We sailed the short distance from Mustique to Bequia on January 27, where we had spent New Year's on our way south. But our return was quickly soured as we suffered a windlass failure trying to anchor in Admiralty Bay.

The windlass is our electric/mechanical workhorse for lowering and raising the anchor - a very important piece of hardware. Not being able to confidently raise the heavy anchor and chain, we ended up picking up a mooring ball.

Very fortunately for us Hank and Seale on sistership S/V FLASH were also in the same harbor and for the next two days Dave and Hank disassembled and repaired the windlass - taking advantage of Hank's past experience with the same model on FLASH. This was a huge success story, thanks to Hank, and the windlass now works better than ever.

The work on the windlass did not prevent us from attending the opening of the Bequia music festival and hearing a terrific youth steel pan orchestra from St. Vincent—we joined Hank and Seale ashore for this fun time!