We’ve been on quite a moving spree for the past 2 days!! Our first jump happened on Thursday, March 12th. We were up at 6 am and on the move by 7 am (slightly behind Sundog). We had a great visit to Les Saintes but we had a few days of what we hoped would be good wind and waves for south east travel. We were out of the influence of the islands and sailing jib and mizzen by about 8:30am.
The trip down to Dominica was about 38 nm and we would be anchoring near the town of Roseau (which is in the south west end of the island). We had good wind strength and the waves weren’t too bad. Our biggest challenge was the wind direction. The prediction was for wind slightly north of east (that elusive direction we’ve been looking for all season!) but of course we saw more south east. It wasn’t a very difficult sail because we moved along well but we weren’t headed exactly where we wanted to go. No worries, once we got behind the island of Dominica, the wind died off and we motored the correct direction to our destination. We anchored in a spot called Pointe Michel. It was a good spot for one night and we had 6 or 7 sailboats with us. Sundog had stopped about 1 nm north of us.
The next morning (today – Friday, March 13) we were up by 6am and going right away – we had another big day planned. Sundog got going around the same time as us and we both headed out around the end of Dominica towards Martinique. This was another predicted north east wind that really didn’t show up. We ended up motor-sailing the whole way (about 35nm) and it was slow going. Sundog sailed right by us early in the morning and so did several other boats who were able to sail better upwind than we could. In the end we made it to our anchorage by 2 pm and were secured before 3 pm.
We’re now anchored near the town of St. Pierre. The whole town was destroyed in 1902 when the volcano Mount Pelee erupted. We will spend a few days here exploring the town with Sharron and John and definitely visiting the volcano museum.
Crimson Kathryn and her crew 