2024-12-21 Unexciting week in Dominica

We checked into Portsmouth, Dominica on Monday morning.  Elected to walk to the Customs office, which is 1.9 miles from the dinghy dock at the PAYs (Portsmouth Association of Yacht Services) dock.   You can dingy to the customs office directly, but it costs $10 EC to use their dock, and we decided to get some exercise and save money.

We checked in and out with a two-week stay at the same time, which is a great service Dominica offers.

After the check in, we walked another mile to find a grocery store that Kris had seen on Google Maps.  We never found it.  When we got back to the boat after our 6-mile walk, we looked on maps again, and must have been 100' short of the store when we gave up and turned around.  Oh well - did not really want to carry groceries back the 3 miles anyway.  Saw a cannon in a storefront on the way back - wonder what the story is on that?

Old cannon in abandoned store

Tuesday was an exciting day - not!   Rainy off and on, with gusty winds, so just hung out on the boat.  There were at one time 4 large multi masted cruise ships in the harbor, shuttling people back and forth.   

Large sailing cruise ships in harbor.

Wednesday was another unexciting day.  Rainy off and on, with gusty winds, so just hung out on the boat.  Water tanks are full.

Thursday we went t town.   Kris had gotten an ear infection, so we went into the doctor.   $100 EC for the office visit ($37 USD)  Doctor super nice, and took almost a full 20 minutes to inspect the ears and talk about causes and prevention.  Then we went off to the pharmacy - a new one we had never seen before, quite large.   Another $24 USD for the week of antibiotics if needed, and ear drops for the week as well.

Dean wandering the large pharmacy while waiting on prescription

Stopped at a couple of stores on the way back, but found nothing to buy, but did see some chickens - a staple of any walk in the Caribbean.  (Kris always loves seeing little chicks)

Momma chicken with two chicks

We made plans to take a tour on Saturday, as Friday was rainy.

Friday - rainy day - hung out on boat.  Kris cleaned and hung up Christmas decorations.

Christmas decorations up

Saturday - tour day - pouring rain, the most of all week.  Not forecasted.   Cancelled the tour, as we don't think hiking the mountain streams to see a waterfall is a good idea in pouring rain.   Oh well. It rained so much the blue water of the anchorage turned brown, and lots of floating wood, coconuts, leaves and such - water is brown, but not much trash at all which is good to see.

Rainy and cloudy

You can kind of see the hills in the background through the clouds

Had to fend off a couple of large logs that drifted out in the anchorage, washed off shore in the rain.  

Disappointing not to take the tour, but we are OK with it.  We spent a lot of time in Dominica with Derek 11 years ago and did quite a bit of touring.  We would stay longer and wait out the weather, but our niece is coming to visit on Christmas, so we will head out today to Guadeloupe, as the winds are favorable for a sail.    Guadeloupe has some nice spots we have never seen, so can hopefully make some good memories with our niece seeing those.

2024-12-15 St. Anne to St. Pierre to Dominica

 We stayed in St. Anne until Friday.   We had an issue with our mainsail on the last trip, where the sail was pulling out of the track when we reefed.  Kris noticed that the bolt rope on our luff had parted way, which is why our sail probably seemed a bit baggy in that area as well.  We decided to get a quote from the local sail lofts on repair.   We found out that only one sail loft could do the repair, as the others lofts were too small.  

We talked to the lady at the desk, who spoke good English, and she said they were only booked out a couple of weeks, so we could get a repair within a couple of weeks.  We then asked price, and she went off a bit, saying that we had to bring the sail in, that they would not quote time or price until they saw the sail. 

Then Kris dared to ask if they had any examples or photos of their work.   Well, that did it.  She was quite offended and went off on a full minute tirade, basically saying that if we did not trust them, then leave as they did not need our work.   Love that French attitude.

We decided not to have them fix our sail, so then spent some time looking at the track, and taking measurements of the sail and mast and boom to get some quotes for a new sail.   This involved a trip up the mast for Dean, to check out the track, then a trip up the mast for Kris when the tape measure we hoisted up to measure parted ways from the halyard, so we had to go up and retrieve the halyard.

We also got some new line for our dinghy hoisting, as the old like was getting a bit worn.  Dean did an excellent job putting in a couple of eye splices.

Working on splicing the line

Finished splices look good

We also did take time to walk in for an ice cream, and get some more groceries.

View of St. Anne anchorage from shore (while eating ice cream)

St. Anne town square.  Nice shady benches for enjoying ice cream.

Lovely sunsets

Friday we sailed up to St. Pierre on the north end of Martinique.   OK, no sailing, just a motor trip.  The island blocks the wind, and it was a calm day as well.  

St. Pierre was destroyed in the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelee.  There are several monuments in town, and a museum that we had not gone to.   It was Saturday when we went to town, and a small cruise ship was also in, and the Saturday market was going on.

Anchorage at St. Pierre.  Cruise ship on left.  Mt. Pelee center

The main welcome building at the end of town pier had burnt recently.

Busy Saturday market

We took a bit of a walk around town.

Narrow streets with houses side by side

View of harbor and town 

We went to the Mt. Pelee 1902 Memorial museum.  Interesting, but not as well done as we had hoped.

Dean, reading about the eruption.  All information was in French and English

Inside the memorial

After visiting the memorial, we walked a bit more around the town and side streets.

Very quaint town, narrow streets and some nicely tended yards

Very large church for the size of the town

We were going to get ice cream again, but it did not open until 1:00, so we headed back to the boat.

Sunday we went in early, and checked out, and then sailed up to Portsmouth, Dominica. Had a nice sail, where we started on motor only, then full sail, then one reef, then full sail, then two reefs, then full sail, then one reef, then motor, then full sail and ending with motor only.  Quite the day.

Sailing by Roseau, Dominica.

We will most likely be here for a week, but we don't really know.

2024-12-08 St. Lucia, then on up to St. Anne in Martinique

 We hung out in St. Lucia most of the week.  Watched more boat racing on Sunday.  

J24 races in St. Lucia Mango Cup Regatta

A catamaran anchored in front of us was hosting a J24 racing that was from Grenada.   On Saturday, we retrieved a fender they had lost - just not tied well, and brought it back to them.  On Sunday, another fender went floating by - this one had a chaffed line.  We retrieved and took back to them.   

After the races, they then headed back to Grenada, towing the J24.  Evidently sometime in the night, they lost the J24 - as it either came untied, or the line chafed through.  Guess what - we were not surprised.  No worries, someone found the boat, and they got it back.

Monday, we walked to the Massey Gourmet grocery to see if we could find tortilla chips - YES, we did.  We can once again eat nachos. 😀

Tuesday rode the bus to the Massey Mega store - like a very small mini Costco, and got some more provisions including a new pillow for Kris's birthday present, and also indulged in two big bags of Reese's Peanut butter cups.

New pillow for Kris.  Pillows are one item that is very hard to wash on the boat.

Bought two bags of these - yummy treat

Kris has been trying to lose a little weight since we got back from the states - where we both indulged in too much junk food and goodies.  So she has decided that she has to do 5 pushups before eating.  So that is 15 pushups per day just for normal meals.  Then she decided that each peanut buttercup is 5 more pushups.   The only day she has taken off was her birthday - which was a free day.  Let's just say that Kris has been doing a lot of pushups this week since we got the peanut butter cups.

There is lots to see while out in anchorage in St. Lucia.  Lots of boat traffic, and we watched some construction going on near shore.  Was interesting to see two excavators working putting in a brand-new road through the trees.

Excavators working in tandem to put in a new road

Several cruise ships came in for a day and left, so we watched a lot of shuttles taking people back and forth.  The shuttles are also the lifeboats

Shuttle/lifeboat taking cruise ship passengers to town.

Wednesday we walked to town about a mile, and got Subway for lunch, on Kris's birthday.  The big 60.  And yes, the subway here tastes just like the subway back in the states.

Birthday lunch (and dinner)

Looking at the weather, we were trying to figure out when to make the next jump north, and we also were looking at the ARC fleet.  ARC hosts an Atlantic crossing for cruisers from the Azores to St. Lucia.  There are 143 boats in this fleet making the crossing, expected to arrive in St. Lucia in the coming days.  In fact, the first boat already arrived.  

ARC Fleet of 143 boats, all headed for where we are in St. Lucia

No Rush, a Southern Wind 105GT - first of the ARC fleet to arrive

With the number of boats heading over, we decided it was time to make the jump north, so we got ready.  Kris pulled out our French flag, and decided a bit of repair was needed.  

Sewed new read end onto a bit of beat up French courtesy flag

We checked out Friday, and on Saturday headed to Martinique.   Nice sail, a bit lumpy as seas were 2 to 6 feet, but not bad.  

Arriving in St. Anne was a bit of a shock as to the number of boats here.  Probably 3 times more as there were when we were here in May/June.  Still a lot of room to anchor.  We were in by 13:00, so decided we would head into town, check in and have a nice lunch/dinner out.

 

It is a 2.6 nautical mile dinghy ride in from the St. Anne anchorage into Le Marin.   

We made it to the office to check in just before 14:00, and had to wait 10 minutes, as they were closed and opened back up at 14:00.  That should have been a clue.

After checking in, we headed to a restaurant along the waterfront and sat down, ordered a couple of cokes, and then Kris got the Wi-Fi from the restaurant working on her phone so we could translate the menu to English before ordering.   We got ready to order, and then were told that the kitchen was closed for the afternoon rest period.  So we paid for our cokes, which luckily we had not opened yet, and went to find somewhere else to eat.  No luck.  We had forgotten that the French islands pretty much shut down all afternoon, and restaurants don't open back up until usually after 6:00 p.m.    

So we went to the grocery store - got a few items, then back to the boat.  - Oh well, we will plan better if we want to go in to eat again.  This harbor has many charter boat companies and a lot of catamarans ready to be rented.

Full Marina and mooring field in Le Marin

Derek has decided that he will be coming to visit in March, so we will keep moving North fairly frequently to make it to Georgetown Bahamas for his visit, but it still allows us about a week at every stop, so we will enjoy St. Anne / Le Marin for a while. 

2024-12-01 Thanksgiving at Bequia, then up to St. Lucia

We stayed on the boat all day Sunday, it was rainy, and we enjoyed watching our neighbor shuttle guests back and forth to town.

Yes, you can charter this fine vessel starting at 2.2 million per week.   It has 149 suites and 246 crew to serve you.

Monday we went to town and signed up for a Thanksgiving buffet to be held at the Plantation Hotel restaurant.  Took a short walk around before the rain came again.

View of Bequia harbor, we are anchored about mid photo

Walkway along water in Bequia, part of the Princess Margaret Trail

Nice dinghy dock at Plantation Hotel restaurant

Kris went for a nice little snorkel on Wednesday, she swam from the boat to shore to snorkel around a rocky area.  It was a bit of a swim in an area where boats and dinghy's can zoom around which is always concerning as it can be hard to see a snorkeler, and even harder to get out of the way of a boat when snorkeling, but luckily we had found a yellow pool noodle drifting by the boat the other day.  Did not find an owner so Kris wrapped it around her and had two bright yellow ends sticking up out of the water making her quite visible and safer to make the swim.

She saw a new animal while snorkeling, in fact three of them.  A sharp-tail eel.  Happy to see that there was more live coral than further south.  Bequia was not as hard hit by hurricane Beryl.  

Just a few photos of the snorkel.

Sharp-tail Eel

Wednesday we went for a nice walk; headed over the hill to the bay on the south side.  Only a couple of miles, but good to stretch the legs.  The hill from the dinghy dock to the main road was a killer at a 45 degree slope,  but after that it was all good.  

We are always amazed at some driveways and how steep they are. The photo doesn't do it credit, but you can see the steps on the side to help walkers navigate the drive

Nice retaining wall

Nice old wood doorway

South side beach

Nice view of island and of island to south Petit Nevis 

Near the top of hill looking southwest

Thursday we went to town and picked up some sodas at a local distributor, and then got cinnamon rolls at the local bakery.  Yes, we know - sugar sugar sugar - but it is soooo yummy. 😁

Picture doesn't show well, but this road goes to top of hill in straight line.  It is very very steep.

Thursday we joined a group of other folks for the Thanksgiving buffet dinner put on by the Plantation Hotel restaurant.   They did a great job, and we had a wonderful time.

Sat next to Alex and Lisa off of Hahalua.  You can see our plates are quite loaded with food.

Around 62 cruisers showed up for the buffet.

Early Friday morning at 4:00 a.m. we hoisted anchor and set sail.  A week of strong winds is coming, and we didn't not want to stay in Bequia for another two weeks, so we headed out before the seas got bigger.  With the week of winds hoping for a more pleasant trip north to St. Lucia which was our next stop.

The winds were more variable than we had hoped, but we made it to St. Lucia in time to check in before the overtime fees at customs were enacted.   

We enjoyed watching the brown booby's while sailing.   They have learned that boats will disturb the small fish near the surface, causing them to jump out, which makes it great for the booby's to catch a meal.  So they follow the boats, flying close to them ready to dive down and get a fish.

Looking for any disturbed fish.  The brown booby is very acrobatic, and fun to watch dive for fish

Saturday we got a nice surprise.  The St. Lucia yacht club was having the annual Mango Bowl Regatta.  We got to sit and have a nice ringside view of the around 30 J24 and similar boats racing around the harbor.  They did at least 8 races on Saturday, and more to follow today.

Small boats racing in the anchorage.

There were also 4 larger boats racing a longer course.

We took advantage of the nice sunny day to do some laundry.   We found running a line back and forth under our bimini works well to hang the laundry.  It gets less wind, but no worries about the laundry flying off the lifelines in the strong winds.

Laundry drying in the heat, but in the shade so no sun fading.

Today is more racing, and relaxing on the boat.