More hanging around the Caribbean

Well, I’m glad to say that it finally quit raining. Now I can complain about the bright sun and intense heat! Nah!, It is very nice and we are back to swimming each afternoon. The guidebook said that it was an easy walk up to Fort Napoleon, so away we went. Now sporting some blisters. Soft feet that have not had shoes on for a month or so, did not like confinement. The old fort was really nice to see. From the top of the hill one could see other islands Dominica, and Guadeloupe, 20 miles away. We could look down on our boat and the entire bay. Inside the very well preserved fort we saw the details of the famous naval battle between the French and Brits. It must have been incredible, 30 to 40 ships on each side lining up to broadside cannons into each other. The book says England’s Admiral Rodney demolished the French fleet under De Grasse in 1782. We saw scale models of some of the ships. Really worthwhile museum! Had another great French lunch. This is one of the nicest spots in the Caribbean! even if they do speak a foreign language.

We have seen many large sailing ships here in the Caribbean. You need to be watchful to not be in line behind their captain when he is checking into the country. He must input full passport, date of birth etc. for every passenger. In Grenada one of the items on the form is: Number of Stowaways. Really, I’m not making this up. We watched both the 4 mast and the 5 mast sailing ships shown below put ALL sail up and sail away, both were just as the sun was setting. Our boat is considered a fast modern sailing boat, but one time, when we had the spinnaker up and we were passing other sailing boats, we looked over our shoulder and one of these monsters passed us like we were standing still.

We were having trouble starting our port engine, and you really need two engines for control of a 24 ft wide catamaran. This catamaran does not have deep keels, so if the wind catches the front, it can quickly go sideways. We are always conscious of the wind and approach everything from down wind. I changed the primary and secondary fuel filters and they were quite clean, so I then changed out the electrical relays and wiggled all of the wiring near the starter. Don’t know what I did, but the engine started well this AM at 6:30 when we left Iles Des Saintes. Yahoo! Ruth gave me a big hug and thinks I knew what I was doing.

This morning, we had a boisterous, fast 3 hr. sail 20 miles south to Dominica, where we finally! met Steve & Rosanna. Steve Wann is my old sailing buddy from 35 yrs. ago. We sailed together in Saudi Arabia and he sailed with us across the Atlantic in our first catamaran, “Chesapeake” in 98/99. He was anchored in Portsmouth Bay in his catamaran "Tonic" - identical to our “Toucan”. When we were going North a few weeks ago, he was going south and we passed in the night. Unfortunately, he had already checked out of Dominica today and soon left for points south. We may meet up again, since he will eventually head north to his home in Virginia, out of the hurricane area. He normally goes nonstop to & from Virginia each year. Speaking of long distance sailing, we met a British sailor moored next to us in Ilse Des Saintes, he sailed each of the last 13 years from Spain to the Caribbean and back. Doesn’t say much for our puny 20 mile boisterous sail this morning! Maybe Florida or Pacific Mexico next year.