Squint arrived on the dot and paddled us over to Rock Side where we leapt onto the shore between waves, getting only slightly wet and speckled with black sand, washed our feet at the appointed place, climbed the steps (all different heights) and entered a calm and tranquil oasis, Enya playing quietly.  We joined a large party of Americans for pre dinner drinks (there was a delay because some of the food had not yet arrived) and had a lovely time.  They are a fun crowd of easy going, socially adept folks from Minnesota including Bob (immediately named Bob two), Scott, a Deborah and Kim and others who’s names we have already embarrassingly failed to recall.  We spent a very happy hour chatting about our boatie experiences until the final two guests arrived (and we assume the missing part of dinner), two Germans (one of whom looked disconcertingly as if Hitler had actually escaped from that bunker after all) who turned out to be the most incredibly well travelled sailors.  They told excellent tales about their travels including waking up one morning rather surreally to find that all the boats close to the shore and all the houses on the shore had disappeared.  A tsunami had wiped them all out while the anchored German gentleman slept soundly through the whole thing. 

We went in for dinner.  Rosi, who’s restaurant it is and she has been doing it for years, serves up an old fashioned menu.  The pumpkin soup was the most pumpkiny ever tasted, my fish sweetly and juicily melt in the mouth, although Bob’s chicken rather surprisingly turned out to be pork, and a whole selection of tasty local veg.  Pudding was the classic cheesecake, a recipe that clearly hasn’t changed in years (and most definitely had not since we were last there aeons ago), served with ripe and juicy local fruit.  We bid a fond farewell to our jolly companions and were paddled back to Windy without incident.

This morning we arose and set off at 7:30 am, a respectable early start we felt but the Americans had already upped and left under cover of dawn.  We set off over a rippling sea, only a hint of breeze and headed off to St Lucia, a direct route requiring little in the way of passage planning.  The wind brewed up out of the lee and settled into a steady 14 knots.  Up went all the sails, and we eased along under a brilliant sun.  Another corker of a sail.  We have been really lucky this week (with the sailing anyway).  Cook prepared a light lunch on deck, losing a lot of lettuce in a gust, the wind was perhaps a bit stronger than anticipated, and we then settled back and continued enjoying the ride.

Arriving at Marigot Bay we realised that the lovely Michael’s number had been lost with the dead phone (the rice didn’t do the trick on this occasion) but were picked up by a big fat bloke who took us to one of his buoys (not the one that became detached and sent the yacht drifting into the Rainforest Hideaway, although he thought about it before Bob mentioned it).  We are parked in front of Judy and Ian’s boat (except their latest cunning disguise is to fly an American flag and call their yacht Bozo Cinq) and right next door to our dinner companions of last night.  They have kindly asked us for drinks later on and I can see them very sweetly swabbing down the decks and polishing the chrome in our honour, or perhaps their housekeeping is just better than ours.