New Year's Eve we spent the afternoon finishing off the re-construction of the stage and ended up staying on Hog Island making a bonfire on the beach out of all the old timber we'd taken down. There was about a dozen of us and it was fairly low-key but we managed to have fun. Jeff fell over the bench and crunched his shins, and I managed to fall off a picnic table and bang my nose, which bled quite profusely for a while.

Then there was the New Year's Day party on Hog, with live band on the new stage, then the Monday Holiday party. And then it was back to work.

James came back from Union and the boys have finished prep work on the inside of the gunwales, and have been chipping and grinding the hull between the rub-rail and the waterline getting it ready for painting. We've managed to do some spot painting, usually at seven in the morning before the wind picks up, and as soon as the weather calms down enough we'll be giving the whole hull a once over.

Devon came in the other morning with two tattoos. One all the way down his right fore-arm saying Spangla (which is apparently his nick-name), and on his left arm a gothic D and a spider ... nothing we can say about that.

The mega-yachts were around for the new year and one night we came back from Hog to see what looked like a small town moored not more than 500 yards away. It turned out to be Fountainhead which is a 287ft monstrosity (ranked 45 out of the top 100 mega-yachts), which was only launched in May last year. The next day Huntress came in too but at only 180ft it was hidden from view. Needless to say the jet-skis have been roaring round the bay, and around us. We get the occasional wave and thumbs-up but so far no-one's invited us over for cocktails – not sure why.

I've spent quite a while, with the help our friend Sylvie, setting up a new blog-site. It's fairly slow going but I'm getting there and hopefully it will be up and running before this one runs out in a month or so.

We've also had to make three trips up to Gouyave to get various starter motor problems fixed. Mike came with me once, and we managed to stop in the only bar in Gouyave (probably the whole of Grenada) that didn't have any beer. I've since made two trips on my own and am about to go again today, hopefully for the last time.

It's a beautiful ride up there along the west coast of Grenada. The not so good thing is the maxi-taxi that won't leave until it's full, which can take anywhere between ten minutes and almost an hour, while you're crammed, and really do mean crammed in a sweltering bus station; some of the mamas are pretty wide and if you get between two of them then you really don't have much room to move. Each time I've gone I've been the only white face on the bus, in fact the only white face in Gouyave, and when there isn't a cruise ship docked, quite often the only white face in St. George's.

On Tuesday when I went the bus back to Woburn was full of school kids finishing their first day back at school. It always amazes me how wonderfully well dressed and smart the kids are, and also how polite and confident they are, even the small ones. They take schooling seriously out here, probably because for most it's their way off the island and into a 'better' life abroad, and it's the ones who do best at school that make it out and can then send money home. It's a shame though that so much talent is taken away; I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, but there is a notable disparity between the educated youth who leave the island and the one's that stay behind, and unfortunately it's not good for the future of Grenada.

We still haven't seen anything of our fridge guy but luckily it is sort of working, even without the thermostat. We have had an electronics expert over who is fixing problems with the fire alarm system and various inverters, and we're actually getting close to having the generator on the side of the engine up and running again.

We also had Spanny the welder here for a day to finish off the last (we hope) of the holes and to weld the exhaust which had started to crack. Sometimes it seems like the problems/jobs are never-ending ... actually they are never-ending!

On Tuesday we went to a Hog Island Full Moon Party, which was a day after the full-moon but hey, this is the Caribbean. Ralph, the fat local and his buddies cooked up an amazing pot of oil-down (using 15 breadfruit, 20 coconuts, 20 lambi, chicken, pigtails, callaloo and dumplings) for all who wanted to partake, and Ray and Matt played guitar.

Last night we were invited to Rudi's for supper which was really nice as we tend to do a lot more entertaining than being entertained; something to do with having the bigger boat. It turned out to be a veritable feast with chinese pickles, Thai Tom Yum soup, Belgian stew with fries and home-made mayonnaise, and crème brulee to finish, oh and two of the thickest pina coladas to start. We didn't drink much, couldn't fit it in, and I'm not quite sure how we got off the boat we were so full. It's a good job we work so hard otherwise we might have to be thinking about a diet.

Love to all ...