Twiddling thumbs

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Thu 19 Dec 2013 16:49

Sun , Mon, Tues & Wed  -  15th, 16th, 17th & 18th December

 

Well we can think of far worse places to be trapped by the weather than this and so we are not actively complaining.  The catch mainly is the whole question about Christmas Day itself and hopefully we have a plan coming together now which will see us sailing north up to the island of Dominica on Monday where we plan to meet up with Ruffian who have been stuck like ourselves, but they were in Deshaies on the northern end of Guadeloupe.

 

Dominica is a very poor island and with few facilities as such, especially up in Portsmouth which is the town in Prince Rupert Bay where we plan to anchor, (Very few anchoring options on this island) so we are hoping to bring most of the Christmas meal etc with us from Martinique – assuming the fridges cope with the temperatures.  We know we have to be a bit cautious about some of the food on offer in Dominica as almost all meat is referred to as chicken – principally because they reckon it all tastes like chicken.  But as an example, Mountain chicken, we now know is frog!

 

We left the anchorage here in St Anne on Tuesday morning and motored up into Le Marin where we dropped the anchor in much the same convenient spot as last week. We then got some essential shopping done as well as obtaining some gas and petrol.  The gas was a real win as our old European tanks which are steel of course, had not fared well in the marine environment and we could not get them refilled anyway in the USA. So like any other European boats visiting the States we had to jury-rig up a system to allow us to use their propane bottles (yes, you have to constantly remember the correct terms – ‘gas’ is of course petrol…) so our old gas tanks were rusty and dodgy.  But eagle-eyed Sarah had spotted a European gas bottle dumped in a garbage compound in the town of Scituate, near Boston this summer and although it was of course empty, it was in very good condition, so we liberated it from the garbage and on Tuesday we exchanged it for a nice full one at the fuel dock in Le Marin!

 

On Wednesday we returned to St Anne and settled back to enjoy what was in terms of the weather, the best day we have had all year! Unbroken sunshine and no rain at all since around midnight the previous night. We even had a lovely cloud-free sunset and we have not been able to claim that since we arrived in the Caribbean this winter.