Martinique

Sattwa
Thu 29 Jan 2015 19:01

Arrived safely in Martinique after 19 days and 4 hours sailing. After crossing the line in Martinique we had a furling problem with the genoa and had to do circles to  wrap the sail on halyard. We made or way in past a beauriful looking beach near Club Med on starboard, to be greeted by Atlantic Odyssey people and crews of boats that had already arrived.We had to manoeuvre stern to in a narrow space attached to a bouy at the bow. Luckily all went well-the equivalent of getting a good drive off on the 1st tee with big audience ! There were people there from the tourist office with glasses of rum punch to celebrate! This procedure has been going on each day as another boat arrives.

Looking back on the crossing-it was a little tougher than I had  anticipated for the first week-after that it was more like what I was expecting.The 2nd last boat arrived last night-they had a rough few days at the early stage- their epirb was activated when they were swamped with a breaking wave from behind ! Seamus and John left for Cork yesterday after completing Trojan work on the boat including oil change and filters.They were magnificent on the crossing and I appreciated their help and expertise.There was a party last night with representatives of tourist board and the marina of Marin.Joan and Elizabeth will be joining me soon and we hope to travel south towards Union Island and Tobago Cays