16:18.44N  61:47.86W

 

Distance Run 26 nm

 

Wednesday 2 July 2014

 

Taking advantage of favourable winds we released ourselves from the mooring buoy in Les Saintes to head north to the south west tip of Guadeloupe and then on up the west coast to the bay where the village of Deshaies lies.  

 

Leaving Les Saintes.  The round rock is ‘Pain au Sucre’ and we anchored in the bay to the right of it a few weeks ago.  There is only one yacht in there now but in May it was crowded:-

 

 

 

 

We reefed the mainsail a little in preparation for the stronger gusts and closed the 8 mile gap to Guadeloupe quite quickly.

 

Here approaching the south west tip of Guadeloupe with it’s prominent lighthouse.  This is the westerly and more mountainous of the two islands which make up Guadeloupe:-

 

 

 

 

Looking east along the south of Guadeloupe.  The wind has got up a bit now:-

 

 

 

 

A little while later, looking south.  A different perspective of the lighthouse and Les Saintes receding in the distance:-

 

 

 

The mainsail is still reefed (not pulled out to the end of the boom) although the wind is lighter now.  The mainsheet (white and red rope) passes around 2 sets of triple pulley blocks to give a 6:1 purchase which enables the sail to be hauled in without electric winches or hydraulics, which we don’t have:-

 

 

 

 

 

The instruments at the helm for anyone of the ‘anorak’ tendency:-

 

 

Boat speed of 4.2 knots shown at top left.  Top middle is the depth of water, shown as 120 meters but it is actually much more than that – the echo sounder gives up beyond 120 metres.  The black lever to the right operates the bowthruster – an electric propeller in the bow which can be used sparingly to swing the bow to left or right during low speed berthing under engine.  It is not used whilst sailing.  Bottom left is the wind indicator.  The arrow shows where the wind is coming from in relation to the boat.  The recorded wind speed is 12.8 knots.  This is what is felt on the boat and is a combination of the true wind and the boat’s movement.  The compass at the bottom shows we are steering a course of about 342 degrees.  The combination of the the boat’s leeway (sideways drift) and the current means that our actual course over the ground is only 328 degrees (the RH instrument with two red buttons). 

 

This is one of the major benefits of GPS.  Boats always knew what course they were steering from the compass but the actual course achieved over the ground was a running estimate calculated using tidal predictions and knowledge of how the boat drifts in different conditions.

 

Asleep yet?

 

We anchored in Deshaies just before 3 pm and immediately cooled off with a swim.  We plan to be here for a few days before sailing 42 nautical miles north to Antigua where we will start preparing the boat for lifting out of the water for the rest of the hurricane season.