Last night turned out to be a triumph.  The Lazy Turtle is run by an Italian and serves Italian food, opens when it says it will open, and not a rice grain or pea in sight but in a good way.  I had lasagne and Bob had spag bol each laden with oodles of melting cheese.  I have experienced a sugar rush before but not a cheese rush, it was divine and we groaned our way back to Windy.

This morning, a beautiful sunny day, the haze gone, Simon was at the appointed place with his “taxi”.  It was, as anticipated, in the same condition as his boat and his boat engine, i.e. decrepit.  The passenger seat was hammered out of the way to let me in to the back seat, the doors all needed a rattling thump to close them, the carpets, a mixture of lino and rug off cuts covered the holes in the floor.  It was disconcerting to watch the road go by beneath my feet through the gaps.  We did however get to Hillsborough in one piece with just the one stop for Simon’s papers to be examined by a pair of smartly attired, swanking cops.  Apparently he was actually able to produce a certificate of worthiness and insurance for his vehicle.

At Hillsborough we wandered down to the Immigration office and waited our turn in the tiny office.  The chap in front was experiencing the identical sarcasm that the same officious chap had thrown at Bob when we checked in.  It made us happy.  The next chap was a Frenchman from Martinique and he was having enormous trouble getting his tongue around the name Hillsborough.  He said it as “Ill-bow-roo” and it took several of my attempts at coaching to get it into anything resembling itself.  When he said he was going on to Onion island I nearly fell apart.  The officials looked on with rigid faces.  The Frenchmen concluded his business and left at which point the remaining people, me and Bob and the two officials, started saying “Ill-bow-roo” and giggling.  Those officious officials transformed into wobbling jellies of laughter.  We could hear them still saying it and collapsing into fits of giggles when we closed the door behind us.

We left Tyrell Bay and threaded our way north waiting to see what the wind was doing.  After a while it picked up to a gentle 12 to 14 knots so we decided that with a bit of jiggery pokery we could easily make it to Mayreau and set sail.  It was just one of those perfectly glorious, sailing in the Caribbean days.  We romped along comfortably, bounding along a gentle sea and sat back to enjoy the ride.  We only needed to put in two tacks, carefully timed so that cook was on the right tack for lunch, and we were there.  Salt Whistle Bay is just a picture book Caribbean place, a sandy beach with palm trees and just a few locals selling touristy stuff on the beach.  There is a resort too, but cleverly hidden from sight and, as we discovered when making enquiries regarding dinner, with absolutely no guests at all at the moment.  We have instead opted for the beach bar pre ordering chicken and whatever happens to come with it, probably rice.

We had a good snorkel, there seemed to be a lot more brown fish including a pair of mackerel like chaps who kept coming around for a good stare at us.  We were delighted to find our anchor dug in to perfection in a nice sandy patch between weeds and only feet away from some rather nasty concrete blocks.  We were obviously very lucky today, it has been glorious.