Well, doesn't time fly? Only four years since they last held a world cup for football and Oceana is still in St Maarten. A lot has happened (mainly lots of boozing) leading up to a major overhual of the situation just over a year ago when the unhappy crew of Oceana decided drastic action was needed to save sanity, Oceana and a marriage.

At the time Oceana had been hauled out in a boatyard for nearly two years. In this time we had managed to spend enough money to repair the dead engine about three times over and still were able to leave the boat with less functioning systems than when she was hauled out. This appears to be quite an easy task in St. Maarten/St Martin where the average price for a beer is around $1.50 (less in happy hour), a tall glass of spirit is only $3.00, a coke or lemonade is $2.00 and there are no drink driving laws on the Dutch side of the island. We were literally fighting with each other, our neighbours and anyone else who got in the way and realised that the only option was to relaunch Oceana and clean up our acts quite considerably.

The good news is that we are getting there now and are on course to return to the UK next year with Oceana, a stong and stable marriage and a new crew member (on the dogwatch of course).