SVG

Helen: What a disappointment - we made it to another country (St Vincent and the Grenadines) and didn't even get another passport stamp! We did, on the other hand, physically have to go to the house of the customs' officer in Carriacou yesterday to get him to sign us out of Grenada. He was supposed to be working at the dock, but apparently couldn't be bothered to go, so stayed at home with his stamps!!

But...here we are now. The guide book says SVG is one of the lushest places in the Caribbean and where lots of the region's fresh produce comes from - which is good, cos I think I'm in danger of getting scurvy. It's not easy finding fresh fruit/veg and once you've found it it's not easy keeping it fresh in this heat without a real fridge. We found a lovely veg stall about 100m from the dinghy dock today and stocked up - unusually for me, I even tried an odd knobly green thing that I didn't know the name of - looked vile inside too - all white and fleshy - but was actually v yummy.

What else to tell you? Well, yesterday's little sailing drama was a fire in the engine bay - the engine overheated and when C lifted up the floorboards horrid acrid smoke filled the saloon. Now, I'm not a mechanic, but even I know that lots of black stinky smoke = a bad thing. (C reckons most electrical things work by the smoke drive - when the the smoke escapes they stop working...). So...we had to anchor in the near dark, under sail, trying to avoid the reefs. Not an easy manoeuvre, but we made it :) The engine bay is now covered in powder (the automatic fire extinguisher went off) and a nasty oily goo in the bilges. I had an hour or so in 'deisel engine 101' this morning, with C using a boat hook as a pointer. I managed to identify the fuel injection pipes (on the second attempt), but thought the starter motor was the alternator. S'abit like playing Operation...but with slightly more serious consequences. BUT...I did stop the skipper from 'fixing' the problem by connecting the oil system with the cooling system - feeling v smug about that!

C and I went for a romantic dinner for 2 the other night, which was lovely (well, by, 'romantic dinner for two' I mean we didn't take our skanky skipper with us, and we 'dressed up' ie: actually had a shower and wore our only clean clothes!) Turns out the skipper stayed on the boat and cooked for himself! He hasn't cooked once in the 3 weeks we've been on the boat. Bloody cheek!

Oh, last thing to tell you, as it will have some of you in fits of laughter, is that we went for a bike ride the other day. Don't fall off your chairs, yes, I, Helen, actually rode a mountain bike. Up two hills, and on some v bumpy ground. And I put the chain back on twice (after a small child by the side of the road showed me how the first time!) By the end of the day, I was sweaty, bright red in the face, and had oil and grease and bruises all up my leg. But still got chatted up by blokes! The men here will try to sleep with anything that moves. Even if you look half dead and point to your husband. Well, ok, so I couldn't actually point at C, as he was always at least 10 minutes ahead of me, but you get the idea.

Right, that's all folks, off to investigate. (For those who want to know, we're at Union Island just now, in a place called Clifton).

Lots of love
Hxx