January 2012 - Grenada to Antigua

1 January 2012   Chatham Bay to Sandy Island, Carriacou
We all had major hangovers, but had to get up and start our journey back to Grenada.  We motored around the island to Clifton Harbour where I cleared out.  I was charged $115 EC (£30), so it’s cost us £150 for the privilege of visiting St Vincent for a week – very expensive.

We had a fabulous broad reach down to Carriacou – doing seven knots at times.  After anchoring off Hillsborough, I went to clear in.  I managed to find the Immigration Officer, but the customs were closed so they told me to finish the customs process in Grenada.

Back on the boat, we motored over to Sandy Island where I chilled out, trying to recover from yesterday's diving and partying, while the others went to the beach and snorkelled.

2 January 2012   Sandy Island to Port Louis Marina, Grenada
It was a very rough night, with rain squalls and big gusts of wind.  I didn’t sleep well, having to keep closing the hatch and worrying about being on a mooring.  I feel much more secure when we’re anchored. I hate the thought of being attached to a mooring of indeterminate quality by a single rope - if the rope breaks then there’s not much indication that the yacht is adrift.

Nice Dorado

We left early, sailed off the mooring and had a very bouncy ride down to Ile de Ronde.  We had too much main sail up for the 20-25 knot  winds but, as we were going downwind, I didn’t bother to reef thinking that, although it made it harder to steer, it would be good fun for a couple of hours.  That was okay until we started to hook fish.  Brett caught a small tuna and then we hooked a big fish which screamed the line from the reel. Unfortunately, the line snapped because we couldn’t slow down enough.  

As we approached Diamond Rock, we hooked two fish at the same time and tried to heave-to, but made a mess of it and ended up lying more beam on than we should have been – the wind was howling, the waves were crashing and we were heading for a cliff. Meanwhile, Brett, Craig and I were dancing about on the aft deck trying to haul in the two fish.  Glenys had a sense of humour failure.  

After fifteen minutes of chaos, Brett managed to haul in a nice 7lb Dorado on the heavy “birds” line, but Craig lost his fish on the fishing rod when the fish went under the keel.  

We called in at the anchorage at Ile de Ronde to regroup and recover for an hour.  Brett gutted his tuna and Glenys made tuna mayonnaise sandwiches for lunch.  We left at eleven o’clock and (with a deeper reef in the main) had a pleasant sail down to the north east coast of Grenada.  I pulled in a small Spanish Mackerel after 10 minutes and Brett caught a very nice 5lb tuna half way down the leeward side of Grenada.

We motored into the marina in St Georges, arriving in time to spend an hour in the pool before happy hour.   Glenys prepared Dorado Satay for dinner.

Final Rum Punches in Port Louis

3 January 2012   Port Louis Marina, Grenada
Our visitors went into St Georges to have a look around, while Glenys and I tidied up and relaxed.  I spent a couple of hours finishing a short video of the two week holiday complete with Christmas reggae background music.

We met them in the Nutmeg restaurant for a roti lunch and then we all retired to the pool for the remainder of the afternoon drinking rum punches and avoiding the odd rain showers.

Glenys and I were treated to a meal at the marina restaurant which was very nice.

4 January 2012   Port Louis Marina, Grenada
It rained heavily last night, so all the hatches were shut and it was a hot and sweaty night for everyone.  Our visitors packed their bags ready for the return flight to the UK.  They were finished by ten o'clock, so everyone went to the pool for a couple of hours to chill out.

We had lunch of Dorado sandwiches and last night’s left over pizza, and then sadly walked to the car park and hailed a taxi.  It’s been a fantastic two weeks and we’ve packed in a lot of things especially sailing, snorkelling, diving and fishing.  We probably won’t see our sons again for nearly a year, so it was a very emotional few minutes while we all hugged each other, before they climbed into the taxi and left us alone.  Glenys had a little cry and we stood for a couple of minutes hugging each other in the car park.

Back on the boat, I wrote out a to-do list and started off by replacing the water sensor that had arrived in the Geest-line crate before Christmas.  Glenys tidied up and made our bed in the back cabin.  We've had the battery charger running on shore power for two days, so they were fully charged and in a fit state for testing with my new battery test meter.  It indicated that the batteries are all okay and have a capacity of 85-90% of the official rating, which is nice to know.

We filled the water tanks and collapsed, then had a quiet evening and went to bed early.

5 January 2012   Port Louis Marina to Prickly Bay, Grenada
Glenys cleaned cockpit and bathrooms while we had access to a hose pipe with copious amounts of fresh water.  There was very little wind when we left St Georges, so we motored around to Prickly Bay without raising a single sail.

I received an email from Graeme Henderson an ex-skydiving friend who is in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.  He’s using a satellite phone to get email – I must sort ours out when we get to the USA.  Graeme’s expecting to make his land fall in Prickly Bay – it will be great to see him and his wife.

Reluctantly, I spent a few hours completing my 2010/11 Tax Return – even in paradise there’s no escape from death and taxes.  It was fairly easy to sort it all out because I was able to submit the Return on-line.  Unfortunately, I found that I owed them over £1,000, but the HMRC are now able to accept instant bank transfers, so I bit the bullet and transferred the money directly to them.

We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon, reading and having a quick nap to recover after two weeks of running about like a charter skipper.

We had a quiet night in.

Checking the generator water pump

6 January 2012   Prickly Bay, Grenada
I need to service the engine and generator, so I spent most of the morning reading the various manuals, making a couple of check lists, so that I don’t miss anything, and making sure that I have all of the various parts that I’ll need. 

After lunch, we walked down to Ace Hardware and bought a couple of filters and 2 gallons of oil.  I also bought a couple of cans of refrigerant.  Back on Alba, I dug out my new charging gauge and recharged the freezer with refrigerant – it’s been gurgling for the past week and the pressure was down to 2 psi instead of around 10 psi.

Glenys spent the day chilling out.  For a change, we had pork for dinner instead of fish.

7 January 2012   Prickly Bay, Grenada
Back into the routine of living on-board – up at seven o'clock, stretching exercises, breakfast and then jobs.  It was the first time I've exercised for two weeks, so it was hard work motivating myself.  I spent all day servicing the engine and generator.  It went quite well until I came to do the oil change. 

I’d let some seawater escape when I checked the sea water pump and there were a few litres of seawater in the bilge under the engine.  When I changed the oil filter, a load of oil dumped into the bilge and mixed with the seawater giving me about a gallon of oily sludge to clean up using a sponge – very tedious and very messy.

Glenys worked hard at cleaning the stainless steel arch and fittings on deck and then spent two hours in the water, scrubbing the water line. There’s a persistent green slime growing at a prodigious rate.  She tells me that I need to go down and scrub the bottom of the boat to get rid of barnacles and other growth.  We’ll need to get hauled out and antifoul the bottom in the next six months.


8 January 2012   Prickly Bay, Grenada
I was aching all over from the exercising yesterday, so I gave it a miss today.  It’s Sunday so we declared today a rest day. I caught up on our email and sorted out some posts for our website.

My brother, Andy and his family are coming out to see us in Antigua in the middle of February, so I spent some time buying a few things on the Internet that they can bring out with them.

When we lived on Glencora, our previous boat, Glenys had started to write a cookbook.  After being asked by Tash and Brett for some recipes, she’s decided that she wants to publish a cookbook on our web site, so I spent three hours sorting out the layout of her web pages and she spent a couple of hours getting started.  Watch this space...

9 January 2012   Prickly Bay, Grenada
I was very cold last night with only a single, light sheet to cover me.  The temperature in the morning was 26°C, which is very warm in UK terms, so I think that I must be getting old.  Glenys has dug out a duvet cover which is heavier and double thickness for me, so I hope that I’ll be warmer tonight.

I checked up on the progress of "Toots" across the Atlantic and found that Graeme won't be here for another five days.  We need to get up to Antigua to meet Andy so we’ve decided that we can’t wait and will leave in two days’ time.  It’s a shame that we won’t see Graeme and Chris, but our paths may cross again in the future.

We’ve decided to do three consecutive day sails and head straight to St Lucia only stopping overnight in a couple of places.  We’ll rest in Rodney Bay for a couple of days and then sail to Martinique to stock up on food and booze.  For the remaining three weeks, we’ll be able to take our time and see the islands that we’ve not seen this time around. 

We went to Spiceland Mall to do some shopping, picked up our cooking gas bottle and retired onto Alba for lunch.  In the afternoon, I changed the filters on the watermaker and caught up on some administration while we still have an Internet connection. 

Leaving Prickly Bay for the Last Time

10 January 2012   Prickly Bay to Hog Island, Grenada
I was much more comfortable last night wrapped up in my duvet cover.  Goodness knows what I’m going to be like when we get up to the more temperate climate of the east coast of the USA later this year.

From eight o’clock, I watched the customs building with binoculars until I could see some activity. They’re supposed to be open at eight o’clock, but it wasn’t until quarter to nine that I ventured in.  The older customs guy was there, but when I said that I wanted to clear out, he shook his head sadly and told me that the immigration guy was somewhere else and he didn’t know when he would turn up.  Perhaps I could come back this afternoon?

Seething, I returned to the boat to wait.  I did some mindless stuff and wrote an article for our web site about a hike in Mayreau.   At eleven o’clock, I risked going in and found there were now two immigration officers – they obviously go around in packs. I cleared us out to go to Martinique.

We motored around to Mount Hartman Bay and went into the marina to get fuel.  The marina staff were excited about the pending arrival of “Hemisphere”, which is apparently the largest catamaran in the world.  We decided to have lunch alongside the fuel dock and watch the fun and games when this huge vessel came alongside.  Twenty minutes later, I was bored of waiting, so we cast off and started to motor around to Hog Island.  On the way, we met “Hemisphere”, who wisely decided to wait for us to come through the narrow channel between two reefs before continuing.  Fame at last! I pissed off the skipper of the largest catamaran in the world.

Hog Island was pleasant; we had an early night in preparation for four days of bashing to windward.

11 January 2012   Prickly Bay to Tyrell Bay, Carriacou
The alarm went off at half past six.  Funny how an alarm clock affects me – I normally get up at seven o’clock, so you wouldn’t think that waking up 30 minutes earlier would be such a hardship.  I groaned and turned over, allowing Glenys to get up first.

As we went past Prickly Bay, I realised that this is the real start of our circumnavigation of the world.  If we’re lucky enough to finish our planned voyage, we’ll be back here in five or six years’ time.  It’s all about karma – “what will be, will be”.  Prickly Bay was our landfall after crossing the Atlantic in 1993; Prickly Bay is where we bought Alba, and we’re now heading for pastures new.  I wonder whether we’ll be back here?

There was very little wind, so we motored along the south coast and up the windward side of Grenada.  At the north end of the island, we started to sail on a roughly north tack, but the current was pushing us west and the 6-9 foot waves from the north were stopping us dead in the water.  I didn’t handle it very well and couldn’t decide how much sail to have out.  After an hour of slowly sailing in the wrong direction, I gave up and we motor sailed for the next four hours, finally motoring dead upwind into Tyrell Bay.

Bashing To Windward

We sailed 40 miles today, but we were hoping to get another ten miles further to Chatham Bay, so I’ve decided that I’m rubbish at sailing upwind and need to sort out Alba’s sail plan better.   I’ve warned Glenys that I’m going to experiment tomorrow, so she should be prepared to have some exciting moments…

It looks like we’ll stop in Bequia tomorrow night, which is another 40 mile bash to windward.  We had another early night.

12 January 2012   Tyrell Bay to Admiralty Bay, Bequia
Another half past six alarm and off at quarter past seven.  We motored around the corner past Hillsborough and then sailed over to Union, motoring the last few miles because it‘s dead upwind and current.  Then we sailed past Mayreau and on towards Bequia.

I played around with the sails and experimented with the amount of reef and found that I can get over six knots going upwind, but the boat is heeled over quite drastically (30-40°) with the downwind toe rail in the water some of the time.  I can slow down to five knots by reefing the main and the jib and the amount of heel is more pleasant, but we’re then more easily stopped when we crash into steep waves.   

We spent most of the trip beating along at six knots, which would be very wearing for more than a few hours.  Glenys made a sandwich for lunch and said that it would be almost impossible to cook when we’re bashing to windward at that speed, so we’d have to heave-to for dinner if we were unfortunate enough to have to do this on a long passage.  I feel much better about sailing upwind now.

We caught a nice barracuda a few miles outside Bequia.  Fish for dinner again - I’m starting to crave minced beef.  We anchored off Princess Margaret beach at four o'clock making it another eight hours of bashing to windward.  Tomorrow should be easier because we’re only planning to go 15 miles to Cumberland Bay.


13 January 2012   Admiralty Bay to Cumberland Bay, St Vincent
Lazy start to the day. I managed to pick up someone’s internet router for free, so I caught up on emails.  It’s Brett’s birthday tomorrow, so we transferred some cash into his account – before they flew back to the UK, Glenys gave Tash a birthday card telling him to look in his bank account.

I rang a company in Martinique that provides spare parts for Volvo engines and asked them to get me an exhaust elbow to replace the cracked and leaking one on our engine.  It used up all of my remaining £6.00 of credit for a three minute call because I was using a Grenada SIM card in St Vincent – gutted…

We set off at ten o’clock and started to motor-sail out of the bay.  I put up the main sail with one reef and foolishly let out the entire jib as we headed out.  Suddenly, as we rounded the corner into the channel between Bequia and St Vincent, we had thirty knots of wind and steep breaking seas – will I ever learn?  We heeled over dramatically and had to reef the flogging jib.  I then had to go and dance the light fandango on the foredeck, getting drenched as I reefed the main.  Even with a heavily reefed main and jib, we were crashing along at six knots.  To make matters worse, Glenys took a big wave full on as she peeked out around the spray hood – she was dripping wet...

Fishing Boats in Cumberland Bay, St Vincent

After twenty minutes, it calmed down and an hour later, the wind dropped completely as we entered the lee of St Vincent. We had to motor the rest of the way to Cumberland Bay – it was like we were on a different planet.  

Cumberland Bay is a lovely bay with very steep hills surrounding it.  The sea bed is also very steep and shallows extremely quickly near the shore.  The only way to anchor in this bay is to drop a bow anchor in 10-15 metres of water and then take a stern line ashore and tie it onto something to stop the boat drifting back out to sea.  The locals have cottoned onto the fact that taking a line ashore is a bit of a pain, so they row out and for $10EC (£2.50) will row your line ashore and tie you onto something.

Once tied on, there’s a procession of boat boys who come over and sell whatever they can – Mangos?  Fish?  A Hike up the volcano?  Tomatoes?  Dinner at a beach bar?  They’re very pleasant about it and after 30 minutes, they left us in peace.  I like this place. 

On the way over from Bequia, our digital voltmeter started to show weird readings.  I investigated and found that we have a deck leak, which is dripping sea water into our electrical panel – this is not good news, as there are a huge number of wires, switches and circuit boards in there that won’t like sea water.  So instead of relaxing, I ended up disassembling part of the boat to find that the port genoa track is leaking.  I did a quick bodge job, squeezing silicone sealant around the bolts, but I’m going to have to remove and reseal both genoa tracks in St Lucia – I’m not looking forward to it.

We had an early fish dinner, ready for an early start tomorrow. 

14 January 2012   Cumberland Bay to Rodney Bay, St Lucia
We got up at six o’clock and managed to get away by half past six.  Our shore line was tied up to Joseph’s bar and he’d said that he would un-tie it in the morning.  I could see him on the beach and shouted over for him to release our rope.  Unfortunately he has a very bad leg and moves extremely slowly, so it took him ten minutes to un-tie us, get into his boat and paddle out for his $10EC.  I was itching to get away and nearly dived in the water to un-tie the damn rope myself. 

The weather looked pretty grim as we motored out of the bay and up the coast of St Vincent - overcast and raining, but we could see sunshine ahead.  I pulled up the main with a heavy reef in it and, when we hit the top of the island, we had steep, six to nine foot waves and 25-30 knots of wind.  We sailed hard on the wind for 30 minutes, but we were being stopped by the waves and slowing down to 2-3 knots.  

Glenys takes a full-on wave

As we had to go thirty miles in these conditions, which would take at least six hours, I had a dilemma; I either put up more sail to get more power, but we would heel over more and it would be very unpleasant; or we could motor-sail which would be less unpleasant.  I started the engine and we motor sailed across to St Lucia.  

It was a tough five hours before we were in the lee of the Pitons.  We were getting huge walls of water crashing along the deck, which would occasionally dump gallons of water into the cockpit.  Glenys eventually put on her swimming costume and I spent the journey in a pair of swimming shorts.  Fortunately, my bodge job on the deck leak seemed to work, but we also have a leak from the front hatch, which I’ll need to sort out now. 

We motored up the coast of St Lucia and anchored off Pigeon Island in Rodney Bay at half past four.  Steve and Lynn invited us over for cocktails on “Celebration” with “Sheer Tenacity” and Doug & Wendy from “Nahanni River”.  It was a good evening, with lots of nibbles and rum punch.

15 January 2012   Rodney Bay, St Lucia
It’s Sunday today, so we had a quiet day. I’ve still not sorted out a regulator for the wind generator and noticed that the voltage on our batteries was up to 15.2 Volts again because it’s very windy.  The high voltage is gradually boiling the batteries dry and they will be destroyed soon, so I spent four hours on the Internet deciding the best way to regulate the beast and then ordering some bits.

I received a quote from Martinique for the engine exhaust elbow and they want £500 for it!  I managed to locate one in the UK for £250 and ordered it. My brother Andy will bring out with him to Antigua.

Glenys chilled out and did some more work on her cook book.  She made Nachos and Fish Tortillas for dinner, so we spent a while taking photographs of her dishes for the web site – it’s not easy to get a good picture of a plate of food.

16 January 2012   Rodney Bay, St Lucia
I woke up wondering about our timetable for going to the States and whether to get hauled out there. I think that it might be cheaper to get some big jobs done there - I suspect that the labour charges might be more, but the materials will be much cheaper. After writing out a list of jobs, I reckon that we'd need to be hauled out for a month – June is probably the best time.

We’re only going to be here for another couple of days, so I prevaricated about whether to bother to clear in to customs.  I decided to make the effort because we were going ashore anyway.  After clearing in, we called in to see John and Sunny on “Notre Vie”, who are stuck here waiting for a new dinghy after they lost theirs in the big seas while towing it from St Vincent.  We then went to the shopping mall for groceries.

Back on the boat, I started to look at boat yards in the Chesapeake. Mauri from “Smidge” has recommended one near Annapolis and I want to get some other quotes.

Fish Tortillas photographed for the Cookbook

A Coast Guard boat cruised around the anchorage and chose to inspect us.  The officer came on board, filled in a safety questionnaire and inspected our documentation – I’m so glad that I cleared in.

Later in the afternoon, we went to a “raft up” party organised by Helen and Dave from “Jammin”.  There were over fifteen dinghies rafted up on a single anchor just off the beach, passing around hors d'oeuvres and drinking copious amounts of alcohol – very strange but enjoyable.

17 January 2012   Rodney Bay, St Lucia
We’re waiting for the wind and waves to drop, so that we can sail to Le Marin in Martinique.  Today was a “hanging about” day.

I spent most of the day researching boat yards in the Chesapeake area. I finally whittled it down to four and sent emails off requesting quotations.

Glenys continued working on her cookery book.  It’s fun but it’s becoming a little tedious taking food photographs – tonight was Three Layer Salad.

18 January 2012   Rodney Bay, St Lucia
I got up this morning planning to leave for Martinique tomorrow.  Over breakfast, Glenys mentioned that we were going to do a repair on the sail.  On the way up from St Vincent, we’d noticed that the sacrificial strip on the leech of the jib was starting to come loose.  Bugger, I’d forgotten about that!  

I lowered the jib to the deck and found that 15-20 feet of the sail needs repairing.  I jumped in the dinghy and went into the marina to see the sail maker.  He said that he would try to get it done in the next few days.  What to do?  Should we try to repair it ourselves which would take hours to do it manually with a needle and palm, or stay here for a few more days?  I decided that I’d rather get it sorted out properly, so I arranged to drop the sail off tomorrow.

Removing the Genoa Track

I was really annoyed with myself because I totally forgot about the sail problem and we’ve been sitting here for days just waiting for the weather to clear.  As penance for my lack of planning, I decided to remove the leaking genoa track that I temporarily fixed in St Vincent.   Glenys wisely decided to keep out of my way and went to a ladies-only afternoon at a local hotel.

It was very cathartic to be doing something.  It took an hour to remove the ceiling linings and remove the track from the deck.  I then spent four hours cleaning the old, sticky sealant from the deck and the track before I could refit it with new sealant.

I’d just about finished at five o’clock when Glenys came back from her Ladies Afternoon.  She tells me that there were thirty ladies there, gossiping and then chilling out by the pool – I was glad to have missed it.  Glenys says that’s why it was “Ladies Only”

We had Banana Bread and Quesadillas to be photographed this evening.

19 January 2012   Rodney Bay, St Lucia
I dropped the sail off at the sail maker and he says that he’ll try to get it back to us in four days’ time – I’m deeply depressed.

I spent some time working out how to fit a “pump out” facility to our holding tank.  This is very glamorous.  Normally our toilets flush our effluent directly out to sea.  The American Government is very anal about this and has strict laws stating that you cannot discharge a marine toilet within 3 miles of the coast.  I personally think that the billions of fish on the East coast of America produce more effluent than all of the yachts in the world, but who am I to argue with authority.

So anyway, we have a holding tank which will store our effluent.  In the States they have pump out facilities that have a big vacuum hose that suck the effluent out of one’s holding tank.   We don’t have a deck fitting to allow this, so that was my task today.  I’ve figured out a way of doing it, so now all I need to do is get hold of the correct pipe fittings and drill a two inch hole in our deck for the fitting.

I spent the rest of the day mooching about, reading about our proposed sailing route through the Bahamas to the USA and then to Cuba.  I received several quotes back from boatyards in the Chesapeake and it looks like a boat yard at a funky place called Deltaville is coming out on top.

We had Pizza for dinner tonight – no photograph session for a change.


20 January 2012   Rodney Bay, St Lucia
I woke up this morning with an urge to plan our future route around the world.  I spent the whole morning pouring over a book that Brett and Craig bought me for Christmas called “World Cruising Routes.”  I think that we’ll spend Christmas 2012 in Cuba, 2013 in Ecuador, 2014 in Mexico, 2015 in New Zealand, 2016 in the Far East, 2017 in South Africa and Christmas 2018 back in Grenada – subject to whims and waves of course.

Tower of wine and other booze

After lunch, I went into the marina and the sail maker has now removed the sail from its bag and says that we can pick it up tomorrow at nine o’clock.  I went back to the boat all excited and did a few jobs getting ready for leaving in the morning. Our plan is to spend the next four days beating upwind to Les Saintes, where we can chill out in the knowledge that Antigua is only a day’s sail away.

We went out for a meal at the small restaurant on Pigeon Island with “Celebration”, Jammin”, “Panchita” and Hakan and Anna from “Unicorn” – we drank too much rum punch.

21 January 2012   Rodney Bay to St Anne, Martinique
I picked up the sail at nine o'clock. He’s re-stitched the whole length of the sacrificial strip on the foot and leech - amazingly it only cost me £80. 

I cleared out and rushed back to Alba.  We soon had the sail back on, the outboard lifted on deck and the dinghy stored on the davits, so we were able to leave by half past ten.

It was very lumpy in the tidal race as we rounded the corner of the island, but we powered our way through the steep waves and settled down to another day of beating to windward.  It wasn’t too bad with 20-25 knot winds and we sailed fine for a couple of hours.  By the time that we’d crossed half way across to Martinique, we’d been pushed down wind/down current by two miles, so we turned the engine on and motor-sailed for the last couple of hours

We went into the anchorage in Le Marin and dinghied ashore to the supermarket to buy provisions ready for the arrival of Andy and family in a couple of weeks’ time.  We loaded an impressive stack of drinks into the dinghy – 16 litres of orange juice, 15 litres of beer, and 42 litres of red wine in boxes.  I’m not saying that they drink a lot, but…

As soon as we’d loaded the shopping on the boat, we went to around to the anchorage at St Anne and invited Rod and Mary from “Sheer Tenacity” over for drinks.  Being in a French island, we had Moules Meunieres, Pain and Vin Rouge for dinner. 

22 January 2012   St Anne to St Pierre, Martinique
We left at half past eight and had a terrific sail to Diamond Rock. It was very nice to be going downwind again even if it was only for a couple of hours.

Once around the corner of the island, the wind gradually came more on the nose and we had an exciting close reach across the Fort De France bay with winds gusting up to 25 knots pushing us along at over seven knots for a while.  As we came into the lee of the mountains at the north end of Martinique, the wind dropped from 20 knots to zero in 100 metres.  We switched on the engine and motored the rest of the way.  We had such a fast journey, that we nearly went straight past St Pierre – the autopilot was on; I was reading and Glenys wasn’t paying attention.  

Alba in St Pierre, Martinique

We anchored off the town and went ashore to have a look around.  St Pierre is an fascinating place.  Around 1900, it was the largest city in Martinique and a major port, handling goods bound for St Lucia, Dominica and Guadeloupe.  In 1902, the volcano to the north east of the town erupted and a pyroclastic cloud of hot gas and ash rushed down and engulfed the town.  Out of the 30,000 inhabitants and the many ships at anchor, only two people survived.  One was a prisoner in the poorly ventilated jail and another guy lived on the edge of town and was lucky.

The town has preserved many of the remains of the original buildings including the opera house and the jail next door, so it’s interesting to walk around.

Back on the boat we re-anchored on the other side of the pier because some Finnish guy had anchored ridiculously close to us.  Alan and April from “Moody Blue” kindly invited us over for a beer.

23 January 2012   St Pierre to Rupert Bay, Dominica
The alarm went off at half past six – groan!  We motored up coast of Martinique and then had a fast, bouncy, close reach doing seven knots across the 30 mile passage to Dominica.  Once in the lee of the island the wind became fickle – sometimes no wind and sometimes katabatic winds of over 30 knots.  We eventually gave up trying to sail and motor-sailed. 

We were aiming to get to the anchorage at Castaways Hotel, but we arrived there at two o’clock, so we continued up to Prince Rupert Bay, which was quite busy.  It’s a huge bay, but everyone crowds into one corner to escape the swell that hooks around the headland.  

We were very tired after sailing for 60 miles and found it difficult to think never mind trying to anchor among yachts and moorings.  It took us twenty minutes consisting of three, bad tempered attempts before we were settled - there’s coral in some places, but we eventually found a nice sandy patch in six metres depth and cracked open a nice cold beer. 

The big attraction here is to go hiking inland to waterfalls or being rowed up the nearby Indian River. Fifteen years ago we were inundated by boat boys aggressively selling trips, but it seems very relaxed now with only a couple of boat boys turning up.

Glenys rustled up King Prawns in Garlic for dinner and we collapsed into bed early.

Bourg des Saintes, Guadeloupe

24 January 2012   Rupert Bay to Terre D’En Haut, Iles des Saintes
We dragged ourselves out of bed at eight o’clock and got ready to leave, but a big rain system came over the bay, so we hung around for an hour.  There was no rush it’s only 20 miles to the Saintes.

It was a strange sail - a close reach with periods of 10 knots winds and gusts of 25 knots as bands of cloud and rain showers passed by us.  At one point, we lost sight of Iles des Saintes completely as a rain shower engulfed the islands.  Fortunately, we had blue skies and fluffy white clouds as we negotiated our way past small rocky islands towards the main town of Bourg des Saintes.

The town council has installed a huge number of moorings around the anchorages and it’s illegal to anchor unless there are no moorings available.  They’re fairly reasonable though – only costing us 11 Euros per night.  We went ashore and found that the customs has moved from the town hall to a cyber café.  It’s a self-service computer system like they have in Martinique and there are no checking-in fees.  While we were there we paid for two nights mooring.

Bourg des Saintes is a quaint little town with very narrow streets and lots of little souvenir shops and boutiques.  We wandered around looking for a boulangerie, but they’d all run out of bread – no nice baguette tonight... 

We went back to the boat and chilled out for the remainder of the afternoon – four days of sailing upwind has left us weary.

25 January 2012   Terre D’En Haut, Iles des Saintes
It was a horrible night with the boat pitching up and down because this anchorage is so exposed to the north-east swell.

We went for a walk up to Fort Napoleon.  This is a beautifully restored 19th century fort which houses a museum.  Most of the exhibits are about the Battle of the Saintes which took place in 1782.  The English fleet under Admiral Rodney destroyed the French fleet in a massive sea battle.  It’s an interesting place to visit.

We walked down the hill and headed across the island aiming for a beach.  On the way, we came across a notice board with a map of a walk in the north part of the island.  Not able to ignore a path, we hiked up a steep hill and eventually ended up walking for two hours giving us fantastic view of the northern bays and sea cliffs. We ended up on the beach in the Baye de Marigot where we stopped in a restaurant and had a lovely three course lunch.

Pointe Zozio, Iles des Saintes

Back in town, we called in at the mooring office and paid for another couple of days.  Our intention was to go over to the Ilet a Cabrit which should be better protected, but the guy at the mooring office said that the moorings were all taken.  The sea state didn’t look too bad when we got back to the boat so we decided to stay put.

Of course the wind dropped in the evening and the bloody swell came rolling in, making us rock and roll again – this anchorage is pants.


26 January 2012   Terre D’En Haut to Ilet a Cabrit, Iles des Saintes
We had another restless night.  At nine o’clock, Glenys spotted someone leaving the Islet a Cabrit anchorage, so we quickly started the engine and motored across before someone else nabbed the mooring.  In fact there were three moorings available – the other yachts must have sneaked out earlier without us seeing them.  

There are only ten moorings in the anchorage and they are obviously highly desired because one catamaran went over to the main town this morning leaving one of their crew in a dinghy tied up to their mooring.  They weren’t going to lose their place!

Diving in Ilet a Cabrit

Ilet a Cabrit is a lovely protected anchorage with clear water and an acceptable beach.  We went for a snorkel on the west end of the beach. It was pleasant in the clear water. Not a huge number of fish, but I spotted two Nassau Grouper which would have each made a fine meal.  Glenys is really getting into snorkelling – she dived down to 13 metres today.

After lunch, we went for a dive further around the north-west headland.  The water was very clear, but it was a rubbish dive site – only 12 metres deep and a flat sea bed with few fish.  We chilled out for the rest of the afternoon reading.  Glenys made Goat Curry for dinner in harmony with the fact that we’re anchored at the Island of Goats.

27 January 2012   Ilet a Cabrit, Iles des Saintes
It was a lovely, quiet peaceful night.  After breakfast, we went for a walk on the small island.  We first walked up along a disused concrete track to the ruins of Fort Josephine.  There’s a fine view of the anchorage on the way up.  After wandering around the ruins, we headed back down taking a small detour along another path half way down.  This led to more ruined buildings and behind those a faint path headed down to a very rugged, windswept beach covered with big lumps of coral and flotsam.

We spent the rest of the day mooching about - Glenys took the opportunity to defrost her fridge while I mostly read a book.

28 January 2012   Ilet a Cabrit to Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe
We had a fantastic sail across to Guadeloupe.  I started off with a full reef in the main and jib, but the wind stayed very light for the first ten minutes.  Foolishly, I let out the reefs on both sails and within five minutes had 20 knots of wind.  We were on a broad reach, so it wasn’t too much of a problem at first.

As we approached the shore of Guadeloupe, the wind picked up, gusting above 30 knots, so we had too much sail up and I had to hand steer because the autopilot couldn’t cope with the weather helm.  It was only five miles across the passage, so we didn’t bother to reef again, but stuck with it.  We were doing over eight knots for five minutes with a peak boat speed of 9.5 knots – a record for us.  We were totally out of control…

We had a good sail along west side of Guadeloupe, managing to pick up some wind on the leeward side of an island for a change, so we only had to motor for the last hour.

We anchored in the bay opposite Pigeon Island, which is a marine park.  There are several dive centres on the beach, which take tourists out to Pigeon Island on diving or snorkelling trips.  After lunch, we dinghied over to the island and went snorkelling at a few places around the circumference looking for a good place to go diving tomorrow.  The reef doesn’t seem to be as spectacular as the brochures say, but we had a great time swimming with a couple of green turtles for ten minutes.

In the late afternoon, we went ashore, dumped five days’ worth of garbage and walked a mile down the road to a supermarket.  We still weren’t able to buy any fresh baguettes, but we did buy some king prawns as a treat for dinner.

Sunset over Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe

29 January 2012   Pigeon Island, Guadeloupe
There were big katabatic gusts of wind last night and I had to get up in the middle of the night to take clothes and our bimini side panels from the guard rails because they were making such a racket.  It was hard to drag myself out of bed this morning.

I’m starting to get withdrawal symptoms due to having no Internet connection for five days, so we’re planning to go along the coast to Deshaises tomorrow.  Then we’re planning to sail across to Antigua a few days later, so that we can meet Julie and Graham when they arrive on the 5th February on their cruise ship.

We went for a scuba dive on the west side of Pigeon Island.  The dive was great apart from the other twenty divers milling about, scaring off the fish.  We obviously chose a bad time – don’t go diving on Pigeon Island at eleven o’clock on a Sunday morning.  I was playing with my £450 underwater camera strobe which I received as a Christmas present – all of the photos came out over exposed because I obviously had all the settings wrong.  My photographs were better without it…

We mooched about in the afternoon. Glenys was editing some more of her Galley Slave cookbook and I dug out the clarinet for the first time in a month.  It only took two minutes before my lips were aching and five minutes before I couldn’t blow another note – I’ve got to start practising every day to develop my embouchure.

30 January 2012   Pigeon Island to Deshaies, Guadeloupe
We were woken up by the sound of laughter nearby our boat.  I opened the curtains and blearily peered out at a group of tourists snorkelling.  There are quite a few Green Turtles that feed in this bay and snorkelling with the turtles is a major attraction. But at seven o'clock in the morning – give me a break!

We motored up the coast for eight miles to Deshaies, which is a nice anchorage, but katabatic winds shriek down from the surrounding hills.  We paid $50US for an internet connection for a month, which is also valid in Antigua, and settled down for an afternoon of catching up on emails, surfing the Internet and updating our website.

Deshaies, Guadeloupe

31 January 2012   Deshaies, Guadeloupe
I had a frustrating day, trying to sort out our finances.  Before we left the UK, we put our cash into savings accounts which paid interest to us every month, so that we’d have some income.  These savings accounts had miserable interest rates of 0.5%, but gave us a 2.2% bonus for twelve months.  

The bonuses have now expired and I need to transfer the money into other accounts that will pay better interest rates.  All of the “high” interest deals are for new customers, so we have to open new bank accounts. It’s a ridiculous system because all we do is to take our money out of one bank and put it into another bank.  What ever happened to banks rewarding loyal customers?

The process of setting up bank accounts is very frustrating because we’re living abroad.  There are numerous methods that the banks employ to prevent money laundering, such as requiring us to send them two recent utility bills or them having to send a security code to a UK mobile phone.  Neither of these is possible because we don’t have a house or a UK phone.  To get around this we can only deal with banks where we already have an account, so we never close accounts and now have five accounts with £10.00 balances, so that we remain customers.

To make matters worse, most of the bank web sites are very hard to use and I wasted two hours of my life trying to open bank accounts and failing.  As the final insult, I then spent half an hour waiting on a telephone help line with Santander before giving up.  Thank goodness for Skype – at least it only cost £1.00.  Goodness knows how much it would have cost on a mobile phone.

We cracked up in the afternoon and went for a walk ashore.  Deshaies is a small fishing town that now has several diving shops and lots of restaurants.  We managed to get a fresh baguette, so we had Moules Meunieres, Pain and Vin Rouge for dinner.  It was raining and very windy, so we ate down below and watched TV for the first time in over six months.