I just came back to Fort De France from Trois Islet across the bay where we have spent the last four days. No internet there!! Sorry for the delay getting this posted but since I came back to Fort De France to get the rest of Snowshoes food, I brought my computer to get this posted. It's now Wednesday so it's been a few days. Catch up time.

It's now Sunday and we moved this morning to Trois Isle on the south side of Ford Du France Bay. The weather forecast is for winds to come out of the south as on Tuesday along with a bunch of rain(it starts tomorrow). If we'd gotten a south wind, we'd have ended up with out butts to shore and we don't like laying that way at anchor. Should we drag, we'd go aground and that's never good.

At about 0800, we took off for the entire 2.5 mile trip. No big deal but it got us away from Party Central. On Friday night, music played from about 1800 till well past midnight and last night, it started at about the same time but went well past midnight and announcers started up this morning at 0500 talking about an event that was scheduled for today. Not sure what it was but thousands of people lined the shore and the park yelling and screaming. This all started well before sun up!!! We planned to cross the bay and now was as good a time as any. We found that by looking at our AIS, another cruiser friend we knew(Tom and Barb on Gosi) had made the trip up from St. Ann on the south side of Martinique to wait out the allegedly coming south winds that are due here shortly, along with the rain. We met up with them many times during our travels around the globe. We were joined later by the folks on Infini(Michael and Susan) after they came in and dropped anchor close by. Again, another couple we've known for quite some time. We had a nice get together this evening on Gosi to celebrate seeing each other again.

Now the weather forecast for south winds may have changed but the rain is still in the forecast so since there is only one small ferry that comes anywhere near this anchorage, it's almost like being in a marina it's so calm. A few more bugs but not bad. We've already made plans to get together tomorrow for a game of Mexican Trains. It should be good fun.

It's now Tuesday and still raining. The forecast for yesterday was for rain and we got it big time during most of the morning. I got out in time and got our Yamaha generator running and pulled a tarp over it just in case. It was nice and sunny. Within 30 minutes, it was raining and that increased to pouring. It finally let up just after lunch giving us time to get Puff in the water and head over to Infini to pick up passengers and over to Gosi for Dominoes. It was great full getting together again. The game went on for a while with me getting up and checking the clouds for the chance of more rain. By just after 1700, it was starting to look real bad so we called the game and piled back into Puff and reversed out trip back to Zephyr. We got back and had plenty of time to get the out board off and Pull stowed back on deck and strapped down. Never know what may come our way and from what we heard from Infini, we had winds of 40 knots. It sounded miserable outside with pounding torrential rains for most of the evening and it's still raining now. I've got our main engine running to help put more volts back in the battery as it's just too soggy to go out and drag out the generator and get the tarp back up.

As was expected, the winds shifted through the day and evening yesterday switching from east to southeast to south to west of all places. Glad we were here and not at Fort De France of farther south in St. Anne where much of the locals and cruisers hang out. Reports were of numerous boats dragging, one going aground and four foot swells running through the anchorage. Not a pleasant time. Some even dragged that had two anchors out. All the while, we sat nice and safe and with the feeling that we were tied up at a marina the water was so flat. Trois Islet is considered a "hurricane hole" because of the protection it affords.

We got notification that our new mainsail has shipped from China and could be here as early as Friday but since it's only open Monday to Friday and it's not due to Friday before 1800 and we still have to get back over there but don't want to go till we get our "notification" call from Fed Ex that it's there. What the heck, it's nice and quiet and peaceful here with friends to chat and play games with. Now if we can just get the rains to let up.

It's now 1645 and still raining. Haven't seen this much rain in quite q while. Got a call from the vet in Fort De France that the rest of our cat food is in so we'll be taking the ferry across instead of Zephyr tomorrow and picking it up along with a quick stop at the grocery store. Man, is it soggy. It continued to rain through the night and stopped early this morning(Wednesday). Poor Puff took a long time to get dried out.

I made the trip to Fort De France while Tracy stayed on board Zephyr getting some odd jobs done and really no need for both of us to go. Cost was just $7 euros for round trip. I've got nine more bags to keep the kids fed and regular and so far it's working just fine. Our new sail is due sometime late this week. Not sure how we are going to work that out, but I'll let you know. Meanwhile since I'm in town, a quick stop at the grocery store. Never know what I might find.