No bar fights to report, but we have had psychic readings, and our first intruder aboard. No laundry to tell you about.

We got a lot accomplished in St. Lucia, most of it being of the handing-wads-of-money-to-other-people sort. Nancy D is at the stage where four years of cruising is taking its toll, and we're starting to have to replace and repair. The dinghy upgrades I told you about last time, and the next big splash-out was new chain. We'd replaced the gypsy on the windlass in Martinique, hoping that the problem was a worn gypsy, but we finally clued in that our chain had stretched, and was never going to haul itself properly over the gypsy ever, ever again. Over to Island Water World to squeeze the VISA.

Next amusing issue was getting rid of the old chain. Rusty, stretched, but hey, we are loathe to chuck anything out that may have value. The fella at IWW said he'd be happy to take it - he'd try to sell it, but mostly he said it comes in handy when a hurricane looms, and people come to him desperate for ways to secure their boats. So the old chain may have a higher purpose yet. And the new chain, new gypsy, working great. Smooth like butter.

(Transferring 300 lbs of old chain in our dinghy meant that I ended up walking around the grocery store with soaking wet shorts. Lots of cruisers walk around looking like they've just wet themselves, and we've learned to do it with aplomb. Still beats wet socks in leaky boots at 20 below.).

Picked up some Important Bits of Information from a gentleman on the street who made charming small-talk, grasped our palms, told our fortunes (brief fortunes), then asked for money. I was going to suggest if he'd had a closer look at our palms, he would have known there wasn't much coming his way but the change in my pocket. But now we know that the Capt will live til 102, that he has a lot of lucky numbers, I think a couple of them are 17 and 33 (we couldn't remember the rest) and that I should never leave him. Also, that I'm accident prone, but I'll never have an accident. (Did he just see all the bruises on my legs?)

Took the bus into Castries (not nearly as nifty as St. John's in Antigua) and did very little shopping, although there's a huge market. We were looking for fresh meat, but were disappointed. Lots of frozen snerds and chicken feet. Saw a sign at a roadside eatery: "Still Jerking After All These Years." A taximan approached us and tried to sell us an island tour, but when we told him we were buying groceries and taking the bus, he said, You take the bus? and then shook our hands and let us go. You get some respect for doing things the island way.

Lovely sail down the lee of St. Lucia to Marigot Bay. Beautiful place, crammed with moorings and boat boys trying to tie you to moorings that will bring you into contact with various of your neighbours when the wind shifts. We finally ended up tied to an iffy mooring way back in the mangroves, and resigned ourselves to a night of sweltering with bugs. Good wifi though, so we swatted bugs (non-biting, very unusual!) and called everyone on Skype, and retired to the berth early, ready for departure at dawn for Bequia. It wasn't too hot, but we had the mosquito net curtain in place over the hatch and the door to the main cabin.

I'm in some sort of extended menopausal crappy sleep pattern, so when I was roused at 5:30 with coffee I was pretty bleary. Looking like the wrath of god, with a tan. It was still dark, but Randy put a light on so I could drink and dress, and that's when he noticed the blodges of brown on the cabin sides. And the floor. Do you think we had a bird in here last night? Or a bat? Arrggghh. We'd seen bats swooping around in the evening, and we figured that one had come aboard, couldn't get out, and messed himself and the boat in the process.

Moments later, we heard a new flappy/whirring noise under the companionway ladder, but we couldn't find the bat. So we left anyway.

Around 8, I'm getting hungry, and I remembered that there was a lovely ripe banana, perfect for queasy, early morning eating. Randy passed it up to me, and said Well THAT doesn't look very appetizing. About half of it was pecked and shredded and where it wasn't gone, it was black goo. Before I threw it overboard, we realized what the bat had been doing, and then, stuffed with my banana, he squitted it out while flying around the boat.

Now, I'm a (very little) bit like Sigourney Weaver in Aliens - you know this Thing is on your ship, you just don't know where. Could be another blog in that.

Now we're in Bequia - had a lovely sail down from St. Lucia, past the Pitons just after sunrise, down the coast of St. Vincent (just waved, didn't stop) and into Admiralty Bay in time for rum. Alick the sailmaker has restitched our dodger and added a couple of strategic grommets in our raincatcher, and Randy's done some painting inside the boat. I offered to help, but he would rather I didn't touch a paintbrush on the boat - house? okay, but boat? he'd rather do it himself. Fine.

Spent a happy time eating our favourite nutmeg icecream and watching a man and a young boy playing in the water by the beach. The dad was giving expert commentary with every throw and catch (or miss) and it was all about Manchester United. Sounded like actually commentary, very entertaining, all the players names and different plays, and one half-full water bottle getting chucked about. He got tired of it before the little boy did, and went back to his chair for a smoke, and we watched the little guy dawdle back up the beach talking to himself: "Manchester United, once again, Kings of Europe, Kings of the World, but most IM-POR-TANT-LY!!! KINGS of the GALAXY!"

It's so nice here that we think we'll hang around and catch some of the music festival on the weekend. I doubt I can post photos, so photos will likely follow in a couple of days.