I am one of those slaves of tradition when it comes to Christmas, but this year I somehow have managed to put aside everything about Christmas. Of course, the people here in Caribbean also celebrates Christmas, but apparently without Christmas tree and so far I haven't seen Santa Claus. Doing a sort of halfway Christmas celebration is nothing for me, I am all or nothing, so I decided to celebrate more traditional next year, and follow the chill Caribbean Christmas style this year.

Christmas Eve was celebrated on the beach together with grilled chicken and our sailor friends, simply another kind of Christmas. As a slave of Christmas tradition I am big fan of Christmas food and I really miss Grandma's, for Christmas special made meatballs, but I must admit that waking up on Christmas Day not feeling sick in your stomach due to too much eating, was rather nice. Instead of continuing eating leftovers as usually on Christmas Day, we went on a little trip to the eastern side of Bequia, called Friendship Bay. The taxi ride there was one of those interesting ones upon an open platform of a pickup. All due respect to air-conditioning, but riding a pickup is the best cooling you can get in these tropic areas where the temperature in both air and water is constantly around 30 degrees C. Friendship Bay mostly consist of a nice beach and a chill restaurant where we had ice creams while overlooking the bay.

One Christmas tradition was actually kept, the one occurring on the night of Christmas Day when all old friends who have returned back to their parent's home get together and have a catch up party. The only difference this time was the fact that the party consisted of new friends rather than old friends. I think we had as much fun as you guys back home, but I miss all my old friends very much and I send you a special greeting in this!

After having celebrated Christmas and enjoyed the chill atmosphere in Bequia, we continued further south the day after Christmas Day. We ended up at anchor outside an island called Canouan about 20 miles from Bequia, where we were warm welcomed on the VHF by the two Norwegian boats Duffen and Trollwind. Except free wifi, a stunning beach and tasty drinks, Canouan didn't have much else to offer. Consequently we had seen it all in one day and continued the next day, the day of Helena's birthday. We sailed to an island called Mayreau and anchored in Saltwhistle Bay. Mayreau is a small, beautiful island with no airport and hardly any roads making it very quiet and chill. This is a kind of paradise island where you can stroll down your own beach, climb up in a palm tree and take those typical paradise pictures: it's just wonderful out here! We celebrated Helena at the beach restaurant and had a lovely night.

Yesterday I and the crew of Safari took a walk in to the little village in Mayreau, a 20 minutes walk up and down the hills. When we arrived up on the top of the island we had a wonderful view and could see the famous Tobago Cays, an island chain we soon will visit. Our intention was to find food, fresh fruits and vegetables in the village, but since the supply ferry hadn't shown up that day, the stores were almost empty. Instead of fruits we found some restaurants and bars and among them a typical Rastafarian restaurant with a true Bob Marley feeling, where the manager looked like Bob himself. Christianity is dominant around the islands here in St Vincent and the Grenadines, but Rastas can be find here and there. However, very few really practice the Rasta religion when it comes to faith, they are more focused on the other parts of the religion, as for instance music, weed and fashion. After having imbibed the Rasta spirit we continued home and later the Cantare kitchen served a tasty orange and garlic fried tuna.

Today it is another sunny, hot day in paradise and on the agenda is planning New Years Eve. What to do and what not to do? Party with the celebrities on Mustique or chilling on the boat that is the question. At the moment we think it will be some kind of combination… /First Mate

Here we are, anchored among our friends, Escape and Safari also arrived yesterday. The water is turquoise and around 28 degrees, our closest neighbours are the turtles swimming around us sometimes popping their head above the water to see what we are doing. Ashore life is much slower than on St. Lucia and the people is less pushy, we like it here! Tonight we will celebrate Christmas with the other Scandinavians on the beach close by. I think it will be hard to find a proper Christmas tree and we'll probably have to be satisfied with a smaller palm tree. I will put on red nail varnish and every other red accessories I can find to get into Christmas spirit. But first I'll try to get clean, that means swimming around with the turtles for a while!

Merry Christmas to all our blog readers! We would also like to say thank you to all of our sponsors, especially the insurance company Europeiska. /The Captain

The captain and her first mate had decided to spend Christmas in Bequia, an island about 70 miles south of Rodney Bay. So we had to sail all night long to get there in time for Christmas. Having lived in a hotel room for a week, we now had to pack our things into the tiny space available on Cantare, and the boat wasn't even standing still. The whole world was suddenly rocking back and forth. It was even stranger to be standing in the cockpit during the night only dressed in shorts and a thin T-shirt, and of course, as the captain had ordered, wearing a lifejacket. Once in a while we would get water splashing into the cockpit and over us, still we felt warm. Helena took a pill against seasickness but didn't feel good enough to go down below deck. We had made up the watches, Anders was going to have the watch from 9 pm to 12 pm, then Sofia would take over until 3 am when Maria would have the boat for the rest of the trip. Something went wrong with the plan. Anders felt a bit insecure about sleeping while the boat was rocking so much, therefore his watch was stretched a bit and Sofia got to sleep until 2 am. That's when we got behind an island and the sea became smaller and we dared to go down. A while after the sunrise we stood up again, not very rested though, we were very close to Port Elizabeth on Bequia. It took some time to find a good spot among all the anchored boats, but we found one rather close to Maria's and Sofia's friends on Johanna and TimeOut. Here in the Caribbean it's more important to do all the formalities just when you arrive. Maria and Sofia took off in Volare with the ship's papers and all passports. We were left behind to watch the boat. Our skin is not yet used to the sun down here so after a while we started to look like pink pigs in paradise, which of course Maria pointed out on their return. The bimini had to be taken up and more sun lotion put on, what a hard life! /Anders and Helena (The owners)

Position: 2200 UTC N 013° 52' W 061° 05'