Sailing towards the Pitons

Saint Lucia

This was the easiest crossing we have done till now, only close to the harbor were some high waves, but the rest went great. We anchored first in Rodney Bay and got pretty quick a visit from a German gentleman, who has the same boat as ours (there are only 55 of this type) so that was pretty special. We still have to go and see each other’s boat and that will happen today or tomorrow.

We needed urgently to do laundry, so we tried to call the company who would come out to the boat and pick up and deliver it back. We heard nothing and loaded the laundry in the dinghy to deliver it ourselves and then we had a little mishap with our dinghy propeller. We were on our way to the dinghy dock when the motor started running faster without the dinghy going faster. We had to return to Ladyhawk and could barely make it. Jacques took the propeller off and noticed that the rubber sleeve in the prop hub had sheared off. He found a piece of stainless steel tubing that he cut off and used it as a washer and then tightened the nut as strongly as he could. That gave sufficient friction to use the dinghy in a slow pace. The good thing is that Tom can bring a new prop this Saturday because this model is not available here.

The German told us that on Tuesday there would be strong northerly swells, so we first tried another anchor spot. But after 3 tries and the anchor dragging all the time we decided to go for two days in the marina The first time since Puerto Rico! Very big and very nice marina!

We met again some real nice Dutch people and had a fine dinner together. Today we will go to Marigot Bay, must be a very busy spot, but very beautiful, and after that up to the meeting point in Vieux Fort to pick up Tom and Laura with the kids.

Talk to you all soon, Ria

Martinique

Saturday we arrived in Martinique and anchored in Ste. Pierre. This was the capital till 1902 when Mount Pelée erupted and nearly killed everyone in town. They did a nice job mixing the ruins with new buildings, very nice town. There was nobody in the weekend to check-in so we sailed yesterday to Fort de France, that lies in a big bay and we went to Anse Mitand to anchor and will do the whole immigration thing here.

Dominica is a very beautiful island, has seven active volcanoes, very friendly people. We were there way too short, so we now definitely have decided to do this part of the trip next year again and wait with the ABC islands. We met here a very nice Dutch couple and had two evenings talking about everything. They are doing the Atlantic circle and will be back in Holland in October.

In Dominica we had internet on the boat and Jacques could Skype to Verizon to sort out our cell phone problems. It now works again and we can use the phone although the roaming fees are very high. We also can send and receive E-mails from our phones again.

During the passages I sometimes like to play a little bit the ostrich game, if I do not look at the waves, they will not be that high!!!!!!!! We had two reefs in the mainsail and the sailing from Dominica to Martinique was great, we went 7+ knots with 12 ft. waves and Lady Hawk is handling herself pretty good, we are proud of her.

Today we go to a quiet bay called Pte. Anse d’Arlets. It is only 7 miles so we wait until the rain has stopped. After that we plan to go to Le Marin which is the capitol of sailing in Martinique. We hope to have Wi-Fi there so that we can Skype. It looks that the weather calms down on Wednesday and Thursday when we will cross over to St. Lucia and hope to find nice places where we can go when Tom and Laura and the kids are visiting us.

This blog entry is a little bit of going back and forth between now and Dominica, but you all will be able to get the message. 

Have a nice Valentine’s day, Ria.

Marie Galante

This is a quiet and peaceful place and we have two internet spots to go to. They have small stores here, like we had them long ago, it looks like a mess, but they have everything! We went to look for a new crew member, a little ducky, called Canard Marie, who is guarding the back side of the boat when we are on anchor. In that small store we were explaining for a long time what we want. Then she went to some corner and did some intensive digging and yes! She came back with a blow up duck. We then thought let’s try some clothespins (we also had no clue what the French word could be) and after some hands and feet movie like explanation, she went to another corner, digging and Yes! We have new clothespins. Really great experience. The store lady also had a lot of fun and was really happy to be able to help us.

We find a lot of European food on the different islands and are enjoying raclette cheese and old gouda, Dutch cookies and Swiss chocolate.

We intend to go to Dominica tomorrow, it will be a wild ride, but is only 16 miles, the next better weather would perhaps be in the weekend, but we want to be in St. Lucia before Tom and his family are coming, so we will take the waves tomorrow and will perhaps take the other weather window to go to Martinique. I am also thinking that we should perhaps do another season here, there is still much more to see here, but that is just a thought that’s swirling in my mind.

Au revoir et a bientot, Ria  

Pointe á Pitre, Guadeloupe

The Saline river was a really nice change, to the north we had to go zigzag through the reefs and islands and we ended up just in front of the bridge in the late afternoon. We were luckily the only one, there was not much space there, but a lot of no-see-ums. That we had expected so we closed off the boat pretty good. 

I had set all the clocks we had to the alarm time of 3.30, but we were already awake by then (the built-in clock). We tied all the fenders we had on both sides and were ready to go at 4.15. It was very dark and I did not see any movement on the bridge. At 4.35 I tried to call the bridge on the radio, got no response, except that the bridge opened. This bridge was really wide enough and after a shouted “allez” we went. 

After 15 minutes on the river we arrived at the other two bridges. These bridges were much narrower and we only had 2 feet on each side but we managed to get through without touching the pillars. Shortly after the last bridge we anchored and went back to bed for a short nap. It was only 3 miles to the anchorage north of the marina where we put the anchor down. 

The marina is very large and destination to the sailors from the “Route du Rhum”, a multi-hull race from France to Guadeloupe. It has many cute restaurants and a variety of other shops. We wanted to rent a car to go the volcano at Basse Terre but because of carnival there were no cars available and the vulcano was any how in the clouds the whole day. 

So we dinghied to town and walked over to a second hand chandlery along a back street with “ladies of the horizontal”. I was greeting them in the beginning with a pleasant "bonjour", but they did not really looked back at me, suddenly I said to Jacques,: there are a lot of single women on this street!!. So he had to make me a little wiser!!! The owner is a Dutch woman who lives there already 16 years. She was happy to be able to speak Dutch with us. Afterwords we went to downtown which is the first typical creole place we visited. Really nice with lots of open markets full of fresh fish and spices, a town that lived its own live and not that of the tourists.

At lunchtime we met a couple from Rotkreuz, Switzerland; it is a really small village where we lived for three years when we arrived there. The world is really small when we are discussing live in Rotkreuz on the island of Guadeloupe. Was really nice. We promised to send them an E-mail with our blog address so that they can follow our progress.

The next day we left for Marie Galante, 18 miles down the road. It was supposed to be calm weather but we had some near-showers with a lot of wind and waves. We made it safely to Grand Bourg at Marie Galante and anchored in the harbor, waiting for better weather to sail to Dominica.

Beaucoup de baises amicables from Ria