50 Not Out - Day 11. Nanny Cay and English Harbour.

March 17th - the day we had to hand the boat back. There was no wind as we headed out of Cane Garden Bay, which was disappointing. We were resigned to motoring the whole way back but, as we headed round the southern tip of Tortola past Sopers Hole, the wind filled in nicely. We finished up having a lovely sail, tacking up and down between Tortola and St John, exchanging tacks with another boat going much the same way. The wind even got up to a level when I was wondering if we'd have to reef, but settled down at a nice 15-18 knots until we lowered the sails for the last time at the entrance to Nanny Cay.

So we refueled and re-watered the boat before calling Horizon to let them know we were back. At this point we handed over responsibility for Sunshine, as he reversed her from the fuel dock, around the marina and into her slip. There's always a smartarse.

After lunch at the Gennaker bar (best roti's, Red Stripes, burgers etc on the island - at least according to Devon, the waiter!) we caught the taxi back to the airport. After an interesting encounter with a guy from St Kitts and Nevis who, dressed in a rather scary checked shorts suit with matching hat, taught us some of the local phrases, we headed off on the LIAT flight to Antigua via St Maarten.

We arrived at English Harbour, on the South side of the island, some distance from the airport in the early evening. We'd booked a couple of nights at the Copper and Lumber Store Hotel in the old dockyard at English harbour. It's an amazing place, a restored 18th century naval storehouse with the rooms around an open central courtyard. The nicest thing was that it's air conditioned though!

Missy had wisely booked dinner ahead at Abracadabra, a very pleasant Italian restaurant, so we had the luxury of having a nice shower, before getting changed and walking the short distance down there. English Harbour is very, well, English. (Think Fulham-on-sea). It felt strange at first, being amongst so many English accents after a couple of weeks of largely either American or Caribbean ones.