Carnival arrived a few weeks earlier than expected with Sunday night's in Woburn becoming one big thumping beat throughout the night until the wee small hours. We sampled one of these evenings but gave in early, before the real party began, and awaited Carnival "proper" to happen.

We ended up saying we'd go to J'ouvert / Jouvet / Jab Jab (all versions of the same thing...) which basically entails going out in the middle of the night into the Capital of St George's to get covered in paint and mud and oil and anything else people care to throw at you whilst drinking copious amounts of alcohol and walking behind, or sitting on, trucks playing loud music and dancing in the streets. We're a bit hazy on the whole concept but believe the tradition stems from the slaves hatred for the "Jab Jab" or devil (aka white slavers). In the case of the locals, the dancing involved a lot of gyrating that only they can do (don't care what you say, white people cannot dance, despite the fact we all think we can when we've had a few!).

Anyway, Dave and I got up at 2am (yes, I did say 2AM) and went ashore at Woburn where we met up with Andrew, Sheldon and a few others and after a few drinks headed around to St G in Andrew's wizz boat. Luckily it was approaching dawn so we could vaguely tell land from sea! A good time was had by all in town and we got into the spirit of Jab Jab and were eventually covered in just about everything! By late morning we were all shattered and Andrew, with what seemed like double the passengers he had at the beginning, headed back for home. It started raining on the way back and visibility dropped drastically so he headed into Grand Anse beach where we all jumped in the water to try and get some paint off ourselves. I cleverly jumped in with camera in pocket (result - no more camera) but it was lovely and warm in the sea and refreshing too. We spend ages in the water just relaxing and having fun. Eventually we headed back home via Hog Island with just a couple of scrapes of the reef (oops!) where we were surprised to see Roger was behind his bar - surely it couldn't be that late! - but it was..... 1pm. Dave and I went to bed and sort of lost the rest of that day.

A few days later we headed into town on a bus organised by Clarks Court Bay marina to watch the carnival procession but unfortunately it was postponed due to torrential downpours. Still, there was a bonus as Tracy and Neil turned up and we had a good few drinks in the Yacht Club together with Chris and Dave, Ricky and Colin (Solar Quest) etc etc. We went back in to watch the procession on the following Saturday and saw some fantastic costumes, a lot more gyrating and louder-than-ever music. There are a few songs each year which are picked for carnival and you hear them over and over and over again whilst Carnival is on, so much so that you go to bed with them in your head and when you wake up the same music is still there - agghhh!

The next day was cool-down Sunday with more loud music blaring at Woburn for the last time this year and then everything was back to normal and as if nothing had every happened.......well, apart from everywhere you went you could see loads of paint splattered all over the roads and pavements in town.