February 2009
Guadeloupe, Iles des Saintes, Dominica, Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent, Bequia.
Gypsy Dancer arrived in Pointe-A-Pitre after a 129 miles / 25 hour sail from Nevis in reasonably good shape. We'd reefed down to the first reef during the night to negate the effects of some squalls. For the first time ever I'd tied down the foot of the main sail with reefing ties because the reefed part of the sail was interfering with visibility and because I fancied trying to make the sail a better shape.. At first light, off the coast of Guadeloupe, we decided to shake out the reefs... and forgot about the ties. It took surprisingly little effort on the halyard to pull the reefing cringle down to the next seam and put a short vertical tear in the main. Oops!
We had to reef down to the second reef to protect the main as we sailed the last 30 miles around the southern side of Guadeloupe and up to Pointe-A-Pitre, arriving on a Sunday. Being a French island everything was closed and the island, like the rest of France and her colonies, was in the throws of a small revolution with strikes, food shortages and eventually some violence amongst the local population.
The main problem we found was re-supplying as the supermarkets were short of food and some only open for a few hours a day. We had no choice of sail makers for the repair as there was only one working. The other one couldn't buy enough petrol to get to his sail loft.
A few days later we were joined by friends Pat & Rob, fellow Moody owners from Dartmouth.
New crew aboard, re-provisioned and sail repaired we set of for a short 25 mile sail across to the Isles des Saintes. We crossed this lumpy stretch of water in 3 1/2 hours to an anchorage off Anse du Borg on Terre du Haut, the largest of the islands. The new 200’ (60 m) of anchor chain came into its own here as parts of the anchorage are deeper than I could have anchored in with the meagre 80' (25 m) I had last year.
We walked up to Fort Napoleon which overlooks the anchorage and has finer views of the south coast of Guadeloupe and the other islands in the ‘Saintes’. It also has an interesting museum and large iguanas roaming the grounds.
We moved to Pain du Sucre anchorage, a favourite in the Saintes, and from there had a trip across to Anse Fideling on Terre du Bas. However this anchorage was a bit tenuous – it was small and the holding was a bit iffy, and there was nowhere safe to tie the dinghy up (the jetty has been destroyed) in the chop too so I dropped Jacky, Pat and Rob on the beach (fun landing with waves!) and stayed on the boat while they explored and had a nice lunch – hmmm!
On the 9th of February we sailed the 21 miles from the Saintes to Prince Rupert Bay to anchor off the town of Portsmouth. Dominica is one of the poorer islands in the eastern Caribbean and hasn’t been heavily developed for hotel-based tourism because it lacks 25-hour airport facilities. However the locals are some of the friendliest in the area. I wonder if these two facts are connected.
We took an island tour in a minibus with a one-eyed driver called Winston who was in his sixties but was still looking for a rich woman to keep him in the style he’d like to become accustomed to! Untroubled by ever being married he was extremely proud of his 6 children…
The island has some interesting sites including a ‘Martian’ coastal landscape, some good forested waterfalls with associated natural swimming pools and an area were the remnants of the Carib Indians, the population that was ‘displaced’ (i.e. ‘killed off’) by European settlement, still live.
We spent another day touring Fort Shirley – more evidence that these islands were continually fought over by European powers. There is some good forest walking around the Fort with tracks past crumbling military buildings up to good viewpoints. We also had an early morning trip along the Indian River into the hinterland behind Portsmouth where all sorts of wild life and flora can be seen.
Next port of call was Roseau, Dominica’s capital, further south along the west coast. There’s a truly great vegetable and fruit market here where you can buy the superb quality produce of this very fertile island.
Next crossing was the 52 miles to Martinique. About half of this crossing was in the channel between the islands and so is exposed to the Atlantic swell which was running a pretty normal 4 – 6’ that day. The rest of the trip was in the lee of Martinique but the wind is always fluky behind the islands so it can be a frustrating alternation between good blasts of wind and motoring sailing. We made it to Grand Anse D’Arlets where we checked in and found more empty shops and deserted / shuttered restaurants due to the continuing strikes.
We did however enjoy a good sunset meal at one of the few restaurants that was open and had a table directly on the beach and waves lapping only a few feet away. The following day we motored round to Petite Anse D’Arlets where we managed to find a few provisions in a small shop attached to a bar.
It is 28 miles across the St Lucia Channel from Grand Anse D’Arlets to Rodney Bay, St Lucia. We had pleasant trade wind conditions and made the trip in 4 ½ hours arriving ‘under the guns’ of the old fort on the heights of Pigeon Island.
We spent a few days anchored in Rodney Bay where Rob and Pat were due to leave Gypsy Dancer. A constant stream of power boats of all sizes making high-speed fuel runs from Martinique where there was still no petrol keep us rocking and rolling at all hours of the day and night.
After a few days pleasant socialising in Rodney Bay we moved on to Vieux Fort along the south coast of St Lucia. We went partly because we hadn’t been before and partly to escape the forecast north swells.
Selecting an anchorage just under the cliffs turned out to be a mistake as the boat swung in towards the shore in the strong gusts curling over the cliff and reversing the wind direction so we had move a little further out in the early morning.
Going ashore meant leaving the dinghy on a huge commercial dock and being pleasant to the security guards at the terminal entrance. They were nice guys and even let us use their internet access for Jacky to send some urgent emails.
The town was a relatively tourist free zone with plenty of industry and a long windswept beach on the windward (East) side nearby. We spent four nights anchored there by which time we’d exhausted the delights of the town and were glad to head back to the Pitons were we spent four nights in three different anchorages, meeting up with Paul & Janie (s/y Shian) who commented on the grey blanket of cloud and rain as they arrived from offshore: “It looks pretty Hebridean in there.” We enjoyed meals together and catching up on what we’d both been doing since last our cruising paths had crossed.
At the end of February we left St Lucia, sailing the 48 miles to Young Island Cut on St Vincent where we were due to meet Jacky's daughter no.1 Melissa, and the following day daughter no. 2 Eleanor, at Bequia.