Countdown to Christmas. Only there's nothing that feels Christmassy, and without family around, there's no incentive! All the cultural and climate clues that lead up to Christmas and the shopping, feeling the need to load up on gravy with everything, eggnog with everything ... just not as compelling when you're warm and not in need of a week off work, and there's not much to buy anyway. When the kids were small, in deference to Tom, we'd always wait until after his birthday on December 15th to start to get ready for Christmas. So happy birthday on Saturday TOM! My baby will be 20 years old! (Sorry, old boy, just had to get that in.)

We've had a busy week here in our neighbourhood, which keeps changing. We had an uneventful sail to Guadeloupe last week, departing from Jolly Harbour and anchoring that night in Deshaies on the northwest coast of Guadeloupe. Next day, we checked in, bought baguettes, a whole roasted chicken, tangerines, wine, cheese, pain au chocolat and croissants. Croissant shards make tiny greasy spots all over the teaks decks if you're not careful.

We sailed down the lee of the island, for the most part a quiet sail with the main and the jenny up. First part of the day was a light breeze from the land, then in the early afternoon, the onshore breeze comes on, and one tack, same course, off you go again. Toward the southern end of the island, still in the lee, it started to honk up to 25, gusting 30, and between there and Les Saintes, the group of islands a few miles south of Guadeloupe, we battled short, nasty swells and chop and squalls and a steady 25 knots of wind. Boring and tiring and tedious, but it only took an hour to get across the channel. We blew into the Bourg in a big squall of rain, anchored and spent a rolly, bobby night.

Across the bay there's a pretty little island, Ilet a Cabrit, with a sheltered anchorage on the south coast, in reach of "town" via dinghy, so we shifted over there and spent the next few days enjoying the snorkeling, and walked up the hill to see the great views. Randy amused himself by giving the occasional hermit crab a tap with his sandal just to watch it go rolling down the hill. There's the usual abandoned fort on the top of the hill, an abandoned group of concrete holiday cottages (they looked like little square cells, very unappealling), and a concrete road that could be 50 or 250 years old. There's no people living on the island, although we could see a hammock hanging in one of the buildings by the shore, and there's a display of masks for sale (but no one there to give your money to), and there's many goats and hermit crabs by the thousands. At night from the deck of the boat we watched fireflies and listened to the screams of feral cats. I found a bunch of pottery shards on the beach that probably washed down from the fort - they looked really old - no mention of "Corelle" on the markings.

Chris Parker woke us up on Monday with weather news that made it look like we should get back to Antigua right away, or be stuck in Les Saintes for at least another week with no guarantee of better weather after that. We wanted to be back for Christmas, so we decided to pack up, check out, get a couple more baguettes and head north. No problem going up the coast with a weird southwest breeze at our backs, but it meant for a very rolly night in Deshaies, which is open to the southwest. Neither of us felt like cooking, so we ate nuts and peanut butter sandwiches and watched the stars go swinging back and forth until Randy spotted a comet. We watched it for about an hour, moving northwards until it disappeared behind the cliff. If anyone knows what it was, let me know please. I've got an email in to one of my physics dept. buddies, so we'll find out if the Sherman-Brown Comet is going to be our claim to fame or what. Or maybe it's aliens come to retrieve all of those people you just know aren't from here originally.

Next day, Tuesday, was mostly crap, another on the "Never Again" list. Building swells, building wind, and mid-morning a huge wet squall that lasted an enternity with us in the middle of it - breaking seas with swells 10-15 and higher, winds 30-35 and regularly gusting over 40 - fit to flatten Nancy. I was predictably sick as a dog, even medicated. Randy got us through. It was gross, but it's over. A few bruises and contusions. Randy lost his hat. We've decided to reinstall the jacklines for any crossings, and never, never to bother to go anywhere if the forecast is for anything close to 20 knots of wind and over 6 foot swells. There's nowhere this old boat needs to go that badly.

It took a while to put the boat in order (my regular chance to reshelve all the books in the forward cabin), and get checked in in English Harbour, but then we cooked and ate an enormous pot of stew last night, gravy all over everything mopped up with baguette, hit the bunk at 8 pm, had a big breakfast this morning, and outside of the bruises, we're feeling fine. I'm pretty sure we need to do laundry.

Photos to follow.