Well actually we are going nowhere! We were hauled out of the water 2 weeks ago and are now waiting the arrival of a surveyor from Miami who has been appointed by Admiral Yachts and is due to arrive on 6 March. The frustrations of not being at sea and commencing our journey north through the Windward Islands on our brand new Admiral 40 are compensated by the knowledge that we are in the best place to sort out the issues we have and at the end of it we will know a lot more about Oceans Dream than ever before. It has also given us the opportunity to research on the web and by talking to fellow cruisers what we might do for the remainder of the cruising year. We have to keep south of 11 deg N once the hurricane season begins. We are beginning to think that we might limit our cruising in the Windward Islands to a trip up to St Lucia to meet up with Jackie's parents but then head to the islands off Venezuela and on to the Dutch Antilles (Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire). This would then lead us on to Cartegena in Columbia and then to the San Blas archipelago. Time will tell.

Trinidad is a big centre for repairs in the Caribbean and many vessels spend months if not years being made good. Most of the crews return home but many stay and do the work themselves and live on board. Being 12 feet off the ground does add its challenge to living on board and certain things need to be done in the excellent facilities here in the yard no matter what time of day! The great benefit is that we have mains power and wifi access. Sadly the aircons don't work as they need sea water to flow through the heat exchangers but we are becoming well acclimatized. as well as having a perfect excuse for another cold Carib beer straight out of the fridge!

The days pass pretty quickly as we go about provisioning and sourcing items for the boat from a host of chandlers. One of the challenges is getting our head around the loss of value of the pound. We were chatting with some fellow cruisers who have been here since July last year and they have seen a 25% reduction in the number of TT$s they get for £s.

Will update the blog in the next 10 days when we should have a better feel for the scope of the work to be carried out on Oceans Dream. For now it is finishing off the goat meat curry and just checking that there are enough beers in the fridge to keep us going through the remainder of the day.

We send our best wishes to all our followers, friends and family. Adrian and Jackie