Wallilabou may appear to be an idyllic cove, a haven from modern life and interruptions but this proved not to be the case as we competed with a giant sized TV for the attention of the prune faced waitress in the only hotel and restaurant in the bay.  By the end of dinner we had said a polite “excuse me, please” getting louder and louder until shouted to be heard above the volume, waved our arms in the international distress signal, rudely and resoundingly tapped on a glass with a knife and even sent out a scouting party in order for her to be dragged away.  We eventually received our full complement of food as ordered, well nearly, with the distraction of the relentless TV, Susie received chicken instead of pork.  You could see she wanted to have it replaced but we thought it most unwise under the circumstances.  The banana flambes were suitably fiery, long burners and tasted very rummy (once they arrived during an ad break we presume).  We were the only people having dinner by the way.

The boat boy arrived at 7am as bidden by Bob the day before and was most put out that we were not ready to go, as put out as you can be with the typical bloodshot glazed stare of a hardy laid back ganga imbiber.  We were frankly amazed that he was a) in any fit state to remember the scheduled appointment or b) in any fit state to get out of bed. We were off by 7:30 am and, as we puttered up the lee of St Vincent, breakfast was served.  We then put up the sails, set our course and were hassled by a French boat that didn’t seem to understand the rules of the road regarding overtaking boats keeping politely clear, they cut us up like a white van driver.  If we had been trying not to be competitive up to that point, this was a French tricolour to a bull.  Up went the jib, up went our speed and we were after them like a man of war fighting our way using a 32 knot wind just off the beam.  We got closer and closer, caught up, were at a speed to overtake, got very, very close indeed (Bob was panicking just a little bit and so too was the determined driver) before we ducked under their stern to show them the correct way of overtaking.  We left them for dust, harumphing and nodding to each other with triumph.  We could settle and relax after that.  The wind dropped to a more sober 24 knots and Windy cantered along happily crossing the gap between the islands at a steady pace.  A mile off the Pitons the water erupted with a very numerous frisky pod of dolphins, the little short squatty type ones.  Spread across a wide area of the sea they were making dazzlingly enormous leaps, whizzing through the water, ducking, diving and dipping alongside the boat.  It was absolutely magical, a real thrill.

After all the excitement we eased into the bay, found a boat man who we followed on to his chosen buoy, smooth as smooth can be shimmied up to said buoy.  The driver was rewarded with a completely unsolicited compliment on her parking procedure by the jolly black boat man (it made a change from the usual remarks that I receive from the captain about the boat boys “diving off their boats in panic and alarm”), treasured thinking just how many boats he must have moored in his time.

Just for a change we thought we would have an arrival beer, a spot of lunch and some Kindle time relaxing.  Bob then got down to the business of making water, and Gerry cooperated fully and is being really rather cheerful this trip.  Bob and I then drilled a hole in the coconut that we had foraged, extracted the coconut water, scooped out the meat (which is in my humble opinion a little on the under ripe side) and prepared a classic fruit mixer for the planned home made rum punch for when the sun goes down.  We will use the foraged lemon grass as stirrers.  Can’t wait.