The gin and tonic made us very mellow and we sauntered to the sushi restaurant for our last supper in Rodney Bay.  Unfortunately there wasn’t a table but fortunately we could prop up on a ledge overlooking the chefs at work.  They were actually real Japanese cooks and were most impressive with their rolling mats as they speedily rolled up order after order.  Our calamari to start was delicious and I loved the chicken dumplings (Bob declined even a taste leaving all the more for me).  The mixed sushi were very tasty and disappeared in a trice washed down with a Corona or two (they had run out of Piton extraordinarily).  We were very happy to turn i early and once again Bob’s Kindle was ignored, unless the sounds emanating from Bob were singing from a hymn book.  We slept well.

Our plan was to leave early and make for St Pierre at the top end of Martinique.  We did and this also avoided too many emotional further fond farewells with accompanying awkwardness.  Bob quietly slipped the mooring ropes and I serenely put us into reverse and we slid gently from C16 with barely a whisper.  We headed off without a fuss although I did put my foot down and broke the speed limit as a final up yours to IGY Marina and its Hitler managers.  We turned right and headed north to find the wind on a broad breach.  There wasn’t a lot of it, just a steady enough 16 knots but it was ideal for us to find our sea legs. The sails went up, all three of them and we glided along at a gentle 6 to 6.5 knots.  The sun came out, the sea glistened, Bob slopped the sun cream on my back (he is getting so much better and less patting the dog like about it) and we were happily on our way scudding between huge amounts of weed that we had seen from the Virgin flight in strings across the sea.  Breakfast was served, we were on cook’s favourite tack and we sat back and relaxed.  We were thrilled to be intercepted by three dolphins who played for a bit before deciding that we were below optimum speed and went on their way.  It was less thrilling and somewhat bemusing to be buzzed by a helicopter that got very close up and personal before swerving on its way.

We nibbled on a few hob nobs, tried very hard to keep our eyes open (Stugeron does make you snoozy whatever they claim) and chilled in glorious sunshine as we puttered along over a rather corkscrewing sea.  Luncheon was a light Caribbean style Coronation Chicken, prepared at speed as it was the first day out, with the mandatory Piton. We just carried on enjoying the ride although the wind dropped and we were slopping along at a meagre 4 to 5 knots.  We were even more excited to be greeted by more dolphins but they overtook very quickly and were gone.  As we neared St Pierre the sea became curiously choppy without a choppy wind to go with it.  In fact there was so little wind that we motored in for our last few miles.  It is a long run in and it always takes so much longer than we remember.  The bay is very, very rolly.

We decided to optimise our choice of parking place after our last incident in the night time here.  Bob decided on a new routine whereby I came to a halt, called the depth, he let down the anchor and then when he knew that it had landed would call back to me to go into reverse.  The first bit happened but not the last but we seem to have stuck in okay.  This does not stop us being paranoid and we have had the anchor alarm on just in cases and have to check our sightings neurotically every ten minutes.  A stiff gin and tonic has been deployed to sooth the nerves.  Fingers crossed.