What's the "Lesser of two Weevils"? (Name that movie).

Hard to tell really. We've hundreds or maybe thousands. It seems the beasties have taken a liking to my porridge. Consequently four packets have been donated to the goats on Dominica. Watch my cholesterol rise now!

We deceided to stay in St Lucia a while longer to join Dave and Linda on their catamaran (Lagoon 38) to race Round the island. Typical Trade Wind conditions had us beating into 3 metre seas up the north end of the island then a swift 25 mile reach down the windward side. Bit of banging and crashing upwind but nice and smooth downhill.

We overnighted in the small fishing village of Laborie coinciding with the St Lucia Independence celebrations. Much song and dance from the local school kids and a decent meal in the Bamboo Shack.

Laborie, being way down the south end of the island via small twisty roads is quite untouched by tourism. Most of the houses look like originals and, pretty poor.

Since last report we have moved reasonably quickly north. Great winds fired us across to Martinique where we stayed off St Pierre. This used to be the capital of martinique but then the volcano blew up killing all but 2 of the 30,000 inhabitants way back in 1902.

Unfortunately it's still in need of refurbishment as other than two decent coffee shops its pretty run down, much like a lot of the Caribbean which suffers from what looks like extreme poverty. There's just not enough tourists to go round however, why there isn't a thriving agricultural economy is beyond me as everything seems to grow like wildfire. It seems it's cheaper to import from the USA and South America.

Anyway, another 30 mile thrash got us here, The Saints, a group of french islands south of Guadeloupe. This place seems to be a French "department". They call these offshore departements something like " far, far away". We've wandered into town, bought some postcards and now in the beach bar having a Coke.

Might go for a swim next.