Left Great Harbor at Peter Island on Monday morning around 10:30 to begin our trip south to St Lucia. Later start than we'd hoped but the best we could do after a late evening with Sheldon and Ness, John from Stingo, Mike and Muffy from "Xtasea" and current owners of Cool Runnings, Bambi and Jeff. Thirty knots of wind on the nose made for a long slow motoring slog.  Had to keep our speed down to be kind to Nexus as well as her crew. Loved having a bright moon to light the sky and horizon. Passed within just a couple of miles of Saba and Eustachia Islands,  twinkling with lights. Twenty one hours later, we all agreed we were ready to take a break from the motion for a few hours, let our stomachs settle and have a real meal. We put the hook down at 7:30 in White House Bay on St Kitts and had a wonderful hot breakfast. Delicious after our "dinner in a bowl" the night before. Russ and Sheldon spent some time trying to problem solve the reduced power in the port engine. There is some algae in the diesel which may be the culprit. It's one of the problems with diesel and requires a periodic additive of an anti-algae agent.  With the chores behind we had a great swim off the boat and nice freshwater shower on the back deck. Felt human again! We did not swim all the way to shore, but fairly close and spotted a monkey on the beach looking out at us curiously. Was sorry that I didn't have my mask and snorkel on as I could see starfish on the bottom as we swam.

After our three hour reprieve, we set sail again, planning to go as far as Guadaloupe by tomorrow afternoon. Have sailed by the small 300 meter tall rock of an island called "Redonda." This two kilometer square islet has a fascinating history where in 1865 an Irishman from Montserrat claimed it and later declared his son king of its kingdom. Although uninhabited and probably uninhabitable, there is still a brotherhood today that elects a new successor king from amongst their group. Awesome.  Officially, it is a dependent of Antigua.

Nine miles downwind of the kingdom of Redonda, we passed Montserrat which still has a very active volcano. We could see the smoke coming out of its cone, smell the sulphur and see the ash flows that have buried the town of Plymouth, leaving only rooftops showing in many places. The whole south side of the island has been decimated with almost half of the original population of 10,000 moving to the north side of the island or neighboring islands. We were in the BVI sailing with Scott and Trevor in 1995 when the volcano became active and filled the surrounding sky with gray ash. I've always wondered what the island looked like since that time. It's amazing they didn't have a higher loss of life when you see the devastation. I hope the locals enjoyed the moonrise over their island as much as we did...