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March 1, 1999

Approaching Trinidad

It�'s dark outside now, but the moon is full tonight and has just risen behind us. We�re 46.5 miles from our first waypoint off the north-eastern tip of Trinidad, and we'�re picking up a bit of current which is hurtling us along at about 8 knots. It feels strange to finally be close to arriving in the Caribbean, like the poem, Ithaca. Will it live up to my hopes? Will it be how I dream it will be when we make landfall? Soon I guess the Caribbean will become home; for how long? Who knows? The water has been becoming a brighter shade of blue every day as we�ve been heading north; here it looks truly artificial. As the sun set off our port bow this evening, the sky had a bank of cumulus clouds stretching behind us. These were coloured pink by the setting sun, and stood out against the sky in true three-dimensions, and were clearly very deep. The sky behind them was a blue-grey the colour of steel, and in front of this floated a purple cloud that floated there simply to contrast against the pinkness.

March 23, 1999

Approaching St Maarten

Well after two weeks of getting the boat sorted up in Trinidad, relaxing, and doing a bit of sailing, we now find ourselves approaching Sint Maarten, to join up with Tayo again. It�'s been a long, and an exciting trip since we left them four and a half months ago in Tenerife, and we'�ve done almost 5000 miles I guess. At times it felt like this moment was far, far away, but now I�'m glad to say that there'�s only 6.1 miles left to go. I�'m really looking forward to seeing Chris, and we'�ve got a bottle of cranberry Finlandia chilling as I speak. The lights of Philipsburg are ahead of us now, so I'�m off to play some party music and keep watch while we make landfall.

March 30, 1999

Anchored off St Barths

We�'re anchored off St Barths tonight, and Chris and Chris are on board. It was really good to see Chris when we arrived last week and so we've all sailed over to here for a couple of nights. St Barths is a lovely French island, though it used to belong to Sweden and there are still lots of Swedish characteristics about the place.