Despite the lack of sleep, everyone was up pretty early. And we were underway before breakfast, raised the sail and headed out in the dark and gloomy weather. Nice 10knots of wind in the lee of St . Lucia, so a little motor sailing and charging the batteries.

Typical Texas Breakfast tacos with some bacon and fixens were created while sailing in the lee, shortly after clearing St Lucia we had some 15kn of wind, so we killed the engines and sailed by the wind alone, making 9kn through the water passing many monohull sail boat along the way.

We dropped the lures in the water before breakfast, and no bites till zing. Another doozie hit and took alot of line and jumping out of the water. Slowed the boat down by turning into the wind and 45 mins of fighting later the jumping fish finally figured out how to spit out the lure! Doh! At least this time the knot held and we still had the lure, unlike our rookie mistake on the cousin of jaws from yesterday!

Making great time, we are thinking about going ashore in Bequia instead of St Vincent to clear customs to get another island for Shawn and Sharon on this trip. That and its till overcast so visiting the Walibou, where they shot pirates of the carribean wouldn’t be too exciting and the customs at Walibou are only open between 4-6pm.

Still heading south bound and down.

Okay, the internet has it’s places.

There was a couple of boat chores to be done today, all easy and not highly necessary. We fixed our connection to the shore power so that we could get more

“p’s”, set up the forward port cabin for it’s new inhabitants and create a “spa” feeling in the port 3’x4′ head. We also installed the aft shower,

something that I have been wanting to do since we left Turkey. The last time it was used we ran out of water because it was leaking into the port enginge

compartment. So it today we took a saw to a perfectly good boat and made a larter hole in the stern that will accomodate the new outdoor shower.

Huh.. cut a hole???? Okay its in an non water tight location. 1.5 hours later and the new aft shower hole was functional, but it was also time to

“surprise” Shawn and Sharon at the airport.

The Taxi’s say its about an hour, the local’s say if you get lost it could take up to 3hrs, my Garmin/Google maps say they island is less than 30 miles

long, who are the locals kidding.

So we drive on the worng side of the road, on the wrong side of the car, on a one lane highway with little to no passing. Non locals are scared to drive

(read “me”) … so its much longer than expected.

The roads are washed out, its up and down the mountainous hills, with blind shoulders and wet roads. Necl and shoulders need a massage after todays trip up

and over to the furthest part of St Lucia.

The joys of the internet, Shawn checked the at blog while aboard the airplane, 34,000 feet above the ground, and figured out that we were going go pick them

up in the rental car. Thank goodness, as their plane was 40 minutes early, they breezed through customs and luggage and were waiting for over an hour for

us. Christine and I were within 4 minutess of them bailing on us and catching a Taxi to the marina. All ends well, we found them, they were still waiting

for us, we didn’t run out of gas (even though we were dangerously close to doing so for several miles), we didn’t fall off the cliff, hit a cow, or run over

any locals, etc….

It has been an awesome day, Shawn/Sharon Skyped the family, we had a nice dinner… looking forward to tomorrow’s movement!

Monday….

As usual, with those who sleep in and those who don’t, boat time is boat time, sun rose at 6am and shortly everyone started moving. The guests are all athletic and they all went exploring in the morning.. 4 miles for Christine and Sharon and Shawn circled the entire island or at least thats what he smelled like when he returned.

Good thing we had a long lazy day planned. Everyone was up well before 8am exercised and all. Customs opened @ 9am so I was on my way, we cleared customs out of St Lucia, easy peasy for a change. A bag of ice a few last minute snacks and we were ready to go. Hailed the dock boys down to take the readings of the electricity and the water usage, and we were off.

As we backed off the dock, the line got stuck and a neighboring boat helped release the last dock line and we were off. Away at last, cut the ties, spent our last EC, okay wishful thinking.

Heading toward the fuel dock to top up from our Atlantic trip. 417 liters is what it took, that means we still had 1/2 of our fuel left since we hold 800 liters, and we still have 40 liters in stand by jugs. Awesome!. So in typical fashion, as soon as we pulled up to the fuel dock, the weather changed and dark rain clouds were imminent. The nice guys a the fuel dock asked if we wanted to wait out the shower, but of course! We made lunch/breakfast at the fuel dock and just before we got to devour the lunch the rain quit and we fueled up.

One more time leaving a concrete dock, and no scratches makes me a happy sailor. Out of the bay we go, not much sailing today, cloudy, dark storms etc.

As we clear the bay, Christine threw in in the “I’m on a boat song” and everyone was happy, even the dingy boats that were on the shore! However there was one sad boy, that was going to miss Christine and her Husband drinking in the streets every night and wanted to be sure that Christine would be back soon!

Out of the Marina, lunch was had. It was a couldy/shady day, what better time to break in the house warming gift the Melnars brought with them. So we dropped the lures in the water, course it took Shawn and Myself a while to figure out how to mount a 50 sized real on the pole, but we made it work.

Okay, I am not very good at fishing. No sooner than Shawn gets the real rigged and drops the lure, an friggin fish hits it. Pause: The 50 size real is the REAL deal, 900 yrds of line, it’ll tow in the USS Nimitz without out breaking a sweat. So within the first 30mins of being in the water a fish reals off 1/2 of the line, we slow the boat and roll in the jib and the fish is still running we all can’t believe it. 30+ mins of realing the line in, seemed like 2 days, the spectra line was hot and Shawn was holding the rod and pulling like you wouldn’t believe. In the end, the fish was too big to be brought aboard, so we did the humane thing, and will talk about it till the cows come home! Tomorrow we’ll sail between islands and give the fish a chance to give the lures back!.

We walked around Sourfiere, their fishermen had a good day. Lots of fresh bonitas to be had. We stopped for an appetizer while walking around town. Then headed back to the boat for some pork chops and some grilled pineapple that we got from the boat boy who helped us hook the mooring ball.

All in all a rainy day, My back is sunbrunt, Shawn and Sharon are having a good time, Wayne went to bed early..

Its an early day tomorrow before we sail off to St Vincent.

Cheers.