'All weather is good weather', that's what the taxi driver said in Tobago. That may have been true for him with his airconditioning when sunny and his wipers when raining (most of the time), but the poor travellers like ourselves needed something better than just the rain on Tobago. We found it, we went to the adventure farm just north of Plymouth to watch the hummingbirds

and we did a scuba diving course and all three of us are now open water certified divers allowed to look like spacemen and dive with compressed air. We are grateful to Richard Weller for leaving us his book on the behaviour of reef fish, which is a fascinating book as long as you can see the fish! We could on our last day of diving on the 'flying reef' and were amazed at the beauty of the underwater world and delighted just to be hanging there in midwater and looking at it. We saw such things as giant sponges, moray eels, turtles, tropical fish, southern sting rays and a nurse shark. Our instructor was Chris, of extra divers. He is an ex British Army officer who had been born in Trinidad and educated in England. He was a splendid instructor, and we all managed over 94% in our final exam! Susan, of course, managed 100%! We have been snorkling since our certificate but not scuba diving, yet.

We were sad to leave our new friends in Tobago, including Jacqui and Randolph who had been very hospitable to us at the Coco Reef Resort. If you are going to Tobago do buy island notes by Ulli Jenisch or email her at tobago@sunbird_holidays.com to order it before you go. The notes are witty and accurate!

We left Tobago at 0300 last Saturday morning to sail to Grenada and we reached Prickly Bay under mizzen and genoa, with a ticking over engine, after eleven hours. The wind reached twenty knots and the fridges were very cold! The taxi driver wouldn't have said that all weather was good weather if he has seen the still obvious wreckage caused by hurricane Ivan, which hit Grenada last Spetember. There were some sad sights of houses with no roofs and some wrecked yachts on the shoreline.

Many roofs had tarpaulins over them four months after the event. Grenada had not had a serious hurricane for fifty years and it came as a bit of a shock, although apparantly eighty percent of it has been repaired. Even so Grenada is a most beautiful lush tropical island and it only rains a bit! The south coast is similar in some ways to the west coast of Scotland, with the little inlets and sea lochs protected from the swell by coral reefs. In Prickly Bay there were about 100 yachts anchored of all nationalities, swiss, all the Scandinavians, American, and even a Leigh Bawley flying the British flag. There is a duty free chandlery at Spice Island Marine and we bought some essentials. In fact we spent quite a lot!

After a quick glance at the wonderful inlets on the south coast,

passing secret harbour with its very elegant hotel and marina,

we sailed round the corner to St Georges, the capital of Grenada. Again Ivans terrible legacy was evident and none of the churches appeared to have roofs, but the anchorage was excellent and we were able to go to the supermarket's dock on the side of the lagoon to get our provisions. Luxury not having to use a taxi or lug all our bags half a mile.

St Georges is a very pretty town built around the water front, even though the commercial wharf is also right in the middle of it! A new cruise liner terminal has been built just out of town and there were two ships there during our short stay. One reason for going to St Georges was to find a shop that would overhaul Will's computer since it got wet from a deckleak during one of the tropical downpours in Tobago. Despite promises from them for a turnaround before 1000 the next day, nothing was done, the computer hadn't even been moved from the counter! There's not such an urgent word for manyana in Grenada, which is probably part of its charm. We will have to do a DIY on the computer as well as everything else!

We sailed over an active volcano (last eruption 1989) and passed a real live sperm whale on our way to Carriacou today! It was sunbathing!

We had to motor here since the wind was on the nose, but the trip was beautiful, passing spectacular islands and rocks. Diamond island was the spitting image of Ailsa Craig!

We sail for Bequia and Martinique in the next few days. We understand Martinique is chique, but we will let you know when we get there.

We hope you like Susan's snaps.

Love from all on Atlantia