Friday 23 to Friday 30 May 2014

 

We have to get back south 100 nautical miles to Martinique, via Dominica, for the 50 hour engine service and have the installation checked now it has bedded in.  Then eventually to return here on the 170 nm trip north to Antigua for the hurricane season.  The wind looks about right in a couple of days time on Sunday 25th so we spent a couple of days doing small jobs, provisioning and also managed to tie up with Andrea and Helen for a skype session. 

 

It is only 21 miles to Portsmouth Bay at the north end of Dominica but we set off early at 7 am to give ourselves the option to sail further to the south of the island to Roseau and get some distance covered.  By 10.15 am we were already off Portsmouth but the sea had been so rough and we had taken such a pasting that we decided to abort Roseau and ‘park’ in Portsmouth.  Legally we were still cleared into France so we stayed on board again and flew the yellow flag and rested before the next session tomorrow.  We were invited for drinks at 6 pm aboard ‘Emma Louise’ by Steve and Cheryl where we spent a pleasant couple of hours before returning for our Sunday roast.

 

 

Leaving Les Saintes in early morning.  Superyacht ‘Athos’ at anchor dwarfing all others:-

 

 

 

On Monday we got going again by 7 am to go south to Roseau and possibly on to St Pierre in Martinique.  The wind was so light in the lee of Dominica that we alternated between sailing and motoring until we reached Roseau where the wind was more definite and we decided to continue to St Pierre in the north of Martinique.  We had overtaken 4 of the 7 boats that had left ahead of us.  Once off the SW tip of Dominica we were treated to a blast of wind of 35-41 knots.  This is gale to sever gale winds and we were very close to returning to Roseau and wait for better weather.  In the end we reefed the sails further and decided to carry on to see if we were just experiencing some wind acceleration around the tip of the island.  Things did improve but conditions were still pretty rough until we reached Martinique having passed two more boats.  Most of the 9 hour trip today had been pretty unpleasant in winds much stronger than forecast and in a less favourable direction than promised.  But the boat handled it well and none of the other boats had turned back so we were glad we had not wimped out! 

 

The sail to Le Marin in the south of Martinique on Tuesday was in sheltered waters but the the wind was still pretty awful.  The engine was serviced by Joel on Friday, the mountings and everything else tightened and the prop shaft alignment checked.  All done efficiently and on time.

 

 

Lin taking ‘the car’ to do the shopping in the early evening between rain showers:-