To Martinique

Stefano Rivera — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

We weren't stopping in Dominica, just overnighting on the way down. So, we awoke at 4am to depart again. We set the 1st reef on the main sail, because the weather prediction was for some reasonable wind.

Dominica looked spectacular in the morning sunlight, we'll have to come back here, next year.

We were treated to a pod of dolphins jumping, hard at work fishing. Later, in the north of the Martinique channel, some whales breaching.

It got quite gusty in the channel, we ended up on the staysail for most of it. Once behind Martinique, suddenly we were becalmed again, and motored into St. Pierre on what looked like a mill-pond. There, there were more dolphins at work.

The check-in computer in St. Pierre is at a restaurant, so we'd hoped to get lunch there, but sadly they were fully booked. So, back to the boat.

I wasn't walking, but could get around on our folding bicycle, with some help.

Our throttle handle got loose, somewhere on the way in. It got cleaned up and reattached later, but there was a temporary pair of vice-grips as throttle, that day.

We continued on down to Fort de France, motoring. The French Antilles have a lot of lobster pots in the sea, that you have to keep an eye open for. You don't want to get the line from one wrapped around your propeller. I was so busy watching out for lobster pots, that I missed a little sailboat that got incredibly close to us. Whoops!

Fort de France was very crowded. We ended up anchored right in the corner of the anchorage, where the ferries come past you at high speed.

Time on the water: 12:36
Distance covered: 67.7nm
Avg speed: 5.4kts
Max speed: 11.3kts
Crew: John, Stefano

Navionics Track

Heading South

Stefano Rivera — Sun, 24 Apr 2022 00:00:00 GMT

My foot still wasn't healing, but it was time to start heading South. I finally had an appointment with a local doctor in Buillante, to look at my foot, but he didn't turn up. so we stopped waiting around, and set off.

We motor-sailed South, with some on-shore (Westerly) wind until we passed Basse-Terre, then the wind started to pick up from the East and we could sail South.

We stopped in Terre-de-Haut, to check out of Guadeloupe. It was still early enough in the day to make Dominica by sundown, so we headed off again, through Passe des Dames. We were joined by some dolphins, through the Passe.

We arrived off Dominica, just as the sun was setting, and anchored off the beach in Prince Rupert Bay.

I was a little aggressive in setting the anchor, and snapped our snubber line, when the anchor suddenly took and we were moving too fast. The snubber line is an elastic line that we run from the anchor chain to a deck cleat, to smooth out loads on the anchor. We use a chain hook that holds on the chain when under load, but isn't positively attached to the chain, so it flew off with half the snubber line and was lost in the deep.

Time on the water: 6:38
Distance covered: 41.3nm
Avg speed: 9.5kts
Max speed: 6.5kts
Crew: John, Stefano

Navionics Track

Sail Aweh (Posts about prince-rupert-bay)

To Martinique

Heading South