Friday dawned clear and sunny and by the time we had had our usual breakfast of fresh fruit, natural yoghurt and muesli (you have to eat healthily if you want to eat cakes later on in the day) it was overcast and threatening rain in time for our departure. Once we had prepared Stream we took an executive decision to delay departure whilst the gathering clouds dropped their contents. A wise decision as it was a typical tropical downpour, but fortunately only lasted ten minutes or so and soon we had weighed anchor and were making our way out into Marigot Bay when it started raining again. This time it did not look as though it was ever going to stop and visibility reduced to a quarter of a mile as we motored between yachts costing many millions of pounds. Hoisting sails was postponed, Sarah retreated below to read leaving Darrell lashed to the helm to pilot Stream through the mounting waves, although she did pass up his waterproofs first. The rain was monsoon-like and the wind picked up to between 20 and 30 knots, fortunately from astern of us and we surfed and rolled down the waves. None of this helping Sarah's seasickness. The rain lasted 90 minutes before the wind dropped to a manageable 15 knots and we were able to hoist sails. Well that would have been true if we hadn't managed to wrap the main halyard round the starboard top spreader whilst we were rolling around. Our progress to Anguilla was more sedate under full genoa alone. This gave us the opportunity to marvel at the sailmaker's handiwork, but we were soon able to furl sail and motor into Road Bay for the next excitement of clearing customs and immigration.
Syd-An's Apart -Hotel
