Sorry about the delay in completing the first phase of this blog. We had a great final sail to St Lucia and it was fun to meet up with so many old friends on our arrival. We made contact with builders, architects and our land agent very soon after reaching dry land and everything seems to be in order. We managed to get a 2-year-old Toyota Hilux, 4 cab, 4 wheel drive pick up on day one and had it insured and registered by day two. The bank account is up and running and the funds are here and we are ready to start spending on the build! We spent a few days getting ourselves sorted and we visited our plot - boy is it overgrown. It is hard to get through the undergrowth so I have still not clambered to the bottom of the plot. Something we were very pleased with was that our PO Box was full and mail is coming daily, mostly redirected from home but getting here in quite a short time.

We were getting really excited about the kids coming and then we heard about the problems at Heathrow. It wasn’t long before we heard from them saying they didn’t know if they would even get their connection to Paris. In the end they had so much luck. Their flight was the only one to Paris that day but even that was delayed which meant that they missed their connection to Martinique. Once again they were lucky that another Air France flight was leaving 3 hours later so they arrived in Martinique at 8.30pm but of course had missed their flight down to St Lucia. We were aware this would be the case and set sail for Martinique. It was a great sail - 7 hours at an average of 6.4 kts – and we ended up in a nice bay only 20 minutes from the airport. After a few drinks we caught a taxi to the airport and arrived just as they appeared in the arrival hall. We all got in the same taxi and went back to the boat for a night at anchor. When we saw the news the next morning we realised just how lucky we were to get them here for Christmas.

The next day we sailed to St Lucia for a night at Rodney Bay. We needed to shop for their snorkelling equipment and also do some Christmas shopping. In the morning we were aware of a lot of noise outside the boat so we went above to have a look around. The last and smallest of the ARC boats was coming in. They had a huge reception of hooting foghorns and cheering. They moored next to us,3 elderly chaps pleased to be on dry land again. They were sailing a 34 ft Hunter. They were so late as they had held off to support a boat in trouble for 2 days and by the time they got on their way again they had lost the good winds.

We are now moored to the end of the restaurant pontoon. I have just been to the super market to do some last minute shopping before everything shuts for Christmas. The kids are off on a boat trip to go whale watching. Our friend, Shaid, runs the trips for the hotel and offered them the seats free. Yesterday they saw several, so we are keeping our fingers crossed for this afternoon. Tonight it is a traditional Creole Christmas dinner of suckling pig. The smells coming from the kitchen are wonderful.

So, for now, we wish all our friends and family a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS and all the best for 2007.

The blog will be updated as our building develops - most likely monthly or as interesting things happen.