Our last morning was quite a social time. We started with a look over a Garcia Exploration 45 – thanks, Dave and Karen. (G thinks he has found his dream boat!)

Then we had an invitation to go on board Distant Shores III. The owners are the Shards, who have a sailing TV/Youtube show called ‘Distant Shores’. Look them up; they have recently built a new Southerly 480 and were happy to show people around her – lovely folks and a lovely boat.

So, full of new-boat lust, we checked out of St Maarten yesterday and went to anchor outside the lagoon in the open sea anchorage. This is clean sea water, so we could finally take a dive over the side and see what the bottom of the boat looked like. We could feel when driving out the lagoon that she had a lot of drag, and she was trailing a beard. The bottom was absolutely foul – never seen so much growth in a few weeks. G spent two hours snorkelling with a paint scraper and scrubbing brush getting it all off, and came back up looking up like the creature from the black lagoon, covered in slime and crawling with small sea beasties. It was worth it: Barracuda’s bottom and prop are much cleaner now, and much faster with it.

We left this morning at dawn after a rolly night, and headed for St Kitt’s & Nevis. This was our first test sail after our refit, so there were lots of things to check off. Repaired and slightly remodelled sails up – check. Steering and autopilot working (post component replacement and service) – check. New navigation plotters working – check. All new and old electronic equipment fully interfaced – check. New Fusion stereo fully functioning (that one is really important!) – check. Side band radio (SSB) working - check (we had a conversation with someone in Grenada). New solar panels generating power – check. And finally – new water maker working – CHECK!! Yes, the day has finally arrived when we have our warranty replacement water maker up and running – it only took about a year. It’s lovely tasting water, and we can make about 30 litres/hour which is ample.

So, in summary, we leave St Maarten having achieved everything we went in to do, with great thanks to Andy at MEI and the folks at St Maarten Sails, FKG Rigging and Electec.

We enjoyed a cracking sail down to St Eustatia and then pressed on to St Kitt’s, with good wind and good boat speed, passing St Bart’s and (reluctantly) Saba on the way. All the islands here are volcanic - lush mountain peaks - it really feels like we are moving back into the eastern Caribbean. Today’s picture shows the extinct volcano and crater on St Eustatia.

Then the question arose as to what to do in Kitt’s. We don’t want to ‘stop’ here, which involves clearing customs, immigration, harbour control and all sorts, so anchored just before sunset and will be off with the gulls at daybreak. However, the officials are said to fine people for this common practice of ‘yellow flagging’ (ie, anchoring off and staying aboard overnight). We will report back.

59 nautical miles today – 320 nautical miles to Grenada