Administrative exhaustion and rough passage.
Oriole
Sun 23 Mar 2014 15:44
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Rodney Bay, St Lucia.
Sunday 23rd March 2014
14:05.06N
60:57.51W
Following a very successful Ocean
Cruising Club 60th Anniversary Meet, we tidied up all the loose ends in Dominica
and set off for Martinique at first cock crow at 0500 - and they really do crow
here and on all the islands. It was blowing 20-25 knots from the soth east
and at the bottom end of Dominica we encountered probably the worst sea
conditions ever. It was the top of spring tides and there was clearly a
strong tidal steam going SE against the wind creating some very ugly overfalls.
Even after the worst was over the sea was vicious until we were about half way
across the 25 mile channel and then it was not much better. Quadrille were
coming behind us and they too did not enjoy these evil conditions. However
it made for fast sailing and the pain did not last long. At least until we
arrived in our chosen anchorage when we discovered that the seas had infiltrated
John's clothes locker and soaked everything in it. Our final ancorage
choice was for the shelter of Trois Islets where we enjoyed flat calm in the
anchorage during the night with a brisk wind next day to dry out the clothes
that Chris had washed free of salt. We also chased the leaks and think we
have eliminated eveything - time will tell.
 We do often get benign conditions -
but this year they have been in short supply.
On Thursday we had a much more benign
passage to St Lucia where we anchored in Rodney Bay. Quadrille emerged
from a different anchorage and we crossed in company and enjoyed a couple of
lunches ashore with Adrian and Christine and stocked up with fresh meat from an
excellent new delicatessen with fruit and veg from the market.
John has been chatting regularly with
Mervyn on Tamarind on the long range SSB radio now on his way from Puerto Rico
to the Azores and back to the Yealm. Today he managed to get a friendly
meteorologist to give Mervyn some weather routing information, and has been
ordering a new burner for his stove for him to collect in Horta, which
accidently got crudded up with Welsh Rarebit when the boat lurched .
Another friend, Mike and crew on Beleuga Free is now on his way to the San Blas
Islands and the Panama Canal and we hope to keep in touch with him too. So
life is busy with sailing, maintenance, socialising and communication, with
occasional breaks for zzzzs..
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