Moorglade's Voyage - Goodbye St Lucia, hello Martinique

Goodbye St Lucia, hello Martinique

Moorglade's Voyage

Ted Wilson

Thu 27 Jan 2011 01:59

Our position is 14:29.96N 61:05.17W

Our last non-Elsie blog reported we were leaving next day for Marigot Bay - apparently the most picturesque and sheltered anchorage on St Lucia - home to many super yachts. The trip there was uneventful and the crew were fairly underwhelmed by the venue, which, while definitely very scenic, was felt not to measure up to all the hype. Just a special mention for the showers - plentiful hot water and no need for communal dressing and undressing. There were even hooks in the cubicles, which also made a change.

Then it was time to make our way back to Rodney Bay and say goodbye to the family. When we had been there the previous time we had encountered an amazing boat with a most unusual story. I was sorry not to have taken a picture of Gloria before they left the marina but her skipper told us he had bought her for £1500 as a houseboat in London. She was around 35' and built of ferro cement probably in the 1960s. Apparently there were masts on the ground alongside her berth so he paid £75 to have her rigged as a sailing boat. Then he embarked across Biscay in September on the basis that if anything went wrong he would blow back to England. However in spite of her extremely beaten up appearance, lack of self steering and apparently most of the comforts we now take for granted they sailed down to the Cape Verdes and then across to St Lucia. He was unable to run the engine for any length of time as he said it had no oil pressure, but this didn't seem to cause him excessive worry - probably as nothing compared to sailing the Atlantic in a house boat!

We spent the next few days after Elsie, Guy and Kelly had gone sorting out the boat, getting the laundry done and doing some jobs that had been on the list for a while. Then it was time to say goodbye to St Lucia and set sail for the next island in the chain. We had waited a day for a more favourable forecast and it was a cracking sail, close fetching with 2 reefs and the small jib, in a 15kn Easterly to Le Marin in Martinique. Moorglade was regularly reaching 7+kn over the ground with a small amount of tidal help so we took under 4hrs to cover the 22 Nm. Crossing the bay as we pproahed our destination it was slightly disconcerting to see several wrecked boats lying stranded.

As we had to clear into the new country we went to the Marina, where the helpful official sqeezed us into what looked an impossibly small gap, bow on to rhe pontoon, and about as far away from the office as it was possible to be. Martinique is a department of France and, indeed, it was very like arriving in France. Customs had a much more casual approach than in the other islands we have visited. They only man their office in the mornings so we had to wait until the next day to clear in, but that didn't mean we were confined to the boat. The process was relatively simple, particularly for the official, as everyone has to enter their own details on one of the 4 computers in the office. This resulted in large queues building up as skippers unaccustomed to handling computers wrestle with the complexities of French kef the interesting yboards (the letters are all in strange places), and drop downs for place names, which are in French and also in a fairly random order. Eventually the formalties were complete and we were officially there. The total anchorage is huge and everyone is buzzing around in dinghies. We went on a bit of a trip round but by then it was Saturday and most of the interesting things had shut.

It was also very difficult to get a wifi connection. There was one cafe offering coverage, but only at times they weren't busy - first thing in the morning and mid afternoon on weekedays - and it was also very unreliable, so on Sunday we set of to sail the 15Nm to Grande Anse d'Arlet, a lovely bay which had been highly recommended by a French lady we met at the murky waterfall in Soufriere. The sail was very relaxing, mostly downwind - and there was a suggestion we might use the cruising chute, but this soon went away -and only requiring the engine for the last little bit. This required eagle eyed spotting by the crew as round here fishpots are secured to a couple of empty, transparent drinks bottles, which are virtually invisible, but we made it through some fairly intensively potted areas and anchored in good sand. Almost immediately we saw a turtle swimming by, but they are terrible teases and always appear just long enough to make us excited but never when there is a camera to hand.

Since we have been here we have spent time working and doing the dreaded tax returns before the deadline of next Monday (Kay) and doing yet more boat jobs and sorting out the ships stores of spares and bits and pieces (Ted) as well as swimming and snorkelling from the boat and exploring ashore. The Frenchman on the next boat came over and asked if we'd mind showing his friend our boat as apparently he was trying to persuade him to buy a Moody. We were both a bit suspicious but the viewing passed off much as one would expect - it just seemed a bit suurreal (particularly as the Frenchman had built his own boat and was working as a healer).

Today we had our least successful shopping expedition ever as, in spite of walking to the next village, every single shop was closed - presumably Wednesday is early closing day although there were no signs to this effect - so we came back empty handed and had to scrape around for an evening meal. The weather has included a surprisingly large amount of rain. This mostly falls at night but the last few days there have also been quite heavy showers in the day as well. On the whole people don't worry too much as it is warm enough to dry quite quickly.

Tomorrow we are planning to move round to the next bay and an anchorage with ferries to Fort de France, the island capital. Surely we'll be able to find an open shop there....

Marigot Bay I look down on him...................

Moorglade squeezed in at Le Marin Someone must have misread their echo sounder

Shopping in the market at Le Marin Crushing sugar cane in the back of a van

Local racing boats; they seem to be rigged with a large square sail; Looks like a shanty town but it's actually the cemetery!

Up a river off Le Marin bay during the dinghy trip Diamond Rock - commissioned as HMS Diamond Rock during the Napoleonic wars and armed with cannon; Glad I didn't have to get them to the top!