Fort de France, Martinique

Hello All!

We are well and on our way down to Bequia.  We (I) have been finding keeping up with the blogging very difficult. Between being busy and not always having good WiFi for uploading the photos or even simply opening Blogger.com, we are rather behind.

We do keep in touch with friends and family via email whenever we make a move and when small things of interest happen.  If you would like to be included in these emails please email me at Nancy.e.martiniuk @ gmail.com or any email you have for us. I will make a group where everyone is BCC’d so no ones email is visible to anyone else on the list. I hope this sounds good to you and we will carry on blogging the bigger events.

So here are the three lastest emails and you should have a reasonable idea of what we’ve been up to.

On The Move Again - 21st April Hello!
 Tim and I finished our last charter in Antigua and are working our way south. Early this morning we upped anchor in Falmouth Harbour and headed out into the wind and waves for Deshaies, Guadeloupe. We arrived in good time and were planning on going ashore for some fruit, baguettes and cheese, but thanks to the wind not lessening appreciably despite the forecast for the afternoon and the windscoop affect of the terrain, we decided to shop another time. We still have 4 apples left! Instead we worked at fixing the leaks that we created around the windows when we removed the silicon to paint the coach roof. We are leaving tomorrow morning for St Pierre, Martinique. It will be an over night sail of about 20 hours and we’ll get our bread, fruit and cheese there. We’ll be in Martinique for a few days before heading further south to meet up with our friend Skipper Tim in Bequia. So all is good with us and though we’re trying to get back into cruising mode, we still seem to be doing a lot of rushing around.

Anchored Off Fort De France - 23rd April Hello!
 It took three tough sails to get here and we spent last night in Portsmouth, Dominica. There is a mild tropical front passing over which brought squalls and uncomfortable seas, particularly around headlands. We were 7 miles off Dominica when a squall arrived yesterday afternoon. We had one reef in the main and when Tim went to put in the second reef, the wind really picked up, the sail batons fouled the lazy jacks as he tried to pull up the main and we ended up dropping it completely. Although we’d been planning on passing Dominica, the wind shift that came with the squall had us charging due East to Portsmouth under mizzen and jib alone, rather than south to Martinique. With Tim thoroughly doused in salt water and with the chance to anchor in daylight and have a good nights sleep, it seemed like we were meant to stop in Dominica. So we did! We are now looking forward to going ashore tomorrow to shop and stretch our legs. I thinks it quite funny that we finished the charter in Antigua and left so quickly, that I keep finding things I didn’t remember buying in the supermarket the day the charter finished. I thought we ate the last two apples yesterday, but while looking for something else in the fridge I found a whole new bag that I can barely remember buying. There are things I haven’t been able to find onboard even though I know we left the catamaran empty. They will turn up in time, I just hope I didn’t stow them somewhere too cleverly. Tonight for dinner, we’re having leftover steak cooked during the charter in fajitas. It is such a luxury to have a charter boat with freezers so we don’t have to waste perfectly good, though rather tough if I remember correctly, food. You don’t visit Antigua for the beef. So all good here and it looks like we might even see the sun tomorrow.

Fort de France, Martinique - 25th April Hello!
 We went ashore early this morning to do some shopping. We stocked up on sliced ham, bacon lardons and frozen green beans and peas. It’s nice knowing what we can and can’t get easily in Bequia, and nicer still to have a freezer so we can shop accordingly. We went in early and discovered that very little is open at 0700 in the morning, so I spent an hour walking around the city wishing I’d brought my camera. Martinique has a very different flavour to Guadeloupe. Some is a little grubby and seedy looking but there are wonderful public spaces that surprise you. The cathedral has been refurbished and the sun glints off the black metal work spire, which was inspired by the Eiffel Tower. It’s so sharp and clear that it makes the surrounding buildings appear to be in soft focus. At one point, turned a corner and I was marvelling at the different patterns and colours on the second story of a brick building, and almost didn’t notice the five large paintings displayed below it. They were in muted colours like the bricks and fit in so well. Soon we’ll be putting the dinghy away and heading to an anchorage called Petite Anse, which is right next to a much bigger anchorage called Grande Anse. There seems to be an ‘anse’ pattern developing, and suspect it means Bay. WiFi v slow so can’t be bothered checking. We’ll over night in Petite Anse and head out at first light for Bequia. We’ll bypass St Lucia and St Vincent and hope to arrive around 2200 tomorrow evening. We often have currents against us and little wind behind the islands so a little after midnight is probably a more realistic arrival time. Port Elizabeth Bequia is in a huge bay (or anse, lol) and is great for an night arrival. We’re looking forward to being back in Bequia. Along with Antigua it is one of our favourite islands. Bequia is laid back and relaxed and we expect to be there for around a month. Tim is feeling much better and tomorrow is his last day of antibiotics.