January 2009
Bequia - BVI's - Anegada - St Martin - Saba - St Eustatia - Nevis / St Kitts - Guadeloupe
We spent New Year's Eve at Fort de France anchored under Fort St Louis. We re-stocked our food here in the large supermarkets.
We took a day trip across to Anse Mitan on the other side of the bay which was badly hit by hurricanes this year. It had a rather sad, worn-down and somewhat seedy atmosphere compared to when we were here last year.
Biblioteque Schoelcher is an impressive iron building transported here after the Ge at Exhibition in Paris in the 1870's.
When the weather improved we set off northwards in a series of long day and moonlit overnight sails stopping at Deshaies on Guadeloupe, Nevis, Saba and on to Road Harbour at Tortola.
We had one fun five minutes in the middle of the night off the Isles de Saintes when on my watch I saw a squall approaching and tried to furl some headsail, but the furler jammed. I had to call Jacky from her bed to helm and be on deck while I went forward to sort it out. By the time I got back to the cockpit the squall had hit with probably 30 to 35 knots of wind and then hose-like rain - we were both soaked and for the first time I broke out some lightweight waterproof clothing in case it continued. But it was short-lived and we spent the rest of the night altering course where we could to avoid squalls and we didn't get hit as badly again.
The following morning we noticed a hole had appeared in the flexible transparent windows on the port side of the spray hood. Looking for the cause we found the detachable part of the life line on the port side was disconnected - it must have been flicked loose by a thrashing genoa sheet in the squall and the metal end must have done the damage to the window.
One of the highlights of this passage was sailing with a pod of very active dolphins that jumped and dived around the boat, and which did seem to increase their activity when Jacky sat on the bow clapping to attract them.
We headed into Road Town, Tortola which has two rolly anchorages, no easy place to dock for customs, expensive supermarkets and not much character. We checked in, shopped and headed over to Norman Island. The Byte on Norman Island has lots of mooring buoys - a feature of the BVI's - but it is a nice place. I suppose with the number of charter boats here mooring buoys are probably unavoidable and probably preferable to lying awake worrying about other people's anchoring techniques all night, but its a bit of a shock to see so many!
Great Harbour on Peter Island has some anchoring and is a good island to walk around on tracks. These islands are much drier than those in the Leeward's and Windward's. Its noticeable too that the coral is better developed and the fish are larger. Apparently this is due to slightly cooler water temperature and means the snorkeling is much better than further south.
Soper's Hole (West End) is full unless you wish to pay for a mooring. The anchorage under Spit Island (Little Jost Van Dyke) is excellent and we over-nighted there with a few other boats despite the warnings in the pilot.
Cane Garden Bay on the NW side of Tortola still has some room to anchor and is a pleasant place to spend a few days. It has a small supermarket, a laundrette, some reasonable beach bars and a sea front cemetery with views an estate agent would kill for!
After Cane Garden Bay we sailed north to the island of Anegada - a flat scrubby island with good beaches that is more like the Bahamian islands than the volcanic Caribbean islands. Here we walked across the island to the salt flats where we did eventually get a sighting of the flamingoes in the distance. A long dinghy ride to some reefs gave us our first sight of a large ray gliding over the sandy bottom with slow flaps of its wings / fins and a queen trigger fish. A candle-lit beach-front meal added to our enjoyment of this fine little island.
Sailing back to the Virgin's we anchored for lunch off Neckar Island - Caribbean home of a famous, bearded airline owner. The invitation to afternoon tea didn't arrive - it must have been lost in the post!
From here we crossed to a quiet anchorage east of Eustatia Island (not to be confused with St. Eustatia which is further south) and the following day sailed round to Spanish Town and back to clear out prior to our crossing to St Martin.
The Anegada Passage separates the BVI's from St Martin at the northern end of the Leeward Islands chain. This 80 mile passage, directly upwind and into the prevailing Equatorial Current, is exposed to the North Atlantic and is often the cause of epic stories (a friend of our calls it the "Oh My Gorda Passage".) We set off at first light into 15-20 knot Easterlies and an uncomfortable 10' swell, motorsail-tacking.
We spent most of a long day covering 109 miles over the ground for the 80 mile passage - 19 hours in all. During the day we had two problems. Firstly we managed to lose 100 gallons of fresh water - i.e. both tanks. It was pumped into the bilge and then out into the sea by the bilge pump because we forgot to turnoff the water pressure pump after lunch and a hose connector separated in the hot water system - a classic mistake!
Then the VHF aerial bracket fixings came loose at the top of the mast. There was no way to fix it in those seas so we just watched it flopping about it all the way to St Martin. Luckily it survived and was screwed back in place during a trip up the mast in St Martin. We arrived in St Martin just after midnight and carefully made our way to an anchorage in Marigot Bay in between some huge super yachts.
We spent a few days in St Martin taking advantage of the very good prices in the chandleries.
The global economic situation plus some short-sighted local charging for accessing the Dutch side of the lagoon and anchoring there is really biting so the chandleries, restaurants and bars are really quiet. The good news for us was huge discounts in the chandleries which helps with the adverse exchange rates we are suffering this year. Gypsy Dancer now has some lovely low-consumption LED reading and navigation lights.
From St Martin we sailed across to Saba - mooring under the cliffs at Ladder Bay where tropic birds breed.
The island is very steep to and the only way to get around is hitch-hiking up the almost vertical roads to the villages of The Bottom and Windwardside.
They have some well preserved old buildings, an artists community and some well signposted walks which are very enjoyable.
Here we learned of a local superstition about 'jumbies' (ghosts) that mean some people won't go out after dark and put broken glass across their doorways every evening to stop them coming into the house.
The next island in the chain is St Eustatius (Statia) which was once the centre of Caribbean trade and has a very interesting history featuring multiple invasions and smuggling to the New World colonies during the American war of independence.
We only spent one day at Statia as I'd been there before and we wanted to send more time on St Kitts. We did however visit the excellent local museum and look more carefully at the reclaimed land by the anchorage with its ruins of old jetties and warehouses showing what an active place this once was.
South again, a short sail to St Christopher - St Kitts - apparently Columbus was running out of saints names when he arrived here so he called it after himself!) We anchored in the very rolly bay outside the marina.
We took a dollar bus (mini bus used as local public transport) to Fort Brimstone, an impressive defensive site situated on an 800' high subsidiary volcanic cone on the west coast.
The well preserved and well documented set of buildings shows very clearly what it took to survive and live at this dramatic site. Going back to the boat I had a very close shave when I nearly fell in trying to get a grip on the boarding ladder while standing in a plunging dinghy and juggling a computer bag. That evening we celebrated Jacky's birthday with a very good meal at the Ballaloo Restaurant which is situated on a first floor terrace overlooking the main square.
The following day we sailed on south eastwards to Nevis where we walked around the town and 'enjoyed' the Christian reggae / hip-hop played at full volume through a massive and over-stressed loud-speaker stack in the main town square.
Customs and Immigration at Nevis where not open, so as far as Nevis / St Kitts are concerned we are still there!
On the last day of January we set off for the long overnight beat to Guadeloupe, sailing hard on the 15 knot wind - with the odd squall - past the sulphurous volcanic island of Montserrat and on to Vieux Fort Point, the south westerly most point of Guadeloupe.
Another 25 miles upwind took us into Point a Pitre, a protected harbour near the airport where we were meeting friends Pat & Rob from Dartmouth. All in all from Nevis to Guadeloupe we sailed 129 miles upwind in 25 hours. We needed a rest and some good French bread, cakes and coffee! However... the French islands were in turmoil due to strikes turning into civil unrest....