Moved the boat all of 1 mile to a small anchorage on the south of the deserted island of Ilet a Cabrit. Turns out that it is a lot more settled over here in the lee of the island, but there is an interesting combo of winds and tides which means that boats are pointing all over the place at the same time.

The plan was to walk around and explore the island using the paths shown on the map, but they are all blocked with hurricane fall wood so we limited ourselves to a stop on the beach. The snorkelling off the beach is some of the best G has ever seen, with massive shoals of fish and an enormous number of species. Crystal clear water, too. The constant pelican diving is entertainment by itself. We will stay here for an extra day to enjoy more of that.

We spotted another OCC boat in the moorings, and went over to pay our respects only to discover is was Ute and Russ on S/Y Tiarua who did the ARC with us. We last saw Ute in the chandlery in Las Palmas. After a couple of convivial beers on Tiarua we all went ashore for a potluck BBQ – four of us and six island cats, who were determined to try to steal our food and did get away with the garlic bread. It was kind of eerie having the cats’ eyes glowing at us through the darkness. A lovely fun and sociable evening all round.

The Volvo Ocean Race is on, and we have been following one of the slower boats - named ‘Turn the Tide on Plastic’. So, we are thinking of setting ourselves a challenge – can we stop using single use plastics on the boat completely? How will we do this? Obvious actions: monitor what comes on board very closely to understand our current use of SUPs; buy unwrapped food from markets; use ‘bags for life’ on the boat (shopping usually goes into the rucksack anyway, and in fact any plastic carriers we do end up with get re-used for onboard gash bags). Are SUPs all right if they can be recycled? We welcome suggestions from our readers on this or any other aspect of the debate.

BTW, we do collect and separate our recycling on-board and always try to find proper recycling facilities. Martinique, for example, has a recycling plant that turns clear plastic bottles into plastic granules, to make into new bottles… If an island does not have recycling (or if we don’t trust it) we take it to the next place.