We had very few charts on board Camelot and had been trying to acquire more by asking around amongst sailing friends. Not one of the chandleries on Tortola had one covering the waters between the Virgins and the Lesser Antilles Islands.

We planned to sail to Antigua to meet Molly and Fads – Jon’s parents who were coming out for a holiday in January. The only charts that came with Camelot covered from the USA to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Cruising Guides were available with line drawings of possible anchorages and useful information. So while we were in St Thomas that was another thing Jon was trying to locate.

Ossie and Jon spent the day in Charlotte Amalie, whilst Jethro and I stayed on board at anchor. There was so much to watch. More seaplanes taking off and landing, ferries coming and going, Jethro was busy playing pretend games. He pretended he was driving a water taxi by taking one of the cockpit cushions on deck.

“Mummy, pretend you want to go ashore and you’ve got no dinghy,” he starts off, “ here comes Sheffro with his big outboard.”

Then “Pretend you need some shopping and you haven’t got a car, “here comes Sheffro in his taxi.”

And into your face comes a dinky taxi. And then “Pretend I’m your daddy and you are my little girl and you want to go for a swim…”

It was quite exhausting remembering who you were supposed to be.

Ossie went to the hospital as he had developed a nasty rash and was told he had an allergy to the sun screen he had been using. He paid for some tablets and cream. The two of them spent the evening ashore after dinner on board. They had bumped into two Swedish Fireball sailors now working on a crewed charter yacht. Next day both men had humongous hangovers. It was soon going to be Jethro’s fourth birthday and I needed to track down suitable birthday presents. So I left Jethro with his daddy whilst Ossie ferried me ashore in the dinghy. I found exactly what I hoped for in Woolworths.

We made our way back to the BVI again after a couple of days relieved to be away from the intensity and pandemonium of Charlotte Amalie. Ossie was returning to the UK and agreed to take the Christmas cards and letters we wanted to send home. We sailed all along the North Coast of Tortola, tucking into Brewers Bay to drop anchor for lunch and a swim well clear of the reefs. That night we anchored in Trellis Bay to drop Ossie at the airport. He took us out for a dinner at The Last Resort on his last night, which was wonderful. In Trellis Bay Jon did some sail repair work on Tony Snell’s trimaran called Great Eagle.

Jethro’s birthday party was celebrated on board on 20th. He had been up since dawn when he came into our cabin saying,

“Kermit the frog woke me up singing Happy Birthday.”

On the seats between the two berths in our aft cabin were several wrapped presents for Jethro. There was a little Suzuki motorbike, a book called Little Gray Rabbit’s Christmas, an inflatable li-lo with a window in the middle for spotting fish, and best of all a little model TransAm black car just like Kit in Knight Rider. This doubled as a torch when the headlights came on.

Jethro’s 4th birthday

We went ashore to have lunch in De Loose Mongoose beach bar, which also had a good book exchange. In the afternoon Julia and Jeremy came along with James for a tea party. I had baked a chocolate cake in a sealed aluminium pan on the stove top, which worked well. It was decorated with piped chocolate icing and four candles.

Crossing from Beef Island to Virgin Gorda we went up into Gorda Sound for the first time. A whaler with young Americans dressed as elves came alongside when they spotted Jethro on deck.

“Hey Dude, what do you want to ask from Santa?” They called.

“A Tonka digger, please.” Yelled Jethro clapping his hands with glee.

These elves accepted payment in cans of Budweiser.

While Jon went ashore to enquire about windsurf hire, we wrapped up two presents for daddy with much whispering and holding a finger against the nose. ..like Santa Claus in ‘the Night Before Christmas’ which we were reading five times a day. Other yachts in the anchorage had twinkling Christmas trees hoisted in their rigging.

Christmas in Gorda Sound

We spent Christmas Day at anchor off the Bitter End Yacht Club. Jethro had come through to our cabin at 6 am clutching the Tonka digger I had found in St Thomas. He opened the rest of the gifts in his stocking sitting in my bunk: a balloon, some bubbles, crayons, colouring books, flash cards and a bendy straw. From an adjacent boat we could hear people singing carols. Ashore in the so called yacht club we had coffee and Jethro fed sugar to some tiny yellow bananaquit birds.

I cooked the nearest I could to a traditional British Christmas dinner by slow cooking a chicken in my wonderful sealed saucepan, and serving that up with a selection of vegetables, stuffing and cranberry sauce. Bought mince pies provided our desert. During the afternoon Jon hired a windsurfer. I read a book whilst Jethro played with his digger in the sand next to a complete Sperm Whale skeleton under the palm trees.

To Sint Maarten /Saint Martin

On Boxing Day just after dawn we headed out through Round Rock Passage for our first long voyage. It was about one hundred and eighty miles to English Harbour. Our first stop would be the half Dutch half French island of Sint Maarten/Saint Martin. This was about ninety five miles. If we could maintain an average speed of six knots that would take sixteen hours.

Navigating with my school Atlas!

Still with no proper nautical chart we were using my school Atlas! We did have cruising guides which would help when closing on land and getting into anchorages. Meanwhile we should be safe if we staying in the buoyed shipping channels.

We set a compass bearing 120 degrees East South East. Before we lost the high peaks of Virgin Gorda over the stern we could clearly see the the high volcano peak Dutch Island of Saba dead ahead. Good old eyeball navigation worked well.

We closed on the Port of Philipsburg in the early hours of the morning but were reluctant to enter in the dark. So we sailed up and down a couple of miles offshore until daylight. It was just as well we did. Those green lights we had seen through binoculars were not leading lights at all but part of the Casino on a rocky headland.

There was a good laundry in the marina which I was pleased to use. After a few days there working out the cost of things in guilders and buying Gouda and Edam in the stores, we pressed on to St Barths or to give it the full title Saint Barthélemy, a French Island which was very chic.

To St Barths, New Year 1981

This small island had been populated by French Normans and Bretons in the 17th century. Then it belonged to Sweden for 100 years and was ceded to France in some Napoleonic deal. The population were predominantly pale skinned fair-haired people. It was sunset on New Years Eve when we dropped anchor in Gustavia. So we opened a bottle of Chardonnay with our supper on the aft deck, heavily diluted with soda water for me and watched Fireworks from parties ashore to let in the new year of 1981.

On New Years Day we launched the dinghy from its davits and went to the Grand Plage with a picnic lunch. Jethro was tickled to learn that “Oui” meant yes and “Pee pee” meant wee. He wandered along the beach saying “Bonjour” to all the children and he stared in wide-eyed delight at their topless sunbathing mothers, as did his daddy.

There was scrumptious French bread and croissants for sale in a delightful boulangerie beside the docks of Gustavia. In addition was a huge well equipped chandlery on the waterfront run by a bearded character called Lou Lou. Striking up a conversation with him, Jon learned,

“We have no sailmaker in St Barths. You could make a good living here,” Lou Lou advised. “As you are from Great Britain you would not need a work permit… we are part of The European Union as we are a department of France.”

At last a French Chart

Food for thought. In that first class nautical store we finally found a French chart of the Lesser Antilles with soundings in meters.