Here we go again

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 8 Dec 2013 15:30

14:44.46N 61:10.69W

 

Tues to Fri – 3rd to 6th Dec

 

Tuesday was a bit confusing as Ruffian opted not to head off south as they had found a small leak on their engine cooling system and wanted to test the repair they had just made. This resulted in them motoring round to a wonderful bay tucked in behind Eustatia Island where we joined them around lunchtime. We even had free wifi there that we were able to pick up from Richard Branson’s Necker Island!

 

In the evening both boats returned to Bitter End and Iain and Fiona came for a farewell dinner on board Serafina.

 

On Wednesday morning Ruffian made an early departure for Guadeloupe whilst we headed over to Leverick Bay to use their laundrette and to check out through customs and immigration at Gun Creek. A huge squall arrived just as we had hoped to leave around midday and we were reduced to picking up a buoy at the Sandbox where it was flat enough for us to lift the outboard engine and put the dinghy up on the foredeck. So it was not until 1400 hours that we finally got underway to our destination of the French island of Martinique, a passage of around 310 miles.  We had to punch our way into the head wind past Sir Richard’s Necker Island before we could bear away onto a fine reach heading directly to Martinique.

 

Generally we enjoyed a great sail and although the wind did force us briefly onto a course a bit further south than we wanted, we managed generally to sail almost the whole way. We encountered some very wet and windy squalls off Saba and St Kitts which caused us some excitements but all went well until we were just 15 miles from our destination. As we crossed the gap between Dominica and Martinique the skies darkened and we got hit by a massive squall which blitzed us with 40 knots of wind and torrential rain. Visibility went down to almost zero and we found ourselves ripping along at a fraction under 11 knots towards a very large land mass!  We held our nerve and took advantage a brief lull in the chaos to reduce sail still further and finally swept into the rather exposed anchorage off the beach at St Pierre and dropped the anchor.

 

St Pierre is not a great anchorage generally as the sea bed is littered with wrecks and the holding is a bit iffy, but the small town is charming and well worth the difficulties, but the forecast was poor for the next week or so and we have decided to press on tomorrow, down to Le Marin which is a bigger town with an extensive anchorage at the southern end of the island.