We got up early to hit the fuel dock only to realize there were two 100+ monohauls tied up and making no signs of moving any time soon.  The fuel dock people motioned us to raft up next to the pretty blue one.  It was weird dragging the giant fuel line across their boat and a bit awkward walking across their boat to get to the fuel dock, but you do what you got to do.

I had to clear Matt and I from the island (we got our passports stamped when we flew into Gran Canarias, where Marvin and Ron did not get their passports stamped when they arrived via the boat).  Evidently, the marina boat clearance office only clears the boat in and out of the country.  They do not clear the people or stamp your passports. If you need to clear immigration (get your passport stamped), you must go to the police station which is 6 1/2 miles away.  In addition, when the Sugar Shack cleared into Gran Canarias, Marvin did not receive much paper work we are hoping clearing out and clearing into St Lucia won’t be a problem.  Of course I did not know that the marina boat clearance office was not immigration as I waited over an hour to see someone. Once I got inside the nice lady informed me that I had to take our passports to the immigration office located at the police station, she handed me a map and said it was too far to walk.  I headed back to the fuel dock and noticed our sweet boat was no longer rafted up to the big beautiful blue boat and went back to the docks by the clearance office – I started hailing the coast guard when I noticed Ron in our dingy at the dock. I told Matt what had to be done and off I went to find a cab. I decided to start walking in the general direction and no cab could be found.  About 4 ½ miles into my walk I hailed a cop car and tried to explain my dilemma.  The nice officer loaded me up into the back seat of their car and the driver made some comment about being a “taxi driver” (even with the language barrier, I understood that much).  Luckily there was someone else there who could translate for me as they did not want to stamp our passports – after 20 minutes of back and forth, our passports were stamped and I was headed back to the boat – another 6 ½ miles back.  Unfortunately I could not find a cab or a police car that would help me, but I made it back a little over 3 hours later and off we go to cross the Atlantic at 11:46am (zulu).

We decided to head South with the wind on our nose to avoid some storms, this would allow Matt and I a chance to get our sea legs and get used to 24/7 sailing.  We had little to no wind – where were the trade winds everyone told us about (trade wind come from the stern and push you forward)?