Tuesday 13th December

Nowcrew
Wed 14 Dec 2005 15:54
Title: Message
Portsmouth Bay - Dominica
 
We left Martinique early on Tuesday morning. We knew we had a full days sail ahead of us to Portsmouth Bay at the top end of Dominica and wanted to try and make it in daylight.
 
Andy left the helm to Ian as he set about writing the previous two days diary entries. The wind was up and we had a comfortable reach up the island of Martinique at about 8 to 9 knots. We had clear sky's and Nico decided it was a tanning day and spend most of it reading on the aft deck. Andy and Ron caught up on some lost sleep and we made good time on our destination.
 
Ron put on Tomato soup and baguettes for lunch as we cleared the top of Martinique and hit open seas again. We had fun catching and cruising past an American yacht along the way, it was good to be chasing boats again and the waves were breaking over the bow of Now3 as if we were out in the mid-Atlantic.
 
As we arrived at the south end of Dominica we were in the shelter of the land again. The sea's dropped and we were in calmer waters but the wind stayed strong and we made good progress. We arrived at Portsmouth at sun down and were met by the local boat boy Jeffrey. We anchored up in the bay and were all taken ashore to the Purple Turtle Beach Bar for a drink. We had ordered fresh fruit from a guy paddling around on an old surf board 20 minutes before we left and he stopped us on the way in with fresh tangerines and oranges.
 
 
Dominica is very under developed and clearly very poor. There are clear signs of Hurricane damage with three ships run aground off the beach that are rusting to bits. The Purple Turtle also showed signs of hurricane damage with a big crack running through the terrace and the building.
 
 
After drinks we headed back to the boat and Ian rustled spaghetti with tomatoes and garlic sauce. Then it was an early night for us all
 
Nowcrew out.