Baie des Cyclones, Le Marin, Martinique.  14:27.37N  60:52.03W

 

 

On Monday four stalwarts braved the energetic walking arranged for us by Martine, the delightfully crazy French ex-sailor who lives with her husband/partner on Bequia - lots of hills, mostly in the shade, two deserted beaches and one almost so and continuous botany tutorial.  By the time we reached Friendship Bay we felt we had earned our swim and yet another of Martine's delicious snacks.

 

 

Not difficult to spot the yachties.

 

               

 

    Known to Martine's pupils as the Enemy (poisonous spines on the leaves)       Et celui-ci, mes leves est un calabash et sur l'arbre un Green Boli.

                                                                                                                                                            (see Christmas Day)

 

The Christmas party was beginning to break up, Breezing Up had left for Antigua and we checked out with Customs and Immigration and had a very brisk sail up to St Lucia.  Big seas and 25 knot wind greeted us at the north end of St Vincent and we were hard on the wind for the 30 miles to the bottom end of St Lucia.  The cold front associated with yet another deep depression heading for Europe was producing some threatening clouds and the salt we had gathered during our sail was sluiced off by heavy rain showers.  As we passed the entrance to the main harbour and capital Castries a large cruise ship was emerging down the narrow channel.  At this moment a yacht, which presumably had not seen the ship, chose to cross the channel right in front of it.  Fortunately for them the Port Police launch was in attendance and shoed them out of the way, and from what we could see ordered them into Castries for who knows what penalty.

 

Another brisk sail and the forecast of some really nasty weather induced us to seek the shelter of the Baie des Cyclones in Martinique.  The front proper passed through on New Years Eve and we had 24 hours of intermittent very heavy rain squalls. In this little haven of tranquility we celebrated New Year to the chimes of Big Ben courtesy of the BBC World Service at 8pm local time). We managed to communicate with Andrew, Rob and Dani who were living it up in Barcelona and Liz and Michael in Edinburgh, and the four hours time difference allowed us to be in bed at a sensible hour! 

 

One of the problems of sailing between the Eastern Caribbean Islands is that the course between them is being sailed by other yachts travelling in both directions. The sea is not crowded but this narrow corridor collects most of the traffic.  Since leaving Trinidad and going north we have had six situations with other yachts coming south when alterations of course have been necessary to prevent a collision.    The International Prevention of Collision regulations state quite clearly that a yacht close hauled on the starboard tack has right of way over any other yacht on any other point of sailing.  Three of the six quite rightly altered course as the "give way vessel" and allowed us the "stand on vessel" to hold our course.  All very right and proper and safe.  However the other three yachts clearly had no idea about these internationally agreed rules and we had to make last minute alterations to our course to avoid a collision.  Sadly it seems one cannot rely on any yacht to do the right thing and it is highly irritating when hard on the wind to have to lose hard won ground to windward to alter course for a yacht running free.  There have been many articles in yachting magazines over the years about the dangers of yachts being hit by big ships which certainly is a problem. However our experience suggests that it is other yachtsmen who are the major danger!!  We would love to know if the problem is the result of ignorance, carelessness, bad manners, or the mischievous desire to play a dangerous game of chicken.  Sadly we suspect it is ignorance.