Land of Milk and Honey (and Croissants and Coffee)

Current Location: St Annes Bay, Martinique

We’ve made it to Martinique. This is where we will leave Petronella for Christmas and New Year.

For a change, instead of writing something new, here is our log from the time we left Carriacou (just north of Grenada) until Monday morning.

View from the remote anchorage of Isle de Ronde, south of Carriacou

Sunday 27^th November 2016

Up at 5am. Rained all night. Pouring. Winds look good. E 10 to 15 knots until it turns ESE and strengthening. But it’s going to be a wet 26 hours.

0600 – Anchor up, blustery start, engine on. Sails up, slightly hairy as, of course, it gusts to 20 knots at just the wrong time. 15k ENE. Full sails up. Reefed main after a squall.

0740 – Fish on! Caught a tuna. 5lbs on the new cedar plug. Gilly gutted it for the fridge. Whoop. Whoop. Now off Union Island. Going well. Bowling along at more than 7k on a flattish sea, Wanda [wind steering] on steering us at 010 degrees north.

Tuna - caught on the new cedar plug - just the right size for eating - yum, yum

0855 – The day has brightened up. Flattish sea. E wind. Averaging over 6k still, in the right direction! Fishing ceased. Waterproofs off.

1100 – Still cracking on. Slipped downwind. Shook out reef. St Vincent now clear off the starboard bow. Sunny but squalls over the islands. Speed 5.4k.

1315 – Speed 6.3k. Track 021 degrees. Crossed St Vincent/Bequia channel. Sun out. The world is good. Cup-a-Soup for lunch. 16 hours to St Annes would give 0515 tomorrow. 84 miles to go.

Cracking on, on flat seas, north Union Island

1414 – Just got sails balanced and J noticed outhaul coming loose. Engine on (Battery 2 after Battery 1 refused to start!). Sails down, readjust outhaul. All back together again now and sailing. Engine charging on Battery 1 for a bit. Now to get sails set as we cruise down the western side of St Vincent.

1500 – Rats. Lost wind behind St Vincent. Engine northwards.

1700 – Finally a bit of wind. Engine off (too early?). Let’s hope we can sail to St Lucia. Curry for tea. Get ready for night time.

1750 – Staysail down, main reefed for night, wash, washup. All too late, again!

1900 – Dark. Gilly saw boat coming towards us that was probably an aeroplane. St Lucia off our starboard bow. Stars with some cloud. 10-14k ESE, 6-7k boat speed. Estimated arrival at St Annes now 0600 but plenty of variables still. Both awake at present.

2300 – Awoken by John. 10-12k forward of the beam he hit a wind shadow from the Pitons of 2.5k. Wanda turned us round. I got up groggy, we turned the boat round and I thought we were going backwards! Soon got P back on track and jogged along at 3-4k down the side of St Lucia. Wind got up as we passed Rodney Bay during John’s next watch. So pleased the main was reefed and staysail taken down.

0130 (Monday 28^th November) – Left the shelter of St Lucia. Seas rolly and a bit of spray came in. 14k from SE. Made a good course – in fact too high so had to ease off as we approached Martinique. Lightening all around us.

0600 – Approaching Martinique at dawn on a lumpy sea. Cloudy but sun came up as we motored into the anchorage at 0700. Jack (Carpe Diem) came out in his dinghy to welcome us. Wonderful. Sails down and anchored in 6m, 35m of chain out. We are here. Sorted out boat. Raining so put sails up to wash them, until the wind got up. 135 miles in 24 hours. Great sail.

Went over to Carpe Diem and took Fizzy and their passengers Lottie and Max into St Annes. Checked in in the café near Huit a Huit then on to the patisserie for coffee and pain au chocolat. YES. It’s beautiful here.Lots of boats basking on a calm sea.

Petronella at anchor again (actually back in Isle de Ronde!)

We were invited back to Carpe Diem for John’s tuna. Great evening….until the wind went round to the west. CD bumped as it hit a shallow patch. We saw lights come on in the anchorage and got back to P just in time. We were dragging down towards a catamaran. Nightmare! Got engine started as the wind got up to 40k. John picked up the anchor very slowly. Dark, sprayey, windy, boats dragging everywhere. Eventually we were free, then the steering chain fell off the tiller. Shit. By now there were big rollers sweeping (we heard 6’ and 8’ waves mentioned on the radio this morning). Bowling along out of control through the anchorage with 25k of wind. John rushed aft and took the tiller and I shouted ‘port’ or ‘starboard’ as we weaved through the fleet then anchored but not until the steering has come off another twice. Eventually we anchored in 6m at least 100m away from everyone else and watched as people re-anchored all over the place. Dreadful two hours. At one point a big cat passed us motoring into the waves with big waves making it rear up.

Then we had to get the engine off the dinghy in case it got swamped in the waves. The swell was big. Poor John got tossed around. But finally we settled down for a rolly night.

In the morning boats radioed in damage. One boat on the shore, dinghies trashed or sunk, anchors abandoned after rodes chaffed through. It was a massive localised squall but huge. Further south boats were also lost on St Lucia last night. Carpe Diem had managed to re-anchor and survived the night too.

Lessons Learned: 1. Even our trusty Rocna anchor can drag. There do seem to be some softer patches of sand. Perhaps that why we dragged? 2. We need new head torches. 3. We managed extremely difficult circumstances with no damage to ourselves, P or any other boat. Quite a night!!

In other news we have had a lot of interest in Petronella with several interested parties. So we have decided if we can to buy Tiger Lily, if necessary before we sell P. This is a big decision as two boats mean double the cost of berthing and maintenance, double the hassle and just quite a big risk all round. We don't usually do risks like this but Tiger Lily is now here in Martinique and so convenient compared for example with a boat we were looking at in Portland, Oregon! We meet Tiger Lily's current owners for further discussion in the near future.