21-2-2022 : Sailing to Les Saintes

I think everyone who comes this way must make the same nav decisions. We decided to sail to the southernmost part of Guadeloupe which si the islands of Les Saintes. On the chart they look a tiny bit like the Scilly isles.
We had no choice to stay in Dominica as we didn't have PCR tests before we left Martinique. That's ok as it's perfectly fine to anchor for a night off a coastline as a "yacht in transit". Come dawn however it's generally a good idea to be ready to leave in case the customs and excise show up and things get bureaucratic...
We managed to weigh anchor by 0830 hrs and set off up the coast. Let's face it , Dominica is basically a bunch of mountains and there was not a lot of wind getting past them.  We motored with as much sail as we could get up (our main has a broken slider so we can't go beyond the first reef). Annoyingly the tiller pilot still wasn't fixed so we had rigged up Vincent - the hydrovane. We have had mixed success and failure using this thing but thought it worth a go as having to hand steer all the time is very restrictive with just two adults.
As we came towards the north end of Dominica wind started to pick up and we got some proper sailing finally making 6.5 knots with 17degree heel. After tuning the rig and the Hydrovane for a while we got it all working and we were off. 
A call to friends in Big Bubble ahead got us some advance weather warning so we reefed down a bit as we passed the end of Dominica.
Our little fleet of three boats, Big Bubble, Magic Dragon and Cloud Jumper all headed for the same place in Les Saintes.
We made a quick detour when two big square riggers came past , partly to avoid them but also to get a better view.
This one was the Royal Clipper. It took us about 3 hours to sail all the way up to Les Saintes. Once there we had a bit of a search to find a decent anchorage : they were all too deep or on a Lee shore. Amazingly one of our friends , the Water Dogs, offered is their mooring ball as they had a lot more anchor chain than is so we were able to moor up with everyone else on the little island to the north west of the main port. We ended the day with a BBQ on the beach , everyone's dinghy's ulled up onto the sand. 
Great day.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Biscay day 5

Image
1am about 50nm North of A Coruna. We have nearly made it. Had a good day of sailing today with pilot whale sighting and some rain. We are all keen for this passage to end. Everyone has been a little or more seasick, even Alfie's iron stomach failed him this morning. Am just now sitting in the cockpit with very low wind pushing us along at a gentle 3.3knots but swell tipping is all over the place making the boom sag back and forwards across the deck, as far as it's preventer line allows. The last couple of days have been a wild ride across big seas at top speed so the lower wind and gentler rocking is very welcome. Everything needs a good wash on the boat as it's very well covered with salt crystals. We all need a wash too. The top number one thing everyone wanted to do was have a shower when we arrive. Sent from Iridium Mail & Web.
Read more

day 35: 25th September 2021

Image
We have been stuck here in Vigo for a while now and by the time we leave it will be about a week. On two recent passages we had a fair bit of water coming into the boat and we think it's the stern gland - that's the rubber seal where the propellor shaft exits the hull do pretty important bit of kit. We don't know how old ours is but w think it's probably about 6 years which is about the expected lifespan. Solution to this problem is to get Cloud Jumper out of the water and remove the prop shaft. This means we need a crane and hence have to wait for Monday 27th for a timeslot.  All this is very frustrating as we really need to be moving on towards the Canaries. An extra complication is that two of our friends were just attacked by an Orca whilst doing south from Lisbon making is even more nervous of leaving too late.... Still, the subsets here are rather good.
Read more

5-3-2022 : Deshaies (the death in paradise place)

Image
Yesterday started early with a swim before we pulled up anchor and started sailing for the top end of Guadeloupe. Normally we would make our way north up the side of the island but some friends (SV Clifford) were putting into Deshaies before setting off across the Caribbean to Panama on their way home to New Zealand. The kids had a goodbye sleepover and we said farewell to them.  Having said goodbye to SV Clifford we explored the town. Deshaies itself is pretty nice, quite apart from being the film set for Death in Paradise. We visited it's amazing botanical garden.  We also enjoyed diving on the reef to the north. Kerrie and Rose had a dive and Alfie came in with me on my Octopus. Bit of a red letter day. We very much enjoyed being able to pop in for Croissants and coffee and it was made even more fun by four other boats we knew from the ARC showing up as well. WaterDogs, Chula Magic Dragon and Dragonfly. We had a big basketball match at sunset, just n...
Read more