[Letter]
From: John A. Smith

I needed a break, you know to get away.. to much harbor time and actually the grenadines are a mighty small place for a sailing ship and crew (me) so after checking with a passing Barbados coast guard cutter as to whether or not i was a visible radar 'pip' I carried onwards into the north hoping to get to Antigua to see my brother who was giving an art exhibition in Antigua. It has been 14 years since we last crossed paths. The wind of course as per normal for Mermaid when northbound went almost 020 true and i could barely hold a course for the bvi much less the "leewards" Plenty of breeze though and was able to hold 3.5 knots toward 340 true. Comfortably offshore with d'b;e reef'd main and stys'l seas 6-8 and a lovely time.. but no fish, torn the main twice so put in the 3rd reef and carried on with the addition of my #4 jib ahead of the stys'l. Watching the fading moon as dawn approached was just a preparation for the beauty of the dawn and Saturn and venus.

On the fourth day out i had a very physical awareness of my position because the small of Montseratt almost gagged me and i was at least 80 miles west of said hot rock. My dog was acting a bit spooked as well , but volcanoes are easier to deal with than military helicopters hovering overhead.

On day 5 I passed thru round rock passage and put the hook down in Virgin Gorda. What a theme park for bare boats this place has become! It would appear that the cracker-jack box captain license business is flourishing' Suddenly the $100 ec bill I had in my pocket was only worth $25 american and to really spill a bit of acid on the wound the use of email/computer jumped from $3ec in grenada to $17 us here at the marina and at other locations is as high as $30us an hour!!, beer is $10 ec and fresh fish costs $8.50us a pound... crew is eating a lot of peanut butter and peas and rice. When swimming I see plenty of fish but they are either of the ciguatera kind or are part of the scenic tour here and not for consumption. What has really gotten my dander up though is discovering that as I arrived here from high sea and freedom and the great open spaces I read in the local paper that 9 'more' dolphins have just been added to a pen here in Tortilla for the amusement of the tourists.

Mr. J. Phillip Brown president of the bvi scuba diving association wrote an article wherein he states that the dolphins in captivity have already started attacking each other maybe as a result of the over-crowding or perhaps because of the dirty water and small pen into which they all have been consigned. He mentioned how dolphins sometimes take week or months to adjust to their new "environment', no surprise, after all a creature for whom the entire ocean was once its's home might easily get a bit stressed about finding itself in a dirty cage. If people take their kids to see these creatures and expect them to appear normal I guess the next step will be to give prison tours and check out how well adjusted the human inmates are, but maybe the folks here miss the old days when the school kids were given the day off when there was a hanging in the road town prison. Maybe there will be suicide watches for the penned dolphins just to keep everyone happy.

The worst thing however and something that I doubt that I will ever adjust to is the local Rum. If the British tars really had to drink this Pussers flavor rum I can more easily understand why Wellington had so many volunteers for the royal army.

I do miss my wee dram of 'Westerners' Carriacou rum and better understand the british taste for tea... anything would be better than the contents of that corked bottle of Pussars. Yeech! all for now, I'll be doing a bit of sewing and should be back on the Blue by solstice.. save me a seat on one of those hard benches in a civilized Carriacou rumshop.

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