If February was about the sailing mon, then the passage from Grenada back to Saint Lucia in the first couple of weeks in March was about laid back cruising Caribbean style with fair winds, waves and weather (well, mostly).

With the Brices (Garth and Ros) and the McDonalds (Paul and Debbie) safely onboard Trilogy started the return trip the way she meant it to continue. She made all of 5 miles from St Georges to Point Moliniere so the crew could dive on the outstanding underwater statue park created by J D Taylor. It was so good we stayed overnight on a mooring and dived again in the morning in better visibility see the 80 or so statues placed in about 10-15 metres of water. Fantastic!

Statue diving satiated Trilogy cruised towards the Tobago Cays, skirting "Kick'em Jenni" , an active underwater volcano for which there is a prohibited entry zone near the volcano mount, some 170 metres below the surface, and a much larger "no entry when active" zone. Although the volcano had been active only a few months earlier unfortunately (or fortunately) there was nothing to see here folks.

It wasn't, however, a passage without incident as Paul had deployed the new " rod of death" - Trilogy's prize from the ARC - with almost immediate success. We lost a large mahi-mahi (aka dolphin fish in the Caribbean) as it was being landed but, lessons learnt, shortly landed a very nice tuna. Unfortunately the new rod only landed 2 more fish for us on the rest of the cruise to St Lucia - both barracuda which were tossed back.

Tobago Cays lived up to all the travel brochure hype. The water was a startling turquoise, the anchorage inside Horseshoe Reef was good, the turtles were abundant around the anchorage and the snorkelling ok. Shallow waters, many reefs and far too many other boats, however, required some pretty careful navigation - it's a location to visit in settled conditions with good sunshine and visibility- and an anchorage in which to keep charter boats at a safe distance.

We dinghied to the nearby sanctuary at Baradal island to dive with turtles but only found one at home. The rest sensibly were out and about feeding away from the tourists. Paul and Debbie snorkelling outside the sanctuary, however, found a number of turtles to swim with. Snorkelling finished we committed to a beach BBQ of lobster that evening on nearby Petite Bateau.

The evening ashore was a great experience, being ferried by our host to shore past the 2metre high middens of conch shells of feasts long past, watching the preparation and grilling of the very large lobsters as the sun set over the sea and then eating some of the best lobster we had ever tasted ( sorry mum, WA crays don't compare). We iced the cake by visiting nearby Petite Tabac, the location for the scenes where Captain Jack Sparrow was marooned by Captain Barbarosa In the "Pirates of the Caribbean".

By now our luck with the weather was starting to wear thin, with some strong winds and nasty waves starting to emerge in future forecasts. Trilogy picked up speed a little and ducked into previously visited Port Elizabeth, Bequia - a good anchorage where the small town is spread around the amphitheatre-like bay. In the short time there the crew were able to take a naturally air conditioned tour of the little island in a pick up truck - passengers in the back tray - while the skipper sheltered in a fully air conditioned French-style cafe checking weather forecasts on their free wifi. He missed one of the highlights of the island tour - a turtle breeding sanctuary where one of the turtles so loved having its back scratched it showed its appreciation by wriggling wildly.

The weather forecasts played havoc with Trilogy's passage plans for a while but eventually we came back to plan A - to pick up a safe mooring for a few days near Young island, south of Kingston, so we could better explore St Vincent by land. The anchorage proved to be everything we wanted, and with the assistance of Charlie Tango, his mooring master cum security guard Sparrow and grown kids Sophia and Jimmy we were able to see most of the island in the knowledge that the boat was both secure and safely moored.

St Vincent's highlights were many and varied but included gritty Kingston on Friday market day;the east coast with its winding mountainous roads under construction or repair on the the way to Wallibalou, the main film location for the first and second Pirates of the Caribbean; the oldest botanic gardens in the Western Hemisphere with breadfruit trees descended from those brought there by Captain Bligh and a breeding program for the highly endangered St Vincent parrots; the east coast (good well built but winding road) with its volcanic mountains including Mt Soufriere which last erupted in 1979 all but drowning the then capital Georgetown in ash; and the Montreal gardens, a private 7 acre tropical forest of a garden - amazing flowers and foliage in an overwhelming display of tropical lushness.

The only sour and cautionary note of the St Vincent stopover was an incident a few days before our visit to Wallibalou, with real pirates attacking a cruising boat at anchor there, with the loss of the life of the crew member and serious injury of the skipper.

St Lucia was still a full day's sailing and John's flight home to Oz only a couple of days away. Trilogy literally sailed off from Young Island at the crack of dawn, arriving at Rodney Bay, St Lucia late afternoon - in time for sundowners. And so ended another good cruise, with John handing Trilogy over to Garth at the Rodney Bay marina and returning to Australia.

Caribbean cruising, mon!...to be continued by the Brices, McDonalds and their new crew members Peter and Sue Lucey.