The weather is OK, it's just the forecasters!
Oriole
Sun 19 Feb 2012 20:15
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Les Trois Islets, Fort de France,
Martinique.
14:42.63N 61:02.37W
The boat boys put on a really good
party on Sunday night and there must have been around 100 yachties and locals
consuming barbecued chicken, fresh fish and limitless quantities of rum punch
all to the accompanyment of a reasonably tasteful disco.
On Monday morning we were early
ashore in the company of Pat and Gavin from Seahawk who we had
persuaded to come with us on a walk from the north east corner of Dominica to
the north west corner. The terrain is wild and mountainous rain forest
with an old donkey track traversing the ravines and valleys that run down to the
north coast. Around 5 miles as the crow flies it took us 4 hours of pretty
hard walking up and down steep inclines that were more goat track than donkey
track in places, zigzagging in and out of the deep box valleys. The
views were stunningly beautiful, and most of the route was in the shade of the
rain forest so was very cool. We eat our picnic lunch beside a crystal
clear stream and apart from a couple of farmers wielding the traditional machete
we saw nobody all day. Dominica really is wild and beautiful.
 Over the tree top to the Saintes and
Guadeloupe beyond.
The weather forecasters have been
giving dire warnings of massive (12 foot) north westerly swells, which as we
have said before, make the normal anchorages uncomfortable if not dangerous and
landing on the beach fraught with hazzard. These emmanate from big winter
storms further north and are notoriously difficult to forecast. In our
early days in the Caribbean this would have sent us scurrying for cover in
some enclosed anchorage, which many people did, but in the event they were
a non-event in all but a few very exposed places. Now we are getting
forecasts of days of 25-35 knots of wind from one well known forecaster which
again may or may not materialise. There are so many unknowns which
contribute to the weather here that a minor tropical wave which can come out of
nowhere can make all the difference between pleasure and discomfort.
Perhaps the days of our first visit here in 1971/2 when there were no forecasts
and you just went sailing and took potluck were less hysterical. We
have discovered that the forecasters are studying two disagreeing computer
models - GFS which is predicting mild weather and EURO which needless to say is
forecasting rough times ahead!
We sailed down to Martinique on
Thursday in relatively mild conditions and were in company (not by
arrangement) with Derek on Buzzard so of course it became a
race. We managed to overtake him in the big seas and 18 knot winds in the
25 mile channel between the islands but in the quieter water and wind his full
genoa gave him an advantage and we finished neck and neck.
We are at anchor in this lovely
quiet backwater near Fort de France, close enough to get a fresh
bagette, but on the water away from the interference of other
humans. We are steering clear of Martinique Carnival this weekend
which from previous experience is rather uncouth, very noisy and
pretty chaotic.
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