May 11-16, 2001 -- Moving, Moving, Moving Again Even!

We left St. Martin bright and early at 0930 GMT (0530 AST/EDT). We maintained good speed traveling to Nevis. We passed by Saba, Statia, and St. Kitts. It was a long 70 mile day of traveling. Nothing terribly exciting happened, though we did see a large school of flying fish about an hour and a half after we left. Along the way, we heard Sherpa, and Pearl. We hadn't seen either boat since Luperon. We dropped anchor in Nevis at 1847 GMT (1647 AST/EDT). The anchorage was beautiful, if a bit exposed. We anchored off the hotels at Pinney Beach. We had a small roll from a light northerly swell, but it was just enough to put us to sleep. We ate an early dinner, watched the second half of the movie we started last night and went to sleep. On May 12, we moved on to Dehai, Guadeloupe. We raised anchor at 0940 GMT. We passed by The Kingdom of Redonda, and Montserrat on our way. The volcano on Montserrat was active with a pyroclastic flow. However, all we saw was steam rising off the lava flow and a lot of smoke. The trip was relatively easy, just long again. We dropped anchor at 1934 GMT in Dehai, Guadeloupe. This anchorage was the pits! The wind would gust up to almost 30 knots before dying back down to 10 to 15 knots, it did this all night long, funneling down the mountain slopes. Fortunately, we didn't have much swell coming in. Though, I think we would have preferred swell to the winds. We decided to sleep in the main saloon just in case we dragged. On May 13, since there was no way we were going to stay in Dehai, we decided to travel on to Dominica. We raised anchor at 0954 GMT, and headed out. This would be a shorter trip by about 25 miles. Just as we were approaching Basse Terre Guadeloupe, Crystalee called us to let us know that the previous day, boats had seen apparent winds in the mid thirties clearing the southern tip of Guadeloupe. We promptly reduced our main sail. Sure enough, about 5 minutes later, we were hit with 30-35 knots of wind. This lasted for about 15 minutes until we cleared the southern cape of Guadeloupe. We passed off the western corner of Les Saints, and continued on our treck to Dominica. About 5 miles out of Dominica, we again went through the same type of stronger winds brought on by cape effect. We dropped anchor at 1716 in Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica. We anchored at the southern end of the bay near to the hotels. Sojourner arrived shortly after that. After setting their anchor, they snorkeled on it to make sure it was set. Then, they headed over and snorkeled on our anchor. We invited them aboard for something to drink and compared notes on our trips. They had turned away from the island when the waves started building at Basse Terre, and only experienced a small increase in the apparent wind speeds. They motor-sailed until they came into the wind shadow of Dominica and then turned a more easterly heading to come right into Prince Rupert Bay. We decided to keep that in mind for the next trip between islands. On May 14, Dan and I headed in to clear customs in Dominica. We decided to do a 72 hour clear in clear out since it looked like we would have light winds to move on to Martinique. After we got back, Dan, Jan and I wandered around the town a bit while Mike stayed aboard and did some work on our DC electrical panels that he wanted to do. Portsmouth is an interesting town. We wandered several shops, the grocery store and a few other places. Unfortunately, getting into town from a boat is inconvenient at best. There is no dinghy dock, and just about the entire shore is lined with rocks. We aren't talking just small rocks, we are talking boulders! It makes landing a dinghy difficult. Mutual Fun arrived as we were returning from town. After Dan and Jan dropped us off, we headed over to their boat to say hey. We firmed up plans to go to dinner at the Two Sisters restaurant, and Dan and Jan confirmed our reservations. We volunteered to shuttle everyone to dinner that evening. We picked everyone up, and headed for Two Sisters. Due to the rocky shore, we turned around and headed for the dock at one of the hotels. We walked to the restaurant from there. Dinner was excellent. It was almost midnight by the time we got back to the boat! On May 15, we headed from Prince Rupert Bay to Rouseau Dominica. We had all talked about it the night before and decided that we would all try to sail. Well, we raised anchor 1415 GMT (1015 AST/EDT) We went completely under sail in very light winds at 1430 GMT, and continued that way until 1645 GMT when we found out that everyone else was motor sailing. We decided to get to the anchorage before all of the spots were filled up by the groups of boats behind us that were gaining on us. We powered up the engines and doubled our speed. We dropped anchor at 1753 GMT in 98 feet of water 600 feet from shore! We decided to act cautiously so we slept in the main saloon that night. On May 16, we raised anchor at 1000 GMT. This time, we followed Sojourner's plan of attack when they headed out from Guadeloupe. We stayed further off the southern tip of the island. It worked. We never saw winds above 23 knots apparent. At 1133 we first spotted a school of flying fish also headed toward Martinique. They continued to swim/fly with us for most of the trip. It was rather cool. At 1314 we started seeing dolphins. We haven't seen any since the Bahamas. Also, we noted that the water had turned closer to the beautiful blue of San Salvadore, Bahamas. At 1322, we saw what must have been 20 dolphins leaping, cavorting and otherwise playing in the seas. Finally, we dropped anchor in Anse Mitan, across the bay from Fort de France, Martinique at 1741. I snorkeled on our anchor to make sure it was firmly set. It wasn't quite buried, so Mike backed down on it several more times. As it turns out, this was a good thing since our anchor snubber broke! It would not have done well to have it break in the middle of the night. Fortunately, we always attach a back up anchor snubber which held us. We attached a new snubber line and life was good. We invited Crystalee, Sojourner and Tahoe over for cocktails to celebrate our landfall in Martinique. Mutual Fun had pulled in to St. Pierre for the evening.