Exploring the islands
ChilliOyster
Dave & Becky Werrett
Thu 12 Feb 2009 09:29
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Position: 15:51N
61:35W
As I write we are sailing up the west coast of Dominica,
headed for Portsomouth Harbour, it has been a long sail today - we set off at
7.30 this morning and expect to arrive just befdore 5 this afternoon. It's odd -
after the atlantic crossing I thought I would find day sailing a piece of
cake but doing 10 hours in one go still seems a little wearing!
We finally left St Lucia on sat 7th am, I actually found
it quite hard to leave, despite doing 2900 miles not so long ago - all my fears
about sailing seem to have returned and I wanted to stay in the security of the
marina. We had ventured out last thursday to "test" our engine - but it had been
a disatrous sail compared to what we expected. The engine which we had paid
4000EC (Over £1000) to be fixed whilst we were in the uk was still showing
signs of an electronic fault, the rev counter wasn't working and the battery
light wouldn't go out, which usually indicates that the alternator isn't
charging the boats batterys.(This still isn't fixed!) We tried to put the
boat through a tack but the wind was so strong she wouldn't go round without the
engine and so there was a lot of flapping sails and I got my hand caught in the
lines giving me alot of rope burn and skin ripped off fingers, then to cap it
all as the wind picked up we tried to bring the front sail in and the furling
mechanism jammed so we had to drop the genoa on the front deck in 20knts of wind
and return to the marina. Needless to say - none of this did anything to
increase my confidenceabout setting off again! But Dave's Dad Ken was with us
and he took it all in his stride plus his flight to Antigua on the 14th was
looming so we set off for Marintique about 11am sat morning.
The wind was brisk and the waves quite big as we sailed
between the islands, - we had c 20-23 knts and about an hour out of Pigeon
island, we decided to reef in the front sail as we were fairly well heeled
over and this was Ken's first sail! However we then realised that we had rewound
the furling mechanisim the wrong way and we had no way of pulling the sailing
back in. I have no idea why 2 intelligent people firstly made this mistake and
then compounded it by not checking the fulring as we promised ourselves we would
on friday! Anyway we adjusted course and bought her up into the wind
slightly, then Dave and I sat at the front of the bow as it dipped in and out of
the water getting soaked and winding the furling on by hand! This did the job
fine but given the size of the waves and the effort required we both felt
rather sea sick and having worried about how Ken would cope on his first
sail, he sat there serenely and watched as I had to lie down with my eyes shut
and Dave threw up over the back - we have clearly been on land far too
long!
Anyway we arrived in Martinique without further
incident, we were sailing with Ange & Richard, our friends on
Sophisitikate who had flown back out from the UK the night before with their two
friends Charliie & Pete and we spent the night at anchor with them in
St Anne's bay. It was a gorgeous well protected bay and we all dinghyed to shore
that evening for a great evening in a local bar/restauraunt with live music.
Even Ken got up to dance when propositioned by several of the females and Indy
looked alot older than 12 when she was rather reluctantly whisked round the
floor by one of the "older" locals under the watchful gaze of her father and
grampy!
After a failed attempt and rather damp attempt to clear
customs in Martinique on sunday morning (they were on strike!) we set off for St
Pierre, a bay on the north tip of the island. This was nowhere as pretty as St
Anne and not so good for anchoring. It took us over an hour to find a spot
where we felt the anchor would hold and we had room to swing about. It was
also fairly rolly with the swell and we worried about how close were we
were to the other boats and the beach! So we had a restless night at anchor last
night, with Dave or I getting up to check the anchor every hour or so... well at
least it's free!
So we are now enroute to Dominica where we plan to spend
a few days, tomorrow we are going to do the indian river excursion which takes
you through some of the places they filmed pirates of the caribbean. It will be
another night at anchor as marinas are few and far between on the more
uninhabited islands. Fortunately the watermaker and generator are now working
fine so I have plenty of ice for my V&T. From Dominica we will spend a night
or two at the bottom of Guadaloupe before arriving in Antigua on friday in time
for Ken's flight home on saturday. From there we wil head up to St Martin, an
overnight sail to meet up with our Atlantic saviour - Windancer! Will keep
you posted.
Loads of love to you all
Becky & Dave XXX
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