The holiday season was great fun, spending it in New Hampshire with all of my family. The cold weather, snow and ice made me appreciate the warmth of the Caribbean even more on my return.
My return to St.Lucia was uneventful and I was met at the airport by Cindy, my new crew for the month of January. We do not know each other and met via find a crew website. We had talked on the phone, exchanged emails and checked out each others profile. Cindy did a little more checking by reading my sail blog and checking to what my voting preferences were. 
I have never thought of doing some of that. It is a rather scary proposition of going on a blind sail date for almost a month. Some people say I am totally crazy to do this and others just think
I am a little crazy. They are all probably correct.
Cindy is a free spirit mountain girl from California. She is versatile, happy cleaning, working on the engine or in the kitchen. Her girl cave is 200 square ft of living area while she rents out the main house. Being on the boat is like living in a top floor penthouse by comparison. She tells everyone we meet about the huge bed she has on the boat and all of the room. Cindy is also brutally honest and enjoys talking. She has shared that both have gotten her in trouble on many occasions. So far it is all working well between us. I have had to interrupt her on a few occasions. Did I tell you she is a massage therapist by profession. I am basking in her healing, soothing touch after a rough day of sailing or beach sitting.
We completed some repairs while on St. Lucia and sailed out of Rodney bay to St. Annes in Martinique. A beautiful sail with fairly calm seas. It was not like another time when cabinets flew open and dishes crashed onto the floor breaking into millions of little pieces that I still find one year later. It was not quite calm enough for Cindy.
“Cindy are doing ok”, I asked?
“It’s great. I wish I hadn’t eaten as much for breakfast.”
“You’ll be fine it just takes a little while to get your sea legs and used to the motion.”
She survived the four hour sail and we dropped anchor. The rolling seas did not provide her much relief but the next morning all was good. Nothing like some greasy sausage and eggs to get the system back to normal. Oh that’s right, that was what we hade the next day.
St. Anne, Martinique is a beautiful little town with a very large bay where close to 200 boats easily anchor. Around the corner is the town of Le Marin with a huge marina that can handle over 800 boats. Needless to say there are a lot of stores that sell boat parts. We were able to replace the switch for the windlas, purchase new anchor chain, and of course indulge on chocolate croissants and baguettes.
Beautiful beaches, clear water, and warm weather, it is nice to be back in the Caribbean.