Nice sail to Deshaies, nothing broke, nobody was sick. A good sail in my books. It's a cute little town, and the Douanes Office has an incredibly quirky schedule. They're open about an hour every day, and hardly ever the same hour. We figured that it must have something to do with the schedule of incoming flights at the airport -- perhaps they go back and forth between the two offices? No matter, we eventually got checked out after spending a couple of days.

In the meantime, Dean and Jill (Delilah) convinced us to make the long uphill walk to the botanical gardens, and once we caught our breath and stopped sweating, we were really glad we did. It costs a pile of euros to get in, and the lady taking our money looked at us and asked if we had come "en pied?"

It's probably the most beautiful gardens I've ever seen (sorry, Alice, yours is now in second place). There was an incredible number of plants, trees, flowers, orchids, ground cover, more orchids, waterfalls, parrots (they shat on my backpack, and we decided that was good luck), hummingbirds, more trees with weird blooms, a ton of five-year-olds in matching tshirts, a petting zoo, and a snack bar with cold beer at the end. I took a million photos, but lucky for you, I'm only posting a few. See below.

Deshaies harbour is lousy with turtles, which is fun, and the town is small and nifty and clean and the shops all shut up tight in the middle of the day, and tourists and travellers just have to go and have a nap and come back and get baquettes later. We bought a stunningly fabulous roast chicken from a little shop and gorged ourselves on chicken sandwiches.

We were thinking we'd have chicken soup for lunch the next day while sailing to Antigua, but it was waaaay too windy. We ate crackers and watched Delilah out ahead of us make sail changes. Then we started making sail changes. Started out under full sail, then reefed the jib, then let it out, then reefed it again, then dropped the mizzen, then wished we had an easy way to reef the main. For about three hours we had a steady 30 knots and lots of choppy swell. It was a fast trip though. Very wet on deck.

We dropped the hook in Freeman Bay just outside of English Harbour, and then we had our chicken soup, and then we reanchored. It was crowded, and we kept hitting rattley spots and dragging, so the next day we followed Delilah around to Falmouth Harbour and were happy to see friends from Grenada days - Eira and Carapan. We had a great evening catching up.

Falmouth Harbour is chock-a-block full of mega-mega-yachts. The "Maltese Falcon" and "Mirabella V" are the two largest privately owned sailing yachts in the world. Ashore, the place is loaded with young, attractive white people wearing khaki or navy shorts and white shirts with a boat name. They all have cell phones and radios clipped to their belts, and when you see them on the boats, you know that their lives are spent polishing, wiping, hosing, coiling, and polishing some more. Who owns all these big boats, and why? Someone said that they saw Bruce Springsteen and Tom Hanks ashore, but I am unable to verify.

Laundry! Mavis, of Mavis's Laundry, sits on the dock at the yacht club all day, and when she sees a dinghy approach with a laundry bag, she comes over to say hello. Next thing you know, you've paid over $100 EC for 4 loads of laundry, but you don't mind because it's all IRONED. Sheets, pillowcases, shirts, all tidy and folded and ironed. I was gobsmacked.

Randy has been trying to sort out insurance because we think we're going to haul here in May and go back to Nova Scotia for the summer and sell the house. We spent $30US faxing our survey to a UK company, only to have them say that the age and value of the boat means that they can't cover us. Duh, they could have told us before we sent the fax.

We also took a bus ride into St. John, the capital, and that's a hopping town. Almost too busy for us. Cruise ship passengers throwing money around as fast as they could. There's a great market across from the bus station, and we bought a breadfruit. Very yummy boiled and then baked with parmesan cheese, lots of butter, green onion, basil and parsley. Low fat, we ain't.

One week until Tom and Haley arrive! And today is my nephew Will Taylor's birthday!! Will Taylor, stand up and take a bow !!!! I just heard from Alan and Marie who were on the trip to Victoria Falls with us in Dominica, and he sent along these terrific photos of the "nutters." Tara was disgusted that everyone else got wet to the armpits while I was still only hip-deep. The advantages of long skinny legs!