After almost a week in Rodney Bay Marina on St. Lucia with all its luxuries (ie. fresh water and electricity) we're now glad to be at anchor again, currently in Marigot Bay. We had arrived in Rodney Bay at the NE emd of St. Lucia last Sunday (20JAN) after a good day sail from Le Marin, Martinique. Laura arrived on Monday from Canada and will sail with us back and forth along the Windward Islands until end of February. The rest of the week in Rodney Bay was taken up by some beach time for Nicky and Beth from Sea Bright and shortening our job list for Naman (we now have the windvane self-steering mounted again!) who hasn't been this clean and shiny in a long time (all in relative terms).

Leaving Rodney Bay also meant a temporary good bye to Jo, Dave and Beth from Sea Bright whose company we have enjoyed tremendously on our way down from Antigua. They have family visiting and will stay in Rodney Bay for another 10 days after which we hope to re-unite, most likely in Grenada.

Our plans are now another short hop to Soufriere on St. Lucia tomorrow and then a long day sail (50+ nm) to Bequia , south of St. Vincent and part of the St. Vincent Grenadines. Over the next week or so we will re-trace parts of a charter sail holiday from 1994 (Bill: Thanks for getting me hooked on sailing!). In some instances it's quite mind-boggling to see the tourist-development that has taken place since then. While I'm sure that the increased income from tourism has helped local well being in many places, seeing Marigot Bay today is a bit of a shock to put it mildly... in any case: it's dark now outside and our anchorage is at the very limit of the bay, far away from the the shoreside development... stay tuned for further updates...