We duly met at The Pub, the lovely waitress insisting that Matt hide his body board, flippers (actually fins, only dolphins are called flipper according to Matt’s diving instructor) and rucksack behind a door.  Over tasty conch fritters (Matt and me), onion rings (Bob) and a beer we managed to put the world to rights and had it truly nailed by the end of main courses, ribs (Bob), mixed seafood (me), chicken (Matt).  Matt was pleased to be tucking in to meat after a few weeks living in a vegan household.  We piled all of us, plus the body board, rucksack and flippers into the dinghy and puttered back once again filled to the gunnels and unloaded on to WIndy in an ungainly manner as the waves were still heaving and chucking the dinghy about.  And so to bed.

An early start, and we were off leaving Road Harbour (after what has felt like a quarantine of six days) as yet another humungous cruise liner made its way ponderously in.  Slipping between Peter and Norman Island we were soon on the high seas, and high they were. The waves were wrong and confused and the wind blowing steadily at 24 to 26 knots, we were all very glad to have taken our Stugeron. 

It has been a hard day of sailing, WIndy plunging nobly into the ragged waves, slashing through at only just under 5 knots and taking quite a pounding on a very close haul trying to make Nevis with quite the wrong wind direction/  Matt took one nap in the forward cabin and decided that he might prefer to sleep on deck tonight, in the soothing pram, rather than face the buffeting and noise at the sharp end. Making lunch was a performance, on the “wrong” tack so that everything springs out of the cupboards and everything on the counter top tries to leap into your arms, but achieved without cook going too green.  It is a long time since we had had a sail as jerky and uncomfortable as this.  I glanced around a short while ago to find Matt, arms and legs everywhere on the floor of the saloon.  He is obviously very experienced at sea because he had managed to keep his beer bottle upright and had not spilled one drop.  Good lad, the surfing expertise is paying off.

We put in a tack, to try and get in the right position to actually make it to Nevis and to appease cook so she might achieve heating up the cottage pie without it flying out of the oven.  (It is so bouncy that I am wondering whether peas are a safe option).  The only problem is that the wind direction is such that we have nearly gone back on ourselves and are certainly getting further away from Nevis than any real progress.  Never mind we’ve got all night!                  

Gerry certainly doesn’t like the crazy movement, he sang a few bars then gave up with a grumble and flashed a low oil light in the absence of a finger.