(Blog No.61) Martinique - Dominica
Catou
Paul and Sylvie Tucker
Tue 12 Apr 2011 02:31
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15:34.80N 61:27.71W
Just a reminder - to get to the blog - it's www.mailasail.com. Then click on web
diaries and blogs, then when you see the list of boat names, just click on
Catou. Up will come a position map. No photos added yet
though. Hope to do so in next couple of days.
Monday 11th April 2011. Yesterday was our
first night at anchor on this trip. As mentioned in yesterday's blog
(No.60), it was in the St Pierre Bay, Martinique - and it was
wonderful. Not a mosquito in sight and a calm night with no wind OR rain
so no getting up to close the windows and skylights. AND it was cool, so we
slept very well. During the last few months we have seen
lots of marine life, but until we arrived in Martinique we hadn't seen a full
sized turtle on our travels - that is until Sylvie spotted one slowly
swimming by as we were about to anchor. It was a memorable
sight.
We weighed anchor at 7am and set the sails just outside
the bay. We were very sheltered by the northern hills of Martinique so
didn't really pick up any wind for nearly 2 hours, so had to keep the engine
running for a couple of hours. Eventually we had a lovely reach sail
across the channel between northern Martinique and southern Dominica. We
had a few tropical squalls and it was heavily overcast all day - it was just
like sailing in the English Channel. And it was cool for a change - we loved
it!
After we passed the southern tip of Dominica, we had to
start the engine as the wind died on us. We were several miles off-shore -
to try and avoid the wind-shadow that Dominica has, but it seems that it is
bigger than we thought! Dominica is the most beautiful and green
island. It is quite unlike any other Caribbean island, with mountains
reaching over 4500 ft. It is most certainly one of my favorite islands in
the region. It's said that if Columbus came back today, it's the only
island that he'd still recognise - it still has so much of it's natural
beauty.
After a fairly uneventful trip we reached our intended
destination in Prince Rupert Bay - where Dominica's second town of Portsmouth is
situated at the north of the island. Surprisingly it has a large American
university here, which helps the local and island economy. I
regularly drive here on my Dominica visits, since we have an important customer
in the town. As we approached the anchoring area, a local boat came out to
offer us a mooring - which we accepted and paid him the US$10 fee - it saves a
lot of work and worry with anchoring. This chap turned out to be very
useful. We were running a bit low in diesel fuel and I had 3 x 20 litre
fuel cans on board, so I asked him if he would run me across to the local Texaco
garage which I knew was close to the beach. I asked him his fee, and he
said $30 - so I offered him EC$50 if he helped me to carry the cans from the
garage - I was very pleased for the assistance, and we sped across to the beach,
filled the cans, and sped back. While Sylvie prepared supper, I syphoned
the fuel cans into the main fuel tank and that will help with our fuel reserves
during the next few days. So once the fuel was transferred and the meal
cooked, we settled down to an aperitif and dinnerwith the smell of ganja wafting
in our direction from somewhere close by! Yah Mon
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