Les Saintes and Dominica

After a rough passage between Guadeloupe and the Sts., just a few nm actually of rough seas and 20-25 nm winds, we pulled in to a lovely, crowded anchorage, found one of the last balls - actually a 3 foot high, conical buoy with a thick wire top to attach one's bridle to - and settled in.

 

Ashore we checked in by computer in an Internet cafe: very simple except that everything was in French and the keyboard was European.

Our one night out dinner was a disappointment: not at all what we expected French cuisine to be. We took a taxi up to Fort Napoleon which is above the town and across from Fort, yes, you guessed it, Josephine. Seems she was from Martinique.

Wednesday morning we motored to Pain de Sucre, a teton hump out of the main waterway, set the main with a single reef, and headed SE for Dominica Judy 21 nm away. Yeegads, what a passage: 6-8' seas, winds gusting to 30 knots, waves crashing over the bows as if we were leaving Columbia or the ABC's again. Steve road the bow in somewhat Titanic style for a few minutes, but gave up soaking wet. We buttoned down the plexiglass expecting heavy squalls at Dominica: they didn't materialize and actually cleared. Dropped the sail behind the headland and motored into 25' deep water off the NE shore across from a partially completed, red roofed resort on the site of a previously bankrupted one of a few years ago. Prince Rupert Bay is nearly three miles wide. Portsmouth, a small, sleepy, 4th world fishing village where we checked in with a minimum of carbonized paperwork (confirmed as the easiest check-in in the Caribbean) has clean, recently paved streets and friendly people. But, very down trodden and poor. We tried to spread a few EC's around at the few green grocery stalls, and even went so far as to buy two child-like "postcard" sketches from a guy named Hamilton. We'll give them to Lorry and Linda for Valentine's Day on the 14th.

 

 

 

 

Off bright and early for Rosseau just down the coast and closer to Martinique. The trip down was leisurely and allowed some repairs to the trampoline and the gib halyard handling system? We were met by Sea Cat, a boat boy that Steve and Lorry had used before. He put us on mooring for $15 US and then got into a verbal fight with two other boat boys, one of whom was on the land. They carried the verbal abuse to the street with unknown consequences over, presumably, our business. We walked into town, past the Office of the President of the Commonwealth of Dominica, a white, two story wooden structure across from the Harbor Hotel. Very narrow street with flying traffic. We found a Fram diesel filter we needed for the generator in a Budget Marine shop. Hard to believe there was one in such a poor country.

Dualing boat boys:

We dropped off the ball just before 0700 hrs. for our 48 nm trip to Fort de France, Martinique. The weather reports were good and totally inaccurate. Winds were gusting to 30 knots, seas were 5-6' and covered in waves after clearing Scott's Head at the southern tip of the island. We were making 4.9 knots at 20,000 RPM and bouncing all over the place. We put out the jib to the second reef using our new cleating system without mishap. Wow, what a difference. Speed jumped to 7+ knots and we started to take on the waves rather than being bulled over by them: less spray and less water over the bow and a smoother ride. Still shades of Columbia to Aruba! I tried to take a picture of the turmoil, but it lost the prospective completely.

North end of Martinique:

 

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