SERENITY NOW

  We arrived at our selected anchorage, the jungle rimmed bay at Chateubelair on the island of St. Vincent about an hour after dark. With no moon to help us we crawled our way in close to the few lights showing on the beach and dropped anchor. The engine wouldn’t allow us to reverse for some reason, so not an ideal anchor set, but good enough for the one forecast low wind night we plan to stay here for. I checked the propeller (all good), topped up the transmission fluid in the gearbox, and made sure it operated both forward and reverse - all seemed good. Both had an early night after the long day’s sail down from St. Lucia - it was a cracking sail that was really good for our confidence and enjoyed by both of us. I wake to the sound of coffee being made and a cheery ‘Happy Birthday’ from my lovely wife. I take my first look at the ‘town’ which we’d arrived in the previous night. It’s an overcast humid morning, and wafts of morning vapour are rising from the jungle that rises behind. I

  The bay at Rodney Bay has had held us captive for almost a month now. We’ve been taking a rest, possibly not well earned, but needed regardless. Days have been lazy, an occasional trip to shore to check the wifi and messages, but generally laid back, reading, swimming, playing card games and when I feel very energetic, a dive below to attempt to keep on top of the long green beard growing on our hull. I managed to catch a couple of little snappers off the stern - too small to eat, but both very pretty fish to see. Entertainment in the evenings is provided by the DJs, hired singers, steel drum bands and karaoke that goes on at the resorts on shore - that’s maybe 400m away: close enough for us to hear clearly when we sit upstairs in the cockpit, but far enough away to not keep us awake later. Other than a few shopping trips and our wifi visits, we haven’t spent much time on land, one exception was to visit the ‘Friday night Fry up’. This weekly event sees the locals wheel out their hom