Bequia & St Lucia.

17th – 21th December 2012

Bequia

From our last anchorage in Salt Whistle Bay we thought we might head east over to the Island of Mystic. This small private island has many upmarket villas and is reputedly the summer home of choice for the likes of Mick Jagger and others of the jet setting showbiz league. Sadly the wind gods had other ideas for us, so our next stop was Bequia instead. Arriving mid afternoon we settled in just off the white sands of Princess Margaret beach and before long the four of us were in the dinghy and heading into town. Many cruisers like Bequia, it’s a cute little place, and  they tend to hang in the anchorage for weeks at a time.This was GWTW’s third appearance here and we still couldn’t quite get the attraction of the place. Horses for courses I guess.

 

One thing that we do like about the place is the very good fresh veggie market just along from the town dock, and this time finding Doris’s supermarket in one of the back streets was a real bonus. Helen and Bridget strolled the town for a few hours snapping up a few more nick naks to add to their selection of souvenirs, and a chance meeting under a shady tree saw us catching up with Phil and Monica from “Miss Molly”, who we’d seen in both Trinidad and Grenada a few weeks earlier.

Later that evening after sundowners on “Miss Molly” we all hit the local pizza restaurant for dinner, the girls then went back to town for the Christmas Pageant which according to them was a bit of a dud.There were  lots of pretty lights but not much else happening. After one night in Bequia the girls were ready to move on and so were we.

Next morning the wind had come in from the ENE at 15 –20 kts and the seas between Bequia and St Vincent , the next island north had swells of 5-8 ft which made for a choppy crossing. Once in the lee of St Vincent things calmed down and we scooted along with a full main and jib. It was great to be sailing in fast in flat water. St Vincent is a mountainous, lush  Island with the foliage stretching from the high peaks all the way down to the sea. Not many yachts stop here.The island has a high risk reputation earned over many years of theft, and some armed robbery incidents. We did see a couple of boats anchored in two bays, but we were still not comfortable in taking the chance.

Leaving the calm waters of St Vincent behind, we continued north towards St Lucia across the 20 mile passage that separates the two Islands. At 1145am we had 17 miles to run when disaster struck. The wind and seas had picked up quite a lot and suddenly there was an almighty bang as white water hit the port hull  and proceeded to tear part of our port side trampoline away. Bugger!!

Then not 15 minutes later, another almighty bang. Shit! This time it was port jib sheet separating from the jib clew. The jib was left flogging wildly at the front of the boat and we quickly had the engines on and turned downwind to furl the sail. Not one of our neatest furling attempts, it looked like a dog’s breakfast by the time we were done. Still shell shocked from the morning’s events we hastily put a reef in the main, good decision, got the boat back on course, excellent decision, and  then got our heart rates back to normal, even better decision, thank God.

With our house now in order, or should that read tatters, we took stock of what had actually happened. After few minutes we realized that not only had the sheet failed but the jib turning block on the coachouse roof had also torn off, taking the mounting pad and part of the fiberglass with it. Bugger, bugger bugger!!

 

It was not a good day out there on the water. Now for those of you non sailors reading this, none of what happened that day was life threatening. It was just major adrenaline pumping and a big expensive mess to fix. But hey, this is cruising after all.

St Lucia

By late afternoon we were safely tied to a mooring ball between the beautiful soaring peaks of the Pitons at the south end of St Lucia, and it goes without saying, with a very strong G&T in hand. The clear deep waters around the base of the Pitons were hard to resist and it wasn’t long before we were all diving in hoping that the stress of the day’s earlier events would just float away.

 

 

St Lucia proved to be  great stop for us.  We moved up to Rodney Bay at the northern end of the island, a place where there is always something going on. It’s kind of the centre of the universe when it comes to St Lucia and is also the finish line for the ARC Rally (the Atlantic Rally for Cruisers). Most of the 200 boats that took part were already in port but there was still a party atmosphere with those in the marina and the anchorage proudly flying their rally flags. As we well know it’s a pretty significant milestone to be able to say that you have sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. As we sat chilling-out dockside late that arvo, we were amazed when Ian from the Aussie yacht Sundancer 2 strolled by. The last time we had seen he and his wife Helen was in Positano on the Amalfi coast of Italy back in 2010, and now here they were in Rodney Bay. What a small world this is.

St Lucia is yet another lush Island with rainforests, high peaks and winding roads. We decided to hire a car from Cost u Less rentals and see as much as we could, mind you that only took a day. As with a lot of tourist destinations some places are touted up to be more interesting than they actually are as we quickly found out. Without going into a lot of detail we had a good look around Fort Rodney then drove the coast road through Castries, the capital, Marigot Bay, a popular bay on for cruisers and charterers and then on to the seaside town of  La Soufriere for a lunch stop in the shadow of the Pitons. After a quick walk around town, it looked a bit dodgy so we headed back to the car and were off to the bottom of the island and up the other side arriving back in Rodney Bay just on dusk.

 

   

        

That same night was the local Jump Up, or street party, at the neighbouring village of Gros Islet. Most of the streets were blocked off and both  locals and tourists came out to enjoy the party. Food stalls, make-shift  bars, loud music and dancing made for a fun time.

 

The forecast for the days leading up to Christmas was for strong winds.  As we had seen as much as we could in St Lucia we decided that the French Island of Martinique would be a good place to hunker down and spend a few days. Next morning we said goodbye to our friends on Sundancer, who were going to continue south, and we pointed our bows north for a Christmas in Martinique.

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THE 500 MILE DASH: St Martin to Grenada in 8 days
6th – 14th April 2012

The idea of sailing from St Martin to Trinidad in one big hit was never going to get up, well not with this brown duck. We can sail hard all day long from from dawn to dusk, but if there’s a decent anchorage within cooee at the end of the day then it has our name on it. So we earmarked the next 8 anchorages and off we went.
After an easy 66 mile sail from St Martin we pulled into White House Bay at the bottom of the island of St Kitts. Five other catamarans were also anchored in the bay but we never saw a human on board any of them. It had been a pleasant day’s sailing passing the playground of the rich and famous, St Barts, the soaring volcanic peaks on the diving mecca of Saba and the lush rolling green hills of northern St Kitts. Arriving just as the sun threatened to kiss the horizon we were glad to stop for the night.

Day two and we were up with the sparrows at 5am and on our way to Dominica, 120 miles to the south east. Taking the passage between St Kitts and it’s neighboring island Nevis seemed the sensible thing to do as we wanted to take advantage of the early morning breeze on the island’s windward side. A clear but chilly morning had greeted us and heading east the rising sun reflected on the water ahead. Watching the local fisherman pull in their traps had us on the lookout for any stray floats in our path. And then it happened. A strange clunk under the hull, the rev of the engine and sure enough we were hitched. Liam pulled the throttles back to neutral and the telltale float reared its’ ugly head from under our port transom. No amount of persuasion with the boathook could dislodge the offending rope, so an early morning dip for the skipper was no longer an option. The current was running at a fair clip and he had a hard time hanging on to the hull to cut the rope free, but after a couple of attempts was back on board with his trophy. Warming up with a hot shower and a steaming cuppa he soon felt brand new and we were on our way once again.
By 2pm the light breeze started to die. The island of Dominica, our planned overnight stop, was still 7 hours away so on went the motors. A couple of miles further ahead lay the the island of Montserrat. Devastated by volcanic eruptions in the mid 90’s which obliterated the hills, towns, homes and 8000 inhabitants of the island’s south west, the ash covered landscape was an eerie reminder of the forces of mother nature.

As we motored past the exclusion zone, acrid smoke from the still belching volcano filled the air. Not only was the smell of sulphur in the air but the waters surrounding the island were affected as well. Earlier, as we neared the area we had turned off our watermaker but all too late to save our precious filters.They instantly turned black and were bin bound shortly there after.
       
   Theses pictures show the massive area covered with ash & lava.The city of Plymouth gone forever.
       
       


Flexible: the capability to adapt to new, different or changing requirements. This little word is one of the most important in a cruiser’s vocabulary. Timing and weather play a major role in our day to day decisions and seeing an approaching line of squalls to the south of us we abruptly scratched Dominica, still 70 miles away, from our anchoring list for the night. The town of Deshaies on Guadeloupe was a mere 30 miles so plan B was put into action and we made a bee line to our revised destination. It was a good decision.
The next few days all rolled into one with us usually covering anywhere between 40 to 70 miles each day. Easter Sunday had crept up on us this year and we celebrated with a lobster dinner while tied to a mooring ball at the south end of Dominica and sadly, the Easter Bunny didn’t find us. Usually we’re not ones for picking up balls but by the time we arrived it was getting late, a bit of a reoccurring pattern there, and checking our depth sounder the sea floor just disappeared into the abyss. From a narrow band of 20 feet deep at the waters edge the bottom fell away to well over 100 feet within a boat length of the shore. After a few circuits of the bay we gave up on the idea of anchoring. Sometimes you just have to bight the bullet and part with a few dollars in the interest of a good night’s sleep.
As we hadn’t checked in to anywhere since leaving St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands 2 weeks ago, we figured that it might be a good idea to put some sort of paper trail in place. Once we got to Martinique, we paid a visit to the Douane (customs) office, filled out the computerised form, printed it off, showed it to the nice officer behind the desk and voila, another speed record was set, in and out in less than ten minutes! You can always trust the French not to beat around the bush.They really do have a great system for their check-ins.


Over the next couple of days we had some fabulous sailing conditions  and with speeds averaging 10kts the old girl really kicked up her skirt. Overnight stops included St Lucia, Bequia and we had considered stopping in Tyrell bay on Canouan  but we found the holding to be very poor so we pushed on to the  the north coast of Grenada.


Mother nature had put on a couple of wonderful displays in the sky during the second half of our trip and the halo around the sun, something you don’t see everyday, had even been reported in the local Trinidad papers we later found out.
  
Arriving into Prickly bay on Granada's’ southern coast as planned on the eight day we treated ourselves to a night out at our favourite Chinese restaurant, and then collapsed into bed ready to have a well earned day off tomorrow. Trinidad was now just a hop skip and a jump away at last!  

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Martinique

Baguettes, Pates & Cheeses

5th -8th February 2011

Our mileage log read 55miles when we anchored at Saint Pierre on the north west side of Martinique.  It had been a long sail from Dominica and we were very glad to have arrived before nightfall as the bay is littered with over a dozen submerged wrecks some of which lay only a few metres below the surface.

       Monte  Pelee covered with cloud                                                 A postcard sunset

These wrecks  are the result of the 1902 eruption of Mont Pelee which stands 7 kilometers inland. The violent eruption destroyed the town in only 10minuites leaving only a couple of survivors one of whom was in a jail cell.

We will return here later in the year to explore the area and visit the Musee Volcanologique which is said to be excellent.

Reading the trusty Lonely Planet it says that the sunsets off Sainte Pierre are postcard perfect and on que our sunset was exactly that, perfect.

After a good nights sleep  we awoke on Sunday morning to the sound of church bells and the beautiful voices of a choir  emanating  from the town’s cathedral what a lovely peaceful way to start the day..

The day looked overcast with a few squalls around but we decided to head down the coast to the anchorage of Sainte Anne anyway. When we were about halfway across the huge bay of Forte de France we were hit by a monster squall packing winds of 36 knots in complete whiteout conditions.  We had quite a job furling our jib, everything on the rig was shaking violently and we had visions of something letting go, thankfully nothing did. The poor jib looked like a dog’s breakfast by the time we got it away but at least it was still in one piece. The squalls came and went in almost endless succession over the next couple of hours so by 3pm we were relieved to be anchored in the shallow waters of St Anne.

We spent the next couple of days here while the wind blew and the rain poured on and of each day. The town of Sainte Anne is small and nothing to write home about but the bay is very large with a beautiful with sand beach housing the premises of Club Med at one end.

Club med at Sainte Anne

Check in at customs, Douane as it is called in French was once again very easy.

The following day we took GWTW further round the bay to Cul - De - Sac Du Marin for a spot of supermarket shopping so that we could stock up on a few legs of New Zealand Lamb as well as all those wonderful French delicacies that unfortunately do not reflect well when we jump on the scales these days!! It was way easier to take the boat around rather than find a taxi.

Adding Sainte Anne to our growing list of anchorages, we will stop here again when we return from Trinidad.

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CRUISER INFO:

Supermarkets, Marin: Leader Price has its own dinghy dock and is located in the top left hand corner of the bay; Carrefour is one block further to the north in Commercial centre Annette. ED is located across the road from the Porte du Marin Marina office at the opposite end of the bay and you can tie the dinghy to the marina dinghy dock near the marina office

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Formalities: Customs is located on the northern shore of the bay near the chandleries. They have a large dinghy dock at the front. Hours are 7 days     0730 – 1300. No cost and done via computer. They did stamp our passports. Very helpful customs officer, and will give directions to supermarkets. Town maps available from the marina office.

Eating: Deli France and a few good establishments on the waterfront near customs. Sainte Anne, café Coco Peliee near dinghy dock had free wi-fi and good meals.

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ST LUCIA

9^th February 2011

The following morning it was time to move on. We made a fleeting visit to St Lucia where we picked up a mooring ball at the end Soufriere bay near Malgretoute under the towering peaks of the Pitons. As the anchorage here is very deep and swinging room limited even when you pick up a ball you still need to stern tie to a coconut palm. Memories of Turkey came flooding back where that was the normal way of life when anchoring in a lot of the bays, mind you in Turkey we tied to pine trees or big rocks not palm trees.

                 Tied to a palm tree with The Pitons behind             

        

                                                          Fruit seller at The Pitons

The boat boys  who helped us tie up were very helpful and organized, we paid them $ EC 25 for their help, and the Park ranger who arrived just on dusk , memories of Croatia this time ,was also very polite. He wanted $EC 56 for two nights but as we only wanted to stay one night and were leaving at 0730 we negotiated a deal of $EC 20 plus 2 cans of beer and he went away a happy chappie.    

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CRUISER INFO:

Formalities:  Australians need to purchase a visa on arrival & the cost is  $50 US pp. This is on top of the regular check in fee.