Well we arrived in the BVIs last Thursday, so much for arriving in tropical paradise, it was far more like arriving in Scotland, cloud covered mountains, and a grey sky, with passing downpours. Only the temperature belied our true latitude. First impressions did nothing to redeem themselves when arriving to clear customs and immigration at Road Town, Tortola, a starker contrast to Bermuda would be hard to find. Surly indolent officials, whose idleness was transparent, but they took obvious pleasure in making us wait. I at least was almost falling over by this stage, and feeling desperate to get back onto a moving surface!

Anyway, the people of the Caribbean have redeemed themselves by now, and there are of course plenty of delightful people around! The weather has also redeemed itself, and the tropical paradise is a reality. Wonderful islands to sail to for lunch and swim stops and then on to another anchorage for the night, and always a wind.

Yesterday we anchored off a tiny classic sandy island with palm trees etc and white sand. The island is owned by the Rockerfeller family, who have planted it up with all kinds of exotic vegetation, and paths wind between to explore the jungle. So a swim ashore and a jungle walk were wonderful.

Paradise comes with problems of course, and our particular one at the moment is electrics. For some reason our batteries are not holding their power, in spite of having been replaced in July. So when we came to leave our island paradise, panic there was not enough umph to start the engine, which incidentally we thought had a separate starting battery. Well, it would be dark in about 2 hours, so we manually got the anchor in, and sailed off the mooring, and decided that we should head back to Soper's Hole where we had spent the previous night. We then remembered that we do have a built in generator, which started brilliantly, but then wasn't giving out any charge. Giles finally remembered the vital switch which had been left off, and before long there was enough charge to get the engine going.

We decided to motor upwind back to Jost Van Dyke, and in the process of anchoring in Great Harbour, very deep, and tricky to find a good spot to drop the hook, we were deciding where to go, when we came across a friend we had made in Annapolis. So last night we were treated to Sea Bass on his boat. Delicious.

Monday morning here now, so time to try to sort out our problems. Monday evening now, after that I went up on deck to find that the dinghy had blown over and inverted, with the outboard on the transom. We've had a day of friendly would be experts coming to help with the electrical problems, and Giles thinks that he's got the outboard going. We'll put it to the test by a trip to the bar this evening, with Guy in attendance to get us back home. We're also booked in to see an electrical expert tomorrow, so lets hope the problems will be solved. We have Simon and Sarah Garnier arriving on Wednesday which will be great.