.  We had a gentle re-introduction to life on the ocean wave with a gentle breeze that had us puddling along sedately with full mainsail and genoa out, oh it felt good to be out and about and on the move, but we decided to go just as far as The Pitons on our first outing since the semi sinking incident so that we weren’t too far from assistance if any of the new gear failed for any reason.  Everything appears to be working, cross fingers, and the new batteries are holding steady at a reading of 12.6 (a discreet and hushed hooray and don’t let Gerry hear) so we will head for St Vincent tomorrow with confidence.

We had an adventurous snorkel on arrival off Soufriere, a really good spot on a mooring ball by the bat cave where fish of all shapes and sizes abound but aborted by Bob when something of mean temperament bit him leaving some painful stinging spots and then shortly afterwards by me after being bloodied when I unexpectedly encountered a very shallow bit of reef and was rolled across it by a wave.  We have parked here before and had forgotten just how rolly the waves can be, it may be the reason that we are totally alone, ah well, better to be rocked to sleep by waves than new wave music from partying Martiniquians.