A very wet, grey start to the day

We woke up to rain and it continued for hours, at times very heavy. We had promised to pick up James, the son of our friends on Mustique, he has been left behind as the rest of the family have all returned to the UK. He has been emailing Rowan very enthusiastically about joining us sailing. So we had to set off in the pouring rain with no visibility beyond 20m, not ideal among the reefs of the Cays! We finally got the sails up and had a very bumpy ride across to Mustique. about half way there the skies cleared thank goodness, I managed to pick up the mooring ball first go, so satisfying to finally be able to do it. Rowan went and picked up James from the dinghy dock. He is a great and very unique character, 21, and obsessed with planes, so much so he is doing a degree course in airport management. He loves the Caribbean and has stayed on the island as he works on the ferry manifest, he just enjoys ticking off the boxes that arrive on the island. He is very keen and was so excited to be on the boat. Rowan was chuffed to have such a willing pupil.

There were 4 Dutch boats and they all got together in the morning. The crazy couple in the photo – the man was on his paddle board in swimming trunks, one paddle and an umbrella…… we could not work out what he was trying to keep dry, his partner is swimming behind him. It had us really intrigued!

Very wet steering

After lunch the sun came out!

We decided to sail to the marina in Canouan as the wind was good in that direction, and we could fill up with water, as our water maker is not behaving. It was a great sail over, with winds gentle enough we could finally get the Gennaker out the locker and get it re-furled. Amazingly all went to plan beautifully, we got the sail out and had a lovely sail with it, and then managed to re-furl it with no problems. A first!

There were only 3 other boats in the enormous marina which makes it very pleasant for us but must be devastating for the owners. James has had all the locals flabbergasted as he is fluent in their local dialect which we find impossible to understand. You can see they take a double take at James when he first does it, as I assume they think he is taking the mickey, but they soon realise it is for real and are absolutely bowled over, they have never seen a whitey talk like this. We had to wait on board for a doctor to come and examine us and take our temperatures, he was a delightful local guy and could not get over James. We chortle as he never admits to living on Mustique (far too posh), but claims he has been visiting Vincy (St Vincent) since he was a picknee (kid)! We are learning some too!

We had a delicious lamb supper at the restaurant which made a great change for us.