After recovering from the festivities at the end of the ARC transatlantic back in 2011 we found ourselves frolicking in the water at the end of the long beach outside Rodney Bay marina. In between swimming ashore for more beers we happened across a red haired, fair skinned and somewhat lobster pink bodied tourist also enjoying the cooling waters of the Caribbean. In fact, if he stepped into the sunshine for much longer he’d be risking third degree burns. Or at least a basting with some lemon infused, garlic butter.

After determining that our new best friend was from a nearby but out of sight cruise ship we got to chatting. Interesting but not too personal points of interest were exchanged. The weather was quite nice. The locals were friendly. We were from Scotland. He was from Manchester. That kind of thing.

At one point yer man asks, “Where am I by the way?”

“What? We’re swimming here off the beach in Rodney Bay ”.

“Rodney what? Where exactly is that? You see, we sail around in this big cruise ship, have our dinner, maybe take in a show, sleep, wake up, get breakfast, climb down off the ship, get in another taxi, drive for a while then get dumped on a beach - somewhere. After a few days of lying around various beaches I’ve no idea where I am.” Not that slugging cocktails like they’re going out of fashion had anything to do with it.

And so, we informed our new pal he was on St Lucia.

“ Oh. That’s nice” he said.

Today we’re in a bit of a similar situation, wandering around the green, verdant island hills of…….. “where are we?”

All I know for sure is that’s it’s to windward. Twenty to thirty hard, flogging miles to windward of the last green, verdant island we were on. Since Grenada, we’ve been beating our brains out plugging to windward in twenty five to thirty knots in three to four metre seas. When we’re not doing that, we’re in the lee of the islands swirling around in the gusts and eddies that come off those same green, verdant mountains.

However, hopefully that’s the end of our ungentlemanly upwind thrashing, all three hundred miles of it and, oddly, we’ve ended up in the Leeward Islands. Just not sure which one.