Wed 15/2/12 – St Pierre – 14:44.5N 61:10.7W

We decided that we had had enough of Grande Anse d’Arlet, and needed to see pastures new (or at least from a different angle), so we set off for St Pierre (about a 20nm passage) towards the northern end of the island, and a good stepping off anchorage for Dominica. We put one reef in the main and another in the genoa as we set off in F1 winds from the SE, and as we motored out of the bay, I inspected and tightened the prop shaft stuffing gland, which was dripping a little more than we liked. This is a genuine 10 minute job, and accomplished quickly. By the time I joined Ali in the cockpit, it was blowing a F5 from the NE, and we put another reef in to enjoy a fantastic beam reach for a few hours, with some exciting F6 gusts to keep us amused. This is the kind of sailing that Watergaw revels in, strong enough to get her going well but not too close to the wind to make it hard work.

The anchorage at St Pierre is quite a narrow shelf of shallow water which drops off steeply into depths that are too much. Likewise, the holding is a little spotty – probably because the flood waters pour off the hills behind the town and into the bay bringing soft mud/sand down.  Picking a spot was not easy as there were a lot of catamarans and mono hulls stretched along the town front, but we managed and our third attempt at digging in held well.

St Pierre

We had seen St Pierre from landwards, when we toured the island by car, and thought it a lovely little place. It has a really interesting history, as the original town was wiped out by a volcanic eruption in the early part of the 20^th century, when 23,000 people died. Apparently the local businessmen were reluctant to evacuate the town and lose revenue, so most stayed put despite the warning signs that had been apparent for some time. It has been rebuilt and the ruins are incorporated into some of the new buildings. It is hard to imagine just what a catastrophe this must have been on an island whose population then would have been pretty modest.

Beside the location of the anchorage, and its suitability as a departure point northwards, another attraction for us is that it has a superb  small restaurant called La Tamaya, in which we ate when we passed through it a week ago. It is run by a couple who arrived by boat and never left, and is decorated in a very nautical way – its name derives from a steel sailing boat built in Liverpool before the end of the 19^th century, owned by a Breton company, and sunk in the volcanic eruption along with dozens of other ships lying in the bay at the time. The restaurant  is full of model ships, design drawings and other marine paraphernalia, is clean and tidy, and the food was superb yet cheap – worth a second visit in celebration of tomorrow’s birthday, methinks…..

In anticipation….

Watergaw