Martinique May 2017

We’ve been in Martinique now since early May. Arrived in St Pierre and went to stock up at their very good market. We have been playing around with methods of catching rain water for the tanks instead of always having to make fresh water. One plan was to just put a bucket under the drip line at the front then tip it into the tanks but that involved lots of running around in the rain and often at night. We have now adapted our sun shade at the front to pour water into a bucket that has a hose attachment fitted to the side to syphon directly into the tanks. Of course it hasn’t rained properly since then! It should work really well as the catchment area is huge – the top two levels of the boat and the whole area of the shade sail. The syphon hose really slurps the water away even when there is only a tiny amount in the bucket.

One day we went for a long hot walk to the Depaz Distillery and wandered around there ending up in a tasting and lunch.

Next we sailed down to Anse Mitan and caught up with Lisa and Jean Luc who we have met a few times now. Kayaked and swam a lot here. The marina had forgotten or messed up our booking and Jean Luc was able to sort it out for us as he has been in it for years – lucky for us as we are depending on being here for when I go to England and then we both go to Iceland for our World ARC reunion – phew. It is quite a new joint community/government/EU venture and still quite cheap. At least half the price of Marin down at Ste Anne.

On the 13th we celebrated being away sailing for 2 years!

We’ve rented a car (a great price thanks to Jean Luc) and have been exploring places that we can’t get to by boat ie up mountains and the east coast . A really nice island with excellent roads and highways. We notice that the French have influenced baguette making, croissants and the driving! Fabulous food in the big super markets too.

I’m off to the UK to see my Mother for a week tomorrow. My brother Mark and sister Mandy will be there too – a bit of a family reunion!

Les Saintes and Dominica

At Le Saintes again. We bypassed Deshailles (Guadeloupe) and went straight to an overnight at Pigeon Island as the anchorage in Deshailles is terrible. We continued on down to Les Saintes where we met up with Ali and Steve from Manx Goose at Isle de Cabrits. Great to see them again after so long (November) so there was lots of catching up – drinks, dinners, lunches, swims and Pete and Steve did a dive and got a lion fish. (you spear them as they hide under rocks) These got here from Australia and are pests as they have no natural predators.  In Australia there is probably a million things that eat them. The locals are now encouraged to eat them to try to control their numbers and many of the restaurants feature lion fish dishes. We had ours as little bite sized battered nibbles – really nice. After 10 days we went our separate ways again. Manx Goose north and us south.

Put in a few days at Dominica in Prince Rupert Bay. It’s a lovely unspoilt island and we went on another trip to a waterfall through lush rainforest. The guide (Providence) stopped at a cute little village called Dublanc where we had a rum at the world’s smallest bar and where all the houses are tiny but absolute beachfront. The local people here mostly enjoy a very nice laid back lifestyle – washing their clothes in the river while they chat on their mobile phones. There are these neat little cake things called johnny cakes that I am going to make. They are originally American Indian but are a main snack food, meal extra throughout these islands. Providence is a botanist and showed us lots of leaves and barks that are used traditionally for everything from prostate disease to shingles and broken bones. There is an American medical school here but he says they don’t want to know! The roads are good and apparently the Chines paid for the main highway to be resurfaced..???? I’m sure they got something in return.

Off to Martinique next.

Monserrat

Sailed for Monserrat on 18th, a bit of a wild ride with the wind on the nose the whole way. The port engine stopped about a mile out (that contaminated fuel again, even though we had the tank cleaned!) I managed to anchor OK and Pete cleared the blockage. The same strange tape stuff was in it again?!

Pete had to practically throw me onto the dock and stand off as it was too swelly to tie the dinghy up. Interesting getting to and fro here in this weather. The next day when we took a tour of the volcano we had to time between swells and drag the dinghy up a boat ramp. We saw the old capital Plymouth that was ruined by the mud slide associated with the big eruptions of 1997. Many of the houses in the capitol and nearby villages had to be abandoned even though they were not actually damaged. Just had to leave with an overnight bag. Our tour driver is still very emotional about it as his whole village was one that had to be abandoned. We drove through it. The government has ploughed the roads out so people could get back in the salvage their belongings to help them build again and start over. Some went to England.  There is still hot flow coming down the mountain all the time, we could see it from the boat as we left. The last eruption was only 2010, so still active and monitored 24/7 from the observatory by an international ream.

Left for Les Saintes on April 20.

Happy Easter from Nevis

Hi everyone and Happy Easter. We are in Nevis for Easter, partly by accident as we forgot that it would be holidays and we wouldn’t be able to check in at Monserrat. Some of the islands get very picky about checking in the minute you arrive, you can’t get away with staying on the boat with the Q flag up! The last few days in St Kitts we went to Shitten (yes!) Bay for a snorkel before heading here. Only a few hours sail away but still the same country this time. Soon after we arrived Chris and Caroline from Four Seasons turned up and the guys on Platina so we all met ashore at Sunshine Bar for “Killer Bees” – rum punches. There are some interesting ex plantation houses here that have been made into restaurants or mini hotels. We went to one for lunch and another for dinner. I’m not sure why but the cars here are much newer and in better repair that a lot of the other islands. Usually they are mostly old and covered in scratches and dents with bald tyres. We are anchored off the Four Seasons Hotel and getting their wifi really well so we got the helicopter tour over the volcano in Monserrat on utube and decided not to bother with doing it. You can’t fly right over the crater as it is still active (last blew up in 2006) so it didn’t seem like a good idea to spend $300 each!

St Kitts

Originally named by Columbus after his personal saint St Christopher, it was shortened to St Kitts by the Brits but officially the island goes by both. In the 1600’s both French and British settlers arrived, and for what was possibly the only time in history, they got together to kill all 2000 Caribs who were on the island. Naturally this state of cooperation did not last long and they were back to fighting over it for the next 150 years until Britain got it under the Treaty of Versailles in 1783. Today it and Nevis, a small island to the south are jointly independent - although every now and then Nevis mutters about secession.

We caught up with Nigel and Karen from Persephone in the 3 beers for $5 bar – it did not end well…..after a nice Indian dinner and a few wines Pete dropped the keys in the water at the dinghy dock!  Luckily we had a spare dinghy key hidden on the dinghy and a spare for the big boat hidden on the big boat – actually planned for a sober accidental dropping of keys but hey – they were there.

The next few days we bay hopped down to White House Bay where Nigel and Karen were. We then came back up to Basseterre (where we were boarded by Customs and Immigration for a papers and illegals check) for an island tour. It was supposed to be on and old cane train but that was cancelled so we did it by island taxi. Another fort (of course), lots of little villages and an old estate converted to a batik fabric making place. The volcano here last blew up 400 years ago. The flat land that used to be sugar cane is reverting to bush and real estate developments. If you buy or build a house here you get citizenship. A few strange things: there is a Brazilian embassy here and a large Taiwanese Experimental Farm. The island is 68 square miles in size and there is a church of every single offshoot or interpretation of Christianity ever invented! The cruise terminal port was reclaimed for the purpose of attracting cruise ships and tourism is now a big part of the economy as it is in all of these islands.

We have just anchored off the Carombola Restaurant again to use their wifi - our booster picks up many of the shore wifi spots which is great, saves a lot of messing around but can get worrying if you have to go ashore for drinks to get the password.....

St Eustatius

St Eustatius – well I never…

We’d never heard of St Eustatius – known locally as Statia – but it was at one time in the 1700s the world’s busiest port with over 100 ships in the harbour at any time! This was when it was Dutch owned and they made it a free port meaning that if your country was at war with another and trade with that country was forbidden, well, you just traded via St E, basically legal smuggling. The blue glass beads that the Dutch used for early trading can still be found on the beach after a storm – it was with 28 of these that Manhattan Island was originally bought from the Indians.

The original town went well further out into the bay than it is now but after a series of hurricanes most of this was wiped out. You can see the remains of foundations under the water in the anchorage. These days it is very quiet and un touristy. Even so there are 5 flights (small planes)  a day from Sint Maarten carrying divers. There are around 100 wrecks here – some deliberate but most accidental.

We wandered around the top part of town and went to the old fort, (considered running our boxing kangaroo up the flagpole for April Fool’s Day but thought better of it), church ruin and museum. We had planned to climb up to the volcano but Pete managed to bang his toes so that was off (I wasn’t too unhappy about that, I think I’ll wait for the helicopter trip over Monserrat). We met an English couple from Persephone, Nigel and Karen and had drinks with them a couple of times.

The anchorage has got a bit rolly so we’ll head to St Kitts (Christopher).

St Barts

We motored from St Martin to St Barts – a very slow bumpy trip into a 22 knot head wind. Only 15 nm but took from 7 am till midday! This place is just full of super yachts and beautiful people – we are anchored out with the baby boats and grotty yachties -  feeling, poor insignificant and small. The anchorage is a bit rocky and rolly due in part to the tenders of the anchored out (too big to fit in the marina) super yachts - and some of these are big (30’+) and they whiz back and forth all day ferrying sir and madam back and forth. The water is abrilliant turquoise and as clear as clear, we can see the bottom at 30’.  Ashore is all designer clothes and jewels, you have to call them “collections”, very attractively and expensively housed in old buildings along two or three streets along the shorefront. Even so there are quirky little island things that are amusing like the rental car office being at the back of a pet shop. We hired a car to look around the island which didn’t take very long but was pretty and interesting. The airport here is truly hairy! Very short with a hill on the landing approach so that the planes seem to dive down and practically land on their nose wheel (see the pics). We had fun on the side of the road taking the photos. Looks like we might be here for a bit waiting for another head wind to go away. So, who is in a hurry?

Off to St Kitts and Nevis from tomorrow now.

Heading south

Pete and I stayed on in St Martin after Mandy left for a few days. Went around a few bays to Grande Case, famous for it’s restaurants – you’re not kidding!. We did a bar crawl the first day just to get in the mood! Then on Tuesday night went ashore for dinner. This is the night they close off the street and all the little shops are open and restaurants spill onto the street and beach all along. They had a street parade and one of the dancers came in to our restaurant and did a little dance for Pete – which made him pretty happy….We had a fabulous French meal and super wine. Pete bought me a bracelet made from stingray! Next day we went to Isle Tintamare for a look. Very pristine and nice but the advertised “good snorkelling” as usual disappointed us. As did the snorkelling at the little island off Grande Case. We’re just too spoiled by Australia and Lombok.

We head for St Barts next then St Kitts and Nevis – starting to head south to Martinique where I fly off for a week to see my Mother in England meeting up with Mark and Mandy there.

Sint Maarten, Sainte Martin and Anguilla

We sailed overnight from Antigua to Sint Maarten (Dutch) leaving at 1.30 pm and arriving just on light the next day. (to avoid a nasty weather pattern that will develop over the next few days) Good sailing with no surprises and nice wind after the first few hours. Anchored at Simpson Bay (next to the Maltese Falcon)  which is heavily geared to super yachts but found little on shore that would interest the owners so assume that it is all about the crews provisioning and getting parts and work done as the supermarket is excellent and the chandleries enormous. The super yachts come into the lagoon through an opening bridge that is the local amusement centre as some of the huge ones only just scrape (literally sometimes!) through and you prop yourself up at the yacht club bar ready to spot a disaster. We put up with pretty swelly conditions but after a bus trip to Philipsburg to the south we up anchored and moved there – much nicer with lots to do on shore. The big cruise liners stop here and ashore is wall to wall designer label shops (we didn’t see one not represented) and duty free. Lots of nice little beach front bars selling $2 beers and $4 wines where you can lose some time…. no trouble…..Our modem from Simpsons Bay is working here too. Pete has been getting desperate for an Aussie meat pie so he made some – very successful.

My sister Amanda arrived on Monday night (13th) and taxied from the airport to meet us in a restaurant here. Her second visit. We all spent a day messing around Philipsburg (where there is a tablecoth thing going on – King of Tablecloths, Tablecloth World etc??!!) then sailed the next day to Simpsons to take the modem back and buy baguettes then left for Marigot (French) just around the corner. Overnight we decided to go to Anguilla for the night (British). A lovely pretty island with cafes and restaurants manned by ex pats of all breeds. It seems that Anguilla makes it easy to drop out and stay there so long as you make yourself useful and start a business. Mandy and I had a very nice snorkel on some rocks near the boat. All of a sudden it was Saturday and we were back in Marigot for Mandy to get her flight home. She made us some vegan patties for burgers on our last night that I loved but Pete was secretly thinking of his meat pies in the freezer! We had a great time and she managed to get the local handmade chocolates for her gifts and for us to eat.

Mandy had ordered James A Michener’s “Caribbean” for me on my Kindle so Pete and I are reading it avidly. I had read it years and years ago but to read it now in the setting is incredibly good. I must remember to re read the “South Pacific” beforewe come home that way.

Royal Navy Tot Club

The Royal Navy Tot Club – stay away from it! Chris and Caroline from Four Seasons invited us. You get signed in by a member (Chris) who then pays for your drinks (Navy officer mess tradition). Everyone stands around in a circle, the men with three measures and the women with one. After introductions of guests the “leader” initiates everyone saying one of a routine of 3 sorts of prayer/chant things then a toast to the Queen (poor thing is yet another excuse for a drinkathon) and you knock it back in one. Then there is a reading from this day in history from around the 1500’s to now from an ancient tome. I had to peel Pete off the ceiling! Funny thing is that most of the members are not of a military background. To become a member you have to attend 7 of these in fourteen days and answer a quiz on Nelson. A bit Morris dancingesque I thought. But it was fun. We all went to the Antigua Yacht Club for dinner and the quiz night where we came 4th.

We visited the Nelson’s Dockyard Museum which was interesting.

It was pretty hot and humid one day so we stayed inside with the air con on and I sewed Pete a new 17 piece spanner holder as his old plastic one had fallen apart. I was pretty impressed with myself – not really being a sewing person except for basic straight lines. During this time Pete managed to drop one of his hearing aids into the air con duct! That involved pulling the whole cabin apart, cutting the ducting open to retrieve it. I scrounged a bit of PVC plumbing pipe from the tip and we reconnected it and put the cabin back together.

The wind is up at the moment so we plan to stay put till Friday.

Antigua

English Harbour in Antigua is a really nice natural harbour. Nelson was based here and made himself unpopular by enforcing rules and regulations with a bit more enthusiasm than the locals liked and were used to. The old dockyards are all restored and used as cares, restaurants, offices and sailyard operations – so pretty much as it would have been only I suspect a lot cleaner and less smelly and noisy! We had a fairly wild sail from Guadeloupe with every combination of sail in or out at some point, from gennaker at 10 to 15 knots wind to reef two in the main and genoa and gusting 30! We’d spent the day before cleaning the boat and now it is covered in salt again. Anna and Dave on Apollo are here so we’ve had a great few days with them including my birthday dinner at Pillars, Nelson’s Dockyard’s old sail loft. We are getting some long overdue stainless steel work done as we can be here for a few weeks. It is the trials for a big race week coming up and we are able to watch the super fast boats out with their black sails and carbon masts haring up and down. The harbour here caters for super yachts – some of which are just huge. We were woken one morning by very loud blasts on a horn as one tried to leave the harbour in a fairly narrow channel that a small mono hull had drifted into overnight. Gave him a bit of a fright.

Last week was the finish of the Trans Atlantic rowing event and we saw the solo lady finish at 3 in the morning just off our boat – a pretty amazing feat.

We are loving the shade we got made for the front windows in Guadeloupe – it means we can keep the windows open when it rains and it funnels a good breeze through as well

Yesterday we went to a 4 chef cook off on the waterfront balcony of the gourmet supermarket – 30 minutes to shop and cook. Supposed to start at 5 but actually got under way at 7 – by then most of the spectators had more than sampled the other sponsors rum!

Guadeloupe

Well, what a lovely little place Isles des Saintes turns out to be. (part of Guadeloupe)We arrived on Saturday at the main island Terre d’en Hout to find that all the buoys in Bourg des Saintes harbour were taken. We went round one bay to Marigot and anchored there. As it turned out it was a great outcome as the little village was great and only a short but hilly walk to the main town. All very French and interesting. Loads of cafes, bars, restaurants and really chic little boutiques. We rather lazily hired a golf buggy for the day – there being very few cars on the island, mostly scooters and buggies. So we zoomed off to see Fort Napoleon past all the hot bothered walkers slogging up the hill. Then zoomed off to see a few beaches, then zoomed off to lunch only to find that we had just about done the whole island by 11.30! So it then seemed that the only thing to do would be to have a 2 1/2 hour lunch – which we did. We got the buggy back safely at 5pm and walked back to our bay.

We got some good exercise swimming and walking. I’ve worked out that a lap around the boat is the equivalent of a good pool length (25x25x42x42) so that is my daily goal now, increasing a lap a day. It helps negate the floating under the boat in the shade on our noodles drinking wine.

We left Isles des Saintes and sailed to Basse Terre on the south west coast of Guadeloupe and took a buoy from the Marina. Only stayed a night then went on up to Pigeon Island. This is a Jacques Cousteau marine park with, they say, superb snorkelling. After being hopelessly spoiled by the Australian east coast and Lombok we were not impressed – not helped by it being rainy and the anchorage a bit rough. On close inspection it seems our weed and rubble anchor has got bent at some stage and we were having trouble holding so left at night to head back south to our buoy at Basse Terre. On the way our ongoing contaminated fuel problem (thank you, somewhere in Brazil) reoccurred and blocked the filter stopping the port engine so we limped in at dawn with one engine. A very kind Greek boat helped us on to the buoy. Catamarans are impossible to manage on one engine under about 4 knots - with wind. Pete cleared the blockage – more funny sticky tape sort of stuff and we headed out the next day for Point a Pitre. Coming round the bottom of the west part of the island the stitching on the main gave way all along from the luff to the leach! Then off course the fuel blocked again!! We spent an hour or two going sideways with one engine and only a reefed genoa into a 22 knot head wind! Pete got the fuel unblocked and we finally got to P a P and anchored in sand with the other anchor.

We’ve been happily here now for about 4 days and have the sail off being repaired, the fuel tank booked to be cleaned out- been for a few lunches, visited the new Museum to the Slaves and have bought a new anchor! Phew. Off to Antigua next.

Off to the Leeward Isles.

After being in St Pierre for a day or two we got an email from a couple we met last year in Anse Noir to catch up with them before we left Martinique. As we were just hanging around waiting for Pete’s results from his spot we sailed back to for de France and booked in to the marina where Jean Luc and Lisa stay living on board. He is a local and she a nurse from Perth. I don’t know who is manning the Perth hospitals but there are quite a number of their nurses out sailing around here who we have met! The marina was astonishingly cheap – we paid 120 euros for 7 days including power and water (ran the air con 24/7 because we could). We spent time doing more odd jobs – they never end – including fixing up the pasarella (gangplank) that we started in Brazil. Jean Luc had business in Guyana but we saw a bit of Lisa which was fun, she took us to one of the big malls with a Hyper U supermarket that was straight from Paris. We got Pete’s results – all OK so sailed for St Pierre again then up to Prince Rupert Bay in Dominica. A good sail of about 8 hours. Here you can check in and out at customs as the same time which is pretty handy – they let you stay up to two weeks. As we were here before and looked around lots we are going tomorrow to Les Saintes. Another French colony, part of Guadaloupe – so more baguettes I expect! We ae still trying to lose the few extra kilos we put on in Australia last year – Pete by foregoing wine in favour of baguettes and me by foregoing baguettes in favour of wine! It is sort of working………not.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone! I think it’s OK to say that right throughout January so I’m not too late on the 7th! We were in Ste Anne in Baguetteland, oops I mean Martinique, for the night but after a hairy sort of day couldn’t be bothered going out – along with most of the people we spoke to over New Year – we must be all getting old! The hairy day started off well, as they usually do. We had motored round to Marin where there is a good range of chandleries and had a very successful day getting bits and pieces for the boat – some necessary (new compass) and some not (new directors beach chairs).  We planned to stay there for NYE but no - the anchor god had other plans! We had gone ashore in lovely sunny weather to do a supermarket top up that turned into torrential rain and high winds just as we had loaded the dinghy up. Got back to the boat absolutely soaked and me in a white singlet (of course) to find chat Eau Bleu was tied off to the catamaran in front having dragged the anchor. Now I know some of you will be beginning to think that we are crap at anchoring but we’re not really – it happens to everyone in some of these rubbly anchorages. Anyway no harm done and a kind act by the boat in front. It was boat karma as the night before we had stayed up helping a couple find their boat in the dark who had been driving around in their dinghy for hours! Luckily they had left their AIS transmitter on so we were able to spot the location for them. (Probably a little more embarrassing that dragging an anchor) So by the time all that had happened and we’d gone back round to the better anchorage at Ste Anne we were not really in a festive mood. Did watch the Sydney fireworks online though and listened to the local ones at midnight here.

On Thursday in Fort de France I managed to speak enough French to get Pete an appointment at the local University Hospital for a spot on his back. After the taxi driver from hell who was quite mad and took us for miles in entirely the wrong direction despite me showing him the route on the ipad we swapped taxis and had a very good experience of Medicin Francaise. The doctor in dermatology took the spot out and thinks it is nothing but we have to hang around for the lab results for 5 days. (and the whole thing cost only 100 euros) That fits in quite well with us as we want to find the soda stream supplier tomorrow and tour the fort.

Today we sailed 2 hours up the coast to one of our favourite places – St Pierre where there is an excellent fresh produce market that sells the world's scraggliest looking but best tasting lettuces. Off to Dominica next en route to Guadaloupe.

Merry Christmas!

Hi there family and friends - Merry Christmas. We've, vibered, snapchatted or skyped with most of you .......but any we've missed, our thoughts are with you and I'm sure you were included in a toast to absent friends. We had a traditional lunch with John and Joyce from Starblazer who are here for repairs. They sailed the World ARC with us so it was like family. We are still on the super yacht dock so we stayed inside with the air con going so it wasn't too hot for all the meal trimmings. We did all eat and drink a lot! On to Martinique next in a few days.

ARC finish line

We have been in St Lucia now for a few weeks. Had a great sail from St Anne after a nice curry dinner with Anna and Dave after a foul trip from St Pierre down to there. It started off OK of course, then the wind went from a lovely 22knots to 11k (which got a bit suspicious when two heavy clouds joined up) then just after we got the main down it blew to 38k!! Naturally just when we need both motors the port one just stopped! So, to cut a typical sailing story short, we called into Grande Anse, anchored, fixed the blocked fuel pipe and arrived in Ste Anne right on dark in a squall.

We’ve had a great time in Rodney Bay and did three 24 hour shifts on the ARC finish line. It was the ARC Plus and the Grand Caneria ARC – in total nearly 300 boats! Our busiest night was 26 across the line. On our last evening Stu, Nat and kids come on board for dinner and helped welcome in a few boats with their conch shell horn. We have caught up with the ARC rally people who we met at various stops along our way here so that has been really nice. We have been able to go to all their functions, parties and trips – and they do do a good party. As well we have a complimentary berth in the marina for 24 hours after each shift. Today we are in with the super yachts – feeling a bit small. Not sure what to do after the last ARC event – may go to Martinique for Christmas. We have drunk the last bottle of South African wine. All in all the supplies we bought there lasted 12 months. We’ll miss it, but are now heading into French wine territory, there is also a lot of Argentinian and Chilean wine around here too – so not so sad.

Dominica

This was a days sail from St Pierre and we arrived in the southern port of Roseau. Very swelly mooring area and almost impossible to tie the dinghy up to the various jetties that were not in good repair. Pete minded the dinghy while I walked to the ferry terminal to check in – we decided to stay only one night and do all our looking around from the north. Prince Rupert Bay in Portsmouth is very well organised and the local people have put together an organisation to stop the touts annoying the yachts and offer good safe tours and moorings. We took a tour of the island and saw the local quite famous chocolate factory. I don’t know what I was expecting – maybe big gleaming stainless steel vats and people in white coats with chocolate thermometres – but no. Very low tech and hands on in an old house that was having the upstairs added on for his daughter to live in and the various chocolate making processed happening in sheds and outside etc. However – VERY good chocolate. He makes about 120 blocks a week and exports to the other islands. We bought some of course.

We travelled through the local Carib reservation where the only remaining indigenous people in all the islands live. The rest were enslaved or killed or both. The island is quite pristine away from the coast – lots of rain so therefor very lush. We went up Indian River with a guide (the only way you can do it) early one morning – silly us, as the very picturesque rum bar was closed before 9 am.! We did see the shack that was built to be the witch’s house for Pirates of the Caribbean. We went on a very tame walk to a waterfall and had a swim. What with one thing and another (internet, weather, laziness) we stayed there a week. Climbed up to the fort -British - Prince Rupert Garrison. Must find out why Prince Rupert was such a big deal in all these ports (French and English) since he was German.

Now heading south – via Ste Anne - to help with the finish line for 200 plus ARC boats coming in from Europe over the next 2 weeks.

Last of Martinique

Last day in Fort de France Pete and I had planned to go on a tour of the fort but after doing some shopping and the boat had having a beer we got back to the dinghy dock to find that the boat had pulled it’s anchor up and wandered over to the dinghy dock! There was no breeze to keep it in place and the current and tide must have moved it over the anchor – Pete had snorkelled on it and it had been dug in well. Anyway we decided against re anchoring and went off to Schoelcher just a bit north and stayed the night there. The next day we came to Ste Pierre where we are now. It used to be the capital of Martinique till the volcano just behind the town erupted in 1902 and killed 30,000 people. It is still a bit run down (not a big hurry to rebuild much over the last 100 odd years obviously) BUT the food is French and delicious, especially a restaurant run by people from Alsace doing their traditional food. MMmmmm. It has a great internet café upstairs overlooking he anchorage – we’ve been there for two lunches already. We’d go to the trouble of coming back here just for that place. The local market every day is really good with the best fruit and vegetables we’ve seen so far. Pete has a thing about callaloo soup that he’s now made twice as well as eating in restaurants. Callaloo is an elephant ear looking leaf and is a bit like spinach. It can be made as a stew or a soup with various vegetarian or meat extras.

One day we snorkelled on a concrete mermaid and a big face sculpture that are in the water just behind the boat. No idea who did them or what. No info in the guide book. The kids from “Sandy Feet” have a mermaid tail suit and were swishing around looking really great. The family are from Perth and we had dinner with them all at Café Resevoir. Floor made of wooden pallets right in the sand beside the boat and a rooster that roosts above you head in the rafters. Australian Workplace Health and Safety would NEVER get over these places - but strangely, no one dies??!!

Headed off to Dominica…….

Sailing with my sister

Mandy arrived from the States on Tuesday 9th. We met here at the airport in an absolute deluge of rain. Luckily (plus $10EC) the bus driver dropped off his other passengers and took us down the airport road that was definitely not a 5 minute walk as we had been told. She’d flown in various small planes via Trinidad arriving in the local airport in St Lucia. We taxied back to the marina in a little less rain. The forecast for the week was for constant rain but as it turned out there was a lovely mixture of days and none too hot.

 After one night in the Rodney Bay Marina we set off for Martinique. We managed a false start as the main halyard got around the spreaders in high wind putting the sails up so a quick return to sheltered waters was required to sort that out. A very brisk sail to St Anne was capped by a 32 knot squall just as we arrived and we all got soaked! It was a struggle getting the salis in. Mandy wasn’t freaked out or sea sick – a great start.

 Sainte Anne was closed for half the morning as it was Remembrance Day. We watched the local parade with the boy scouts etc.  The little church was packed. Really colourful with the French National Anthem and flags. Mandy found the local famous chocolate and bought some to take home. Bought baguettes.

The next few days we sailed round Diamond Rock to Anse D’Arlet and snorkelled right off the back of the boat a few times. Went ashore for baguettes. We did much the same at Anse Defour just around the corner. We are embracing the local fruit and vegetables including soursop and custard apples. The next stop was Anse Noir for a half day then onto Anse Mitan where we managed to get internet again and had lunch ashore. Our final stop was Fort de France. We sailed s few zig zags around the bay while we made some water. Really good sailing with lots of fast tacks that we don’t usually get to do going from one place to the other. Once there Mandy and I spent some time exploring around, going to the Library designed by Gustav Eiffel (of Tower fame) and met up with Pete who had been on anchor watch for a few hours. Had a last night meal at Hasta La Pizza and waited to see the biggest, closest moon for some time but unfortunately it was a bit cloudy.

Mandy left the next day after a wonderful relaxing week for all of us.  We went in the taxi to the airport with her to say a sad goodbye, eat some more baguettes and buy more chocolate.  She’s going to make plans to come back at Easter if she can.

Back in the water.....

Finally back in the water last Friday! By the time the travel lift had run late and the riggers had messed up the mainsail it was too late to go anywhere so we stayed on their dock – and get this – Grenada Marine, the world’s worst money grabbers, charged us for the night! ($27EC) And even sent someone over on Saturday morning to read the power when no one here ever ever works Saturdays. This is after us paying for days and days on the hard with no workers showing up and spending huge sums of money with them over 2 hauls. Extremely bad PR and poor management. They even tried to charge us for the full month of October. We have been invited to help with the finish line for 350 ARC boats arriving in early December and will make sure not to recommend Grenada Marine. Most of the jobs we authorised were not done despite having 10 ½ weeks to do them in

We used the time to do many, many outstanding jobs but it was so hot during the day we only had from 6 to 9 am then 4 to 6 pm. Renting a car one day was an experience. You need a Grenadian licence – which you buy at the police station! No test or anything. Locally so long as you have your seat belt done up nothing else really matters, drinking, illegal parking, overtaking on blind corners, going crazy fast on the wrong side of the road….. We however drove nice and soberly and very carefully to the shops and to have dinner with friends at Secret Harbour staying the night on Ali and Steve's boat.

But at least we are now back cruising and are in Mt Hartmans, Secret Harbour. Very nice fresh fruit and veg market this morning, buses to the shops etc. We caught up with our friends and had drinks at Roger’s on Hogg Island – very much the casual beach bar! We plan to make our way to St Lucia via a few island stops to pick up my sister Mandy who flies in from the States on election eve to sail with us for a week.