The rum had punch.  It was deliciously created from bananas, mangoes, limes, orange juice, topped up with tonic water, poured over ice and a good shot of local rum.  It nearly blew our heads off but we managed to get it down and assembled for dinner at a sensible hour.  The restaurant was a short row away so the outboard had a night off.  We piled into our cagoules and into the dinghy and then Bob  started manoeuvres in the dark seeming to forget about the rope attaching us to the palm tree on shore.  I was nearly garrotted but saved my skin by grabbling the rope and leaning back like an over keen dinghy sailor pushing the dinghy further away in the process.  How I did not either upend the dinghy or end in the drink is a mystery.  My frantic scrambling back to a safe position received a curt “Elizabeth, stop being silly”.

We ran ashore and paddled on to the beach in our extra special Lidl beach shoes which are just the ticket when there is no dock, slopped up the steps and found a beautifully laid out table, just the one on the whole veranda, awaiting our presence.  We sat and were brought ice cold Hairouns and after a wait as it was cooked to order, a delicious dinner of bbq chicken for Bob and fish of the day with a garlic sauce, the fish unnamed and unidentified, with garlic carrots and buttery rice.  It was superb.  The piece de resistance was the pud, banana flambe with the such strong rum that the bananas seemed to burn for ever creating the perfect tinge of caramel and toasted banana.  Yum yum.  It poured with rain and that was the moment that a catamaran chose to arrive and ring in for attention.  Joseph leapt into action and went and sorted them out.  We were surprised to see them take off into the night again rather than moor up.  They were dropping off or collecting a consignment of Ganga, according to our host. We returned to Windy between showers, or tropical downpours depending on which way you look at it and slept like rum soaked logs despite it being stifling in the cabin with all the windows closed to avoid being drenched off and on.

We left without incident under grey clouds and pottered up the coast of St Vincent hugging the shore to make best advantage of the wind direction once we got out of the lee, and were intermittently showered.  As planned when we hit the open sea, the wind got up, sails went up and we were off like a greyhound out of a trap, flying along in winds gusting to 22 knots especially when the rain clouds came over.  Somehow getting soaked by warm rain is so much more preferable than the English equivalent.  It was a cracking sail.

We went as far as we could up St Lucia to be arriving at a sensible time so are now parked underneath the Gross Piton with spectacular views, a cacophony of tree frogs and a refreshing wind whistling between the Pitons so we are looking forward to a more airy night, if the rain holds off.

Must go and cook supper, we have got to the stage of the journey when we are using things up so it could be quite an interesting invention test.