Sailing around the World
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Mon 9 May 2011 12:59
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SUNDAY 8th MAY
2011
Looking back over the last week, we have to say
things did improve and the weather held up once the rain
cleared away, but that still took a while,
Friday 29th April, ( continued ) Gawd, we really
did have a bad day, early in the morning we felt it had cleared up, but
it
did not, and it just got worse and worse,
torrential rain, soooooo bad that it came down through the electrical panel and
kept
tripping off the shower power, not to mention the
leaks else where, Ohhhh, whats gone wrong with our lovely Oyster.
Saturday 30th, It was still very wet, but we were
now getting " harbour fever" so decided to head north to
Martinique,
so we cleared our papers and set sail in poor
conditions, we had a close starboard fetch with 22+ knots of wind and
made good time to Port De France, well
actually we dropped anchor in " Ainse du BOUT " just across from Fort de
France.
We passed Diamond rock on the way, very close to
the coast, this is where the English placed 20 cannons at the summit
with a half dozen sailors to sink
unsuspecting French ships passing , which they did very succesfully and
despite all efforts
by the French to recapture the Rock, they failed,
meanwhile the English raised the status of the rock
to that of a war ship. and christened it HMS Diamond Rock,
A long time later, the french wrecked a couple of
ships full of rum onto the Rock and when the english sailors were
totally drunk , the French recaptured the
island, Well , thats the storey.
" Ainse Du BOUT" was run down, It was obvious that
at one stage this place was a major tourist place,
but has lost out to other places , Even though it
is a french Island, we found no good restaurants so returned to " A Lady " and
had
our dinner on board, skippers hungarian sweet and
sour goulash with rice,
Sunday 1 st MAY : The conditions were
very wet again, We raised the anchor around 9.00hrs and sailed out the harbour
north
towards "Prince Rupert Bay" in Dominica, a
distance of 85 miles, . We had a good breeze and a great sail, and the weather
improved as we cleared Martinique,
We dropped anchor in the dark and had dinner on
board and watched a DVD on the TV.
MONDAY 2nd MAY :
After an early swim, we left Dominica in good
weather and a good breeze and headed to " Anse du Bourg" in a small
beautifull
Island on the south side of Gaudeloupe arriving
there around 09.30hrs , the distance was only about 40 miles, so a short
trip.
We all went ashore on the rib and explored the
Village which had a great relaxed feeling about it. We spent the day just
pottering
about the place,and of course we had to do the
usual clearing in and out together, all done electronically, this was a first
for us.
The weather remained good for the day and we had
dinner ashore in a beautifull waterside restaurant,
Alan, a doctor in Belfast and suffers from
Spinabifida, was great at getting on and off the boat, well done Alan,
with his short crooked legs, he was well able to
pull himself on and off the rib and also A Lady .......
and well able to cook as well.
Later in the day, we met Tom
Hallway , a doctor from london on his boat called " Pelekan" and his
friend David, a script writer
who has written for " Mid Summer murders" and the "
Bill " , Before going to the restaurant for dinner, we had a few scoops
on board " Pelikan" and had a few more with them on
" A Lady" after the dinner, The were very entertaining and we
really enjoyed their company for that afternoon,
TUESDAY 3rd MAY :
07.30 hrs we raised anchor and waved goodbye
to Les Saints, The weather " Gods " were smiling on us again and we had a great
sail
north to " Little Bay" on the north west corner of
" Montserrat", a distance of approx. 68 miles.........
This Island has a live and active Valcano, It
erupted violantly several times between 1995 and 1997, many people died
and the main town
of Plymouth was destroyed completly and entry there
now is forbidden,
As we passed along the shore, just 2 miles off, we
could see all the partially covered buildings with lava and black lava rivers
which
covered the hillsides, The smell of " Sulpher" was
almost overpowering.
The Island was famous for the number of Irish that
lived here, they arrived here during " Cromwells" crusades in Ireland around
1632.
there were many battles between the french and the
british over the years for controll of the Island, and in 1783, a treaty between
the two countries agreed that it would become a
british island.
its interesting that one can detect the " Irish
Accent" in the black community, and St. Patricks day is big here.
We arrived around 5pm and dropped anchor, we were
too late for customs so they would not allow us ashore.
Alan cooked a spagetti Bolognese dinner and it was
excellent, yum yum, this was followed by watching Robin Hood DVD
with Russell Crowe, definatly a different take on
what one would expect fo0r Robin Hood.
WEDNESDAY 4th MAY
We cleared in and out of the Island, as we expected
to leave around 11.30 hrs
but first we did a taxi tour of the Island
and inspected the valcano flows from a short distance,
we visited the observatory and got a history of the
whole thing from one of the scientists, facinating.
It was sad to see all the derilict hotels and
residential buildings . most inside the restricted area,
12.00hrs we hauled the anchor and sailed north
again towards " Port Zara" in St. Kitts, passing " Nevis" on the
way......
the whole trip was just 42 miles, we tried in vain
a bit of fishing, lucky fish,
We had a great sail in great weather and arrived
around 5 pm, and tied up at the Marina, It all looked good, and
after
a short period, we were cleared into the Island,
we had dinner in the " Fishermans Wharf"
restaurant, a waterside place, and the food was great. Skipper had a
lobster
and it was certainly the biggest he has ever had,
The people of this Island were very friendly and helpfull and so
we had another very pleasent evening,
THURSDAY 5th MAY
We did a tour of the Island with " Junie " in his
taxi,
It was a very pretty Island, we visited a couple of
the old Sugar Plantation houses and grounds, the grounds in particular were
magnificant, with speciman trees and flowers, this
trip took 3 or 4 hours
On our return , we cleared out with a view to
travel to St. Barts, but Ian lost his passport in between the boat and the
Offlicence,
a short distance of perhaps 550m, Ohhhhh my Gawd,
that caused all sorts of problems, the net effect was we
could not leave the Island untill we sorted
something out. first the English embassy. Ian had to apply for an emergancy
passport
and we spent most of the rest of the evening trying
to get this sorted.
Eventually, we returned to the boat and had a roast
lamb dinner, all feeling down the dumps, These things happen !
Not a great day
( to be continued )
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