We arrived safely in Barbados late afternoon on Tuesday 19th after 4 weeks to the day of sailing. We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves until a few hours later a boat arrived with a group of 6 Brits and New Zealanders who had just ROWED across the Atlantic - certainly put our efforts in the shade. It was great sharing in their celebrations though.

There is no mistaking where we are, the best rum punches ever and Rihanna on the radio 24/7.

We spent the first night in a temporary berth surrounded by super-yachts, in fact one of them, Salute, had probably the largest mast and boom furler we have ever seen. We were told that the mainsail alone cost half a million US dollars - jeez! If we had arrived a few weeks earlier we would have apparently been parked next to Brangelina's yacht. The following day we moved onto a mooring as they hadn't a proper berth for us and it was pretty rock and rolly anyway, so much cheaper but we can use all the facilities of the Marina development - all very posh.

Then we hired a car for a few days to see the island proper - and very beautiful it is too, with the East Coast very wild with long beaches in contrast to the much more developed and calmer West Coast. Almost the first port of call was going to be the Mount Gay distillery, Jonathan's favourite rum, but due to it being election day we had to postpone it to the following day. It was all very interesting, you got to see the bottling plant (the rest of the process is done elsewhere on the island) and a video, but of course everyone is really there for the tastings. We ended up staying quite a while, the cafe overlooked the sea, there was good internet access, and it was lovely watching the humming birds - so different from being at sea. Yesterday we decided to watch some polo (Cheshire took on Barbados and lost). Its all very accessible here and made for a great afternoon - it certainly seems to have re-ignited the bug in Jonathan.

To be honest our stay here has been marred by a incident over laundry (of all things). When we arrived we asked about getting our laundry done and housekeeping in the resort said they could oblige. We assumed they meant in their own machines but still asked what the cost would be as we did not want to spend much - they could not give us a price but assured us not to worry it would not be expensive. Two days later we had a bill that is embarrassing to recount (we could probably buy a washer and dryer for what it cost). They appeared to have sent the lot out to be dry cleaned (socks, jocks, sheets, towels etc etc). The debate is still ongoing with everyone passing the buck, but we appear to have the dock master on our side and we fall under his remit, he seems confident he can sort the cock-up out, so lets hope.

Other than that everyone else has been uber friendly. One guy even gave us a lift from polo last night in his convertible Mercedes (thanks again Fred!) and we are currently waiting to meet for a lady for lunch who we befriended in the hair salon on the first day. On that same day we met another couple who invited us for sundowners and dinner at their marina apartment. There doesn't seem to be any real crime here so it has made a nice change from some of the other parts of the Caribbean.

We are thinking of heading of to Bequia (pronounced Beqway) either this evening or tomorrow, it is only around 100 nm, where we shall clean up the boat a bit and do some small jobs, and then on to Mustique to see how the other half live (if we can get a mooring), and then Tobago Cays before heading down to Grenada to meet up with the rest of the World ARC fleet. There has apparently been some interest shown in matilda, so we hope to have a buyer in early May when we drop her off in the BVI and say a tearful goodbye to her.