We went crackers with the spag bol.  We pulled Katie’s Christmas Scrabble crackers, because Matt appreciates Scrabble a whole lot more than Bob, and merrily solved the anagrams, yes there was wine involved, a rather nice South African number picked out by Matt.  And yes, we did listen to Bob’s eclectic music mix but Matt seemed to go off to bed very rapidly after it started.  We slept well.

Our early start turned out to be 8am, Bob decided on another of his unexpected sleep ins, and we set off from Montserrat into a wavy  but reasonable sea.  Our plan was to go around the top of Montserrat and line ourselves up for a more comfortable broad reach sail down to Guadeloupe.  The plan worked except we had a job getting round the top of the island, battling under engine into a strong current and the wind.  With a bit of help from a napkin sized mainsail we made it at a cursory 3 knots squeezing around the end and then meeting big rolly Atlantic hilly waves, reasonably spaced and fairly orderly.  We made our way down the east coast of Montserrat and had an amazing view of the volcano, the slicks of solid lava spreading into the sea and streams of steam trailing like wax from real, live, hot patches. 

We settled down into a lovely sail, a steady 22 knots, only just a reach but far, far more comfortable than the close hauled journeys that were making us so tired.  It was so rhythmic that I fell asleep before being woken with demands for lunch.  I opted for Waldorf Slaw, again I know, but he really does like it, chopped on deck with the loose ends chucked past Bob’s nose.  It does make it easier and less green making.

We serenely slid into Deshaies, at 4pm,  parked up in a busy, cosmopolitan bay which is so peaceful that it doesn’t feel claustrophobic.  The main noise is the chimes from the lego church.  The boys launched the dinghy and foregoing the arrival beer, we headed into town to do our chores.  Rubbish was dumped, we checked in and out at the “really easy  to check in” Pelican shop, except for the AZERTY keyboard, piled into the Spar supermarket and greedily hoovered up the yummy French things such as Duck Terrine and brie, as well as more water and beer of course.

We are back on board, me blogging but being seriously distracted by the intellectual conversation that has been whistling around, they’ve covered veganism, the strict meat and crop standards in the UK and even wandered on to the causes of the First World War.  I don’t think they should have any more beer before we go ashore for supper.