PAUL...............
By the time I returned from the UK and re-joined Lin on Sareda they had both been anchored in the lagoon for three weeks.

I had met Gerry, enjoyed the Rastafarian meal Lin had cooked and early the next day we weighed anchor and headed back out to the crystal clear water of the anchorage off the beach. Sareda felt very sluggish and unresponsive and after a dive over the side I realised why - the bottom was covered in weed and barnacles, the product of three weeks in the rather stagnant waters of the lagoon.

We arranged for a haul out at the yard over the weekend. The lift out went very well (the staff certainly knew their business) and over three days Lin and I stripped the hull back, cleaned and re-antifouled the underwater sections. All went well although we did suffer rather from mosquito bites. We also met another friendly couple who were hauled out in the same yard called Helen and William. They kindly invited us to their beautiful large Oyster yacht for drinks one evening and we returned the next night for an evening of Scrabble where the boys managed to beat the girls by a reasonable margin.

On the Sunday Lin flew back to the UK to resolve a family problem and I launched Sareda on Monday and was delighted to feel her back to her old self again making 5/6 knots easily under engine. I returned to the anchorage off shore and enjoyed a few days at rest including a most enjoyable meal with Helen and William.

As Thursday came I weighed anchor and enjoyed a singlehanded sail down the coast to Soufriere which is toward the South of St Lucia and has the famous Pitons - two huge and beautiful conical mountains which have become a major tourist attraction.

SOUFRIERE.
Once I arrived off the town I was met by the ubiquitous boat boy, this one being called Captain Bob. He took my line to tie to a buoy off an area called Bat Cave (because there is a large cave full of bats nearby) at a cost of $10.00EC. No anchoring is allowed here as the area is a fully protected Marine Park and, when I snorkelled from the boat, the coral reefs and thousands of brightly coloured fish were stunning. The fish seem unafraid of humans and swam around seemingly oblivious to my presence.

Ashore I found much poverty and there were many people begging for money, however I also found some charming folk and enjoyed the occasional beer in the local bars as opposed to those catering for tourists. Every time I went ashore the dinghy was guarded by a young chap who charged $10.00 EC (about �2) but he did a good job of keeping the children away and stopping the dinghy from getting caught under the pier so I didn't object.

The architecture here was interesting and typically Cajun with most buildings having balconies and wooded fronts - some of the streets looked like film sets and, indeed, a number of films have apparently been shot here.

Lin re-joined me on the Sunday having arrived at Soufriere by local mini bus from the airport. We enjoyed a few days of exploring and shopping although the selection of vegetables was limited. We couldn't buy Tofu and found many of the staples quite expensive, even for us, so many of the locals must have found the cost prohibitive.

We moved across from Bat Cave to below the Pitons prior to booking out and leaving for St Vincent and the Grenadines.

ST VINCENT & THE GRENADINES.

In fact we sailed past St Vincent as there have been a number of recorded thefts and attacks by pirates on this island. In particular one vicious attack on a boat which led to the owner having a serious cut on his head from a machete, his wife being threatened with rape and their loss of a number of items.

We headed for Bequia where we dropped anchor in Port Elizabeth Bay in even clearer, turquoise water than we have seen before if that is possible. The next day we booked in through the usual channels of Immigration, Customs and Health taking about an hour. We didn't need to show our ship's papers here and so it was not until a few days later that we noticed that they were missing!

We hunted high and low and became very concerned as these are so important and are the equivalent of our passports. Finally we tracked them down in Rodney Bay marina where we had lifted out to clean the hull. Lin had deposited the papers at the office when she booked Sareda in but unfortunately forgot to tell me so I sailed off to Soufriere oblivious to the fact that I had left the papers behind.

The girl at the marina promised to forward them by post to Bequia Post Office, telling us it should take about 2 to 3 days. They still had not arrived after 3 weeks and we were beginning to pull our hair out - on top of this the girl in the Post Office was (untypically) very unhelpful. I finally decided to phone London for replacements which they said would be three weeks or more so I agreed to them sending a faxed copy of them for a charge of �21.00 and hoping that these copies would be acceptable at Tobago, our next island.

Murphy's law said that the day after I paid the �21.00 our original papers arrived at the Post Office!

However we had a wonderful stay in Bequia - ending up to be about a month. The people were friendly (other than the P.O. girl), the palm backed white sand beaches were a delight, the Rastafarians who ran the fruit & veg market were fun, we used the laptop for free sitting in the Gingerbread Hotel looking out over the anchorage and the swimming was wonderful in the clear, warm waters.

One day we walked across this small island to visit a turtle sanctuary we had read about. We set of early at 8.00am to avoid the full heat of the day later on and soon found ourselves on the East coast where a sanctuary had been established to protect the young turtles and return them to the sea once they were 5 years old and therefore able to look after themselves. We were fascinated by the many tanks with various sizes of these unusual beings. Mainly they were Hawkbilled turtles and their sizes ranged from smaller than my hand to over 2 feet across. They loved having their backs scratched and Lin & I learnt all about the turtles from the young lad who helped to run the sanctuary.

Towards the end of our stay we were joined in the anchorage by a Dutch yacht which anchored near Sareda. We had seen this yacht, a 39 ft Feeling, at various places including Portugal, Cape Verdes and St Lucia but we had never spoken. Just as we were rowing over to introduce ourselves and feeling rather guilty that we hadn't done so before, they beckoned to us and said the same thing. Of course they spoke good English and over the next few days we became firm friends with Linda and Hans visiting each other's boats for drinks and meals.

We walked with them to other parts of the island, had a meal out with them, enjoyed a few beers and learnt a new board game called Rummikub! This we were able to play with them as it is based around numbers and so "international" unlike Scrabble. We found it a really enjoyable game and once we had mastered the rules, acquitted ourselves rather well winning some of the games even against these experienced players.

Hans and Linda are truly lovely people and we thoroughly enjoyed their company and friendship - I even cooked a meal for the 4 of us on their boat on one occasion.

Sadly we left Bequia as we had to get further South before the hurricane season and had booked Sareda into a boat yard in Trinidad to enable us to travel home for a few months. We left with the intention of visiting Tobago which we had heard was very beautiful but, after 12 hours of sailing into a strong current and adverse winds we changed course for Grenada and arrived in Prickly Bay 26 hours later.

GRENADA
At first glance Prickly Bay lacked the beauty of many of the places we had visited but after some exploration we came to like the island very much and found the local people very friendly indeed.

On our first day here we met two Americans, Randy and Barb, who were full of fun and very interesting people. Randy, from New Orleans had been sailing for many years, mainly single handed, but sometimes joined by Barb who is a journalist. Unlike many American yachts theirs was modest in size being the same as Sareda - 35 feet and also long keeled. Randy and I discussed many aspects of sailing and, surprisingly, he had not experienced a long ocean passage so I was able to offer advice to him while learning much more about sailing in the Caribbean which is his "local sailing area".

After joining them on their yacht for drinks we returned to Sareda but the next morning we had an early morning call from Randy alongside in his dinghy. He and Barb were hiring a car for the day to explore Grenada and they asked us to accompany them. We had a wonderful day out and discovered waterfalls, villages and bays that we would not normally visit on our own. We ended up at St George's town, the capital of Grenada, where we visited the spice market with amazingly evocative smells and climbed up to the fort overlooking the bay. We returned to Sareda tired but having had a wonderful day in very good company.

After a week at Prickly Bay we started to think about moving to Trinidad and Tobago as by now we had booked our flights home and had to lift Sareda out of the water and prepare her for the rainy season.

A surprise e-mail from Hans and Linda told us that they were in St George's Bay and so we e-mailed them back to say we would visit them there on our way to Trinidad. St George's Bay was only a short sail around the Southwest of the Island and within 3 hours we were heading for their boat which was at anchor off the headland. There is a lagoon here but it was rather crowded and Hans & Linda preferred to be more in the open.

As we neared them one might be forgiven for thinking that we had arrived after a major voyage as they waved and cheered our arrival. Within minutes we were on their yacht supping a cold beer (they have a very efficient fridge!) and catching up with the news of the last 2 weeks and their stay at some of the Grenadines which we had not visited, in particular Mustique which they thoroughly enjoyed.

We went ashore in their rib (a solid floored inflatable which is much faster than our little Avon) and stocked up with fruit, vegetables, tofu, soya milk etc and then the four of us went for a meal.

Hans and Linda were setting off for the ABC Island s off Venezuela's north coast to spend the hurricane season there and we knew we wouldn't see them again for many months so we made the most of their company - 4 games of Rummikub and I cooked a stir fry on their boat for all of us.

At one point Hans suggested we should have short hair cuts like theirs as the hair is so easy to manage. After much thought and with some trepidation we agreed that Hans should shave our heads! Both Lin and I were delighted with the result and I have got used to seeing Lin with a crew cut, although it was disconcerting to see our hair floating off out to sea.

We left the next morning at 11.00 heading south for Trinidad and were reluctant to leave them but again they waved us off and cheered us on our way. What a lovely couple - we do miss them.

TRINIDAD
We arrived in Trinidad at Chagauramus Bay after an interesting passage although, unfortunately, Lin was not too well at times. We encountered three tugs pulling huge barges and we estimated that the distance between tug and tow was about a mile. Thank goodness I recognised the fact that they were towing as one of the tugs was showing the wrong lights at night and they were travelling at about 3 knots so we overtook them. To mistake them and try to sail between tug and tow would mean a catastrophic accident!

We had some rough water during the passage but the wind was always steady and part way during the passage backed to the North East which helped us considerably.

Our arrival at Trinidad was between two headlands through a fairly narrow water course and difficult to see from off shore. We arrived in Chagauramus and, following the Pilot Book's instruction, went straight to the Customs quay where we booked in with Immigration and Customs. The weather was warm and pleasant and we anchored in the designated anchorage but were surprised to find comparatively few yachts there.

We did see Chilli, a 30ft Norwegian yacht that we had seen at various places before and we invited Bjorn aboard for drinks and nibbles. It is always interesting hearing of other peoples' exploits and we enjoyed Bjorn's stories of his cruise from Norway, through the English Channel to Ireland and thence down to Portugal, Madeira, Canary Islands and across the Atlantic. Bjorn is a handsome blonde Scandinavian and, although he often sails single handed, has no problems finding crew when he wants - usually girls from what we gathered!

Our bus trip into the capital, Port of Spain, was a real adventure. The buses are all mini busses and one comes along about every 5 minutes or less. The cost of the 30 minute journey was $10.00TT (about 80p) each and the journey took us along the coast so we could see many of the villages and sights on route.

As with any city Port of Spain was busy but Lin and I found a wonderful caf� for lunch where we had tofu, vegetables, rice and a drink for the equivalent of �3.00 each.

I decided that shopping was not for me so Lin left me at the bandstand in the park where I enjoyed listening to a local band while Lin toured the malls and precincts. I was a little concerned as Port of Spain has a high crime rate and, indeed, my pocket was picked but I only lost 8 dollars. The murder rate at June for the year 2008 stood at 211 so we returned to Chagauramus feeling we had escaped any major problems.

Again we caught the local bus which didn't leave until it was full.- the air conditioning didn't work very well so we were soon rather warm. The drivers here don't seem to recognise speed limits and drive with one hand on the wheel while the other holds the money. Overtaking is clearly an art that defies all logic - we were glad to arrive safely!

We enjoyed Chagauramus although it is fairly commercial so we left to spend the weekend at Scotland Bay just around the corner but reputed to be very quiet. We dropped anchor and immediately heard the Howler Monkeys calling to each other across the bay. Our enjoyment ashore was spoilt by the amount of litter around. It seems that the local people have parties and barbecues here but they seem not to clear up afterwards. We could not penetrate the tropical forest which was very dense so returned to the boat to enjoy the quiet and listen to the birds and monkeys.

Back to Chagauramus for our haul-out on Monday which was again very professionally managed including a diver who went down to check the lifting strops were in the right place but the timing went awry - we were booked to be lifted at 7.00 am and were in the lifting dock at 6.45 but we eventually saw dry land at about 11.00 - clearly Caribbean time rules!!

After 4 days of preparing Sareda for storage, including servicing the engine, taking off the sails, cleaning inside and outside, taking off the bimini etc. we reluctantly left her safely chocked up and on Saturday morning headed for the airport by local taxi. A short hop by Caribbean plane to Tobago where we caught the long haul flight to Gatwick but not until we had solved problems with our tickets and had to pay an extra �160.00 to be receive hand written tickets that included local taxes!

We arrived in Gatwick and headed for my parent's house in Teignmouth, Devon, where we are staying for 5 months - heading back to Sareda in November if all goes to plan.

What a wonderful year we have had - achieving my childhood dream of crossing an ocean and with Lin by my side, we visited and explored many countries and experienced many diverse cultures on the way. We have also been so lucky to meet the many interesting and colourful characters - many who have become firm friends and we will keep contact with for many years to come.

The blog will be closing now until we return to the Caribbean and Sareda in November. Our intention is to explore the Caribbean islands we have not yet visited and then, in May 2009, to sail Sareda back via the Azores and into the Mediterranean to start exploring lands nearer home.

Thank you for reading the blog and the many favourable comments we have received. There are more photographs to add to the gallery but we have been having some problems with up-loading them. Hopefully these will appear soon.

Farewell for now from Lin and I - until the next time!