The good: we are cruising again. We finally left Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia on Sunday and sailed (yes, sailed!) to St Pierre on Martinique. It was a very pleasant 40-mile beam reach in moderate winds and modest seas. Probably one of the best sailing days we've had. We averaged between 8 and 9 knots, which ain't bad in a 46-ft sailboat. We didn't go ashore again in St Pierre, though it's a very charming French village built on the ruins of the "Paris of the Caribbean", destroyed in a huge volcanic eruption of Mt Pele in 1901. We'd visited on the way south, and we were anxious to get to Dominica and do some scuba diving.

Monday, bright and early, we left St Pierre for the 30-mile passage to Roseau, the capital city (town?) of Dominica. Again, we had a lovely few hours of fast sailing. In fact, 2 days of sailing back-to-back was unheard of previously. We arrived in Roseau and checked in with customs and immigration, and made reservations to dive with a local shop on Tuesday. The downside of Roseau is the rolling anchorage. The swells hit the open roadstead, and we were rolling all night long. But the next day's diving made up for it.

The 2 dives we did Tuesday were quite simply 2 of the nicest we've ever done. Dominica is positioning itself as the "eco-friendly" island, and is looking to eco-tourism to build its economy. They have the raw material, as the island is quite undeveloped, and the marine park in which we dove was pristine. You are not allowed to scuba dive on your own in Dominica; they don't want divers spoiling what they have. We dove a volcanic area around a sulferous cinder cone in one area, the Soufriere Piton, and on "Champagne Reef", so called because of the CO2 bubbling from subterranean vents. It was like diving through a glass of champagne. Well, sort of. :-) We saw a wide variety of critters and some absolutely gorgeous plant life and invertebrates. The only thing we missed were the sperm whales that frequent that area of Dominica this time of year, though they had apparently sighted them the previous day.

Dominica does get its share of cruise ships. Our diving companions were from one of the WindStar Windjammers, enormous 5-masted motorsailers. And in the morning one of the Carnival cruise ships docked right alongside of where we were moored. Maryann wandered the streets of Roseau with the other cruise ship passengers, but I opted for an afternoon nap.

Wednesday morning, after turning on our AIS system which shows us all of the large boats and ships within a 20-mile radius I noticed a boat called the Maltese Falcon just a mile away from where we were moored. The Maltese Falcon is arguably the world's largest private sailboat, at something like 287 ft. She was built just recently by Tom Perkins of Kleiner, Perkins venture capital fame (and funny enough, the division manager at HP when I started work there many years ago in my first job out of college). We took a swing by for a closer look and a couple of photos. She has 3 enormous carbon-fiber masts, each of which has 3 huge square sails that drop from spars. And rather than adjust the spars for the wind condition, the masts themselves rotate. Simply astounding to see those masts and think about the technology required to rotate them! This last summer I read a book about her construction and the pictures of the interior were unbelievable. Very high tech and very, very luxurious. She was probably on a charter, and I suspect she charters for something well over $300,000/week. That kind of money is almost unfathomable. We left her in peace and continued our northward trek.

We need to be in St Thomas by Feb 19 to meet Julia and Morgan, so we are anxious to close the distance. We set sail (but this time we had to leave the engine running since we needed to make water) for Isles des Saintes, just 5 miles south of Guadeloupe, about 38 miles north of our mooring in Roseau. The tradewinds were blowing strongly again, after an unseasonable 5 days of relative calm. We had 18-23 knot winds, and 5-7 ft seas. Not the most comfortable, and certainly not as nice as the previous couple of days, but we only had a little over 2 hours out of the lee of Dominica, so it wasn't bad. We arrived off Terre d'en Haut, the main islet of Isles de Saintes just after noon, went ashore to have some lunch, and clear customs and immigration. Nobody was home where we clear in, so we'll have to try again tomorrow. There are 2 other Hylas boats here in the anchorage, both Hylas 54's. We've met one owner, but not yet the other.

Not sure how long we'll hang out here, but we want to do some diving and snorkeling and eat some French food. Croissants and pain au chocolat in the morning!

It has been pretty amazing that little has broken in the last few days. We were talking with the other Hylas owner and he was saying that it was his wish that something small breaks every day, because he knows something is going to break, and it's nice if it's small. I know how he feels. We've been running the generator and using the water maker and it's so nice to have them finally working again. The wait for the parts was painful, but we've had nearly 5 days of painless cruising.

Which brings me to the bad and the ugly. Those that like happy endings should just stop reading here. Those who get a vicarious thrill out of the agonies of cruising, well, keep reading.

We finally took delivery on our new dinghy on Friday last. Not sure we described all of the hassles in getting it, but it wasn't a fun experience. It took from the 17th of December to the 11th of January to get it shipped from the states, and delivered to us in St Lucia. Air freight. And when it finally arrived at the St Lucia airport a week ago Tuesday, we couldn't get it because of a complete snafu with shipping costs. We'd originally been quoted $1000 for air freight, then they gave us a written quote for $500. When it arrived, they wanted $1300! We went around and around with the fellow who runs the inflatable dealership, and he went around and around with the air freight people. We ended up paying the original quote of $1000, but refused to pay the further $300 and the dealer ate the extra cost.

Of course by the time the truck arrived at the marina with the dinghy on Friday, it was nearly 5PM. The truck driver says he needs EC$80 for "customs late fee". I never did see him give the EC$80 to the customs guy; who know where it went? However, we were just so relieved to finally get our dinghy we were willing to ask no questions.

But after taking the dinghy out of its carboard carton and out of its (large) plastic bag, we find the dinghy is quite dirty. What's up with that? Oh well, maybe it was just stored in a dirty, dusty warehouse. We carry it to a wooden dock, being very careful not to rest the fiberglass hull on concrete (we scratched our previous dinghy that way and we learned our lesson), and inflate the tubes. Push it off into the water and tow it back to our boat with the loaner dinghy.

Back at our boat I notice the bottom is scratched! About an 18" section of the fiberglass where it's been dragged on some rough surface (like concrete!). We are not happy campers. We tow the new dinghy over to the dinghy dealer (and he's as dinghy as they come), and show him the abraded bottom. We were supposed to clean his loaner dinghy before returning it, but no way am I cleaning it with the new one being as dirty and scraped up as it is. He gets his loaner back with long strings of green algae, we put our outboard on the new dinghy and return to our boat.

But wait, it gets better (worse). Sunday we hoist the dinghy up on our davits and it's heavier than it should be. Oh, forgot to tighten the drain plug that allows you to drain the area between the floor and the hull of the dinghy. We learned that with the previous dinghy also. Until, looking under the dinghy, we find the hole. And the crack. Apparently they dropped the dinghy on something sharp somewhere along the line and the hole allows water to penetrate the inner hull, filling it. Oh, and the crack probably does the same, as it's close to 10 inches long. Aargh! We are very, very unhappy boaters. We've emailed the dealer and they say they are going to file a warranty claim, though I suspect the manufacturer will claim shipping damage, and given the lack of a relationship between the dealer and the air freight folks I hold out little hope our busted up dinghy will be repaired without us digging yet deeper.

Oh well. Most everything else is good. The weather isn't unpleasantly hot, and it cools down to the low 70's overnight. The water here in Isle des Saintes is gorgeously clear. We had fresh croissants for breakfast (they were already out of pain au chocolat!), and life's good.