Martinique and Dominica

Owning a boat must be like being in a bad marriage. When it is good it is really great, when it is not, it is not. We spent 3 nights in Rodney Bay St. Lucia. Went shopping in a very nice supermarket, anchored for free in a nice bay, ate lunch out, had laundry done and watched some great sunsets. In general it was nice. We left Rodney Bay at 7 am headed 30 miles to Martinique. About the crappiest sail that we have had in a long time - ugly seas and wind to 30 knots. It is smooth and nice anchored in a sheltered bay behind an island. When you reach the end of the island and are faced with wind and waves coming all the way from Africa, it can get ugly. The wind and waves are trying to squeeze through the opening between islands. Our cockpit has a solid bimini with all of the solar plates, 600W, mounted on top. These solar plates provide the power to keep all of the batteries charged. I damn well do not appreciate getting salt water all over the solar plates when a wave comes over the top. It also gives one salty feet. Getting into bed with salty feet is not on. We made the smash and bash anchoring in Anse Mitan, Martinique where we checked into the country. We were able check in and out all at once. The French don’t seem to speak any more English than we do French.

Left the next morning for the 48 mile sail to Dominica, The first couple of hours were delightful while we were in the lee of Martinique, Then past the island, it got really ugly. We had 25-30 knot winds and ugly ugly seas. After an hour of this we turned around and sailed back to St. Pierre, a small village in the north of Martinique, where we spent a peaceful afternoon and night. It even rained and washed all of the salt water off the boat. Earlier in the day, the weather report stated that the wind was gonna pickup today, but was expected to moderate tomorrow. We will try again tomorrow. It is easy to say 25-30 knot winds, and one can sail in 30 knot winds, especially if you are going in the same direction.

The next day we weighed anchor at 6AM and headed out for Dominica. The seas were not bad at first, but got rough out in the middle. The boat sailed well at about 8-9 knots just smashing and bashing along. The waves were mostly broadside so we rolled a bit. As we approached Dominica, the wind picked up to 25 knots and I had to release the mainsheet to keep the boat from rounding up into the wind. With the sheet eased the autopilot was happy and we kept trucking on. When we got into the lee of the island the water was smooth and wind good so we sailed the length of the island to Portsmouth where we took a mooring in the bay along with 30 or 40 other boats. The boom box on shore went all night until about 4AM, then about 5Am the preaching started and is still going on as I write this at 8AM. It was Friday night, just a warmup for tonight. I can hardly wait. Going ashore now to see if we can find some wifi. Will need to check into the country too, and weekends are overtime? Can’t win them all...