We left Martinique on the 23^rd, heading for Bequia (pr something between Beck-Wee and Beck-Way!) – with recommendations from many cruisers about Bequia ringing in our ears. We broke the passage in two with an overnight stop in St. Lucia, but didn’t get off the boat (so no need to check in/out). The following morning we left early – 6:00am – with 90+ miles to go, we hoped we’d be able to get to Bequia in daylight. We left alongside a Catamaran ‘Savana’. Initially the winds were light so we motor sailed, but as we passed the Pitons at the southern end of St. Lucia, the wind grew and we were able to sail a rhumb line easily towards St. Vincent. Savana and Toodle-oo! had been motor sailing pretty close to one another, but as the winds slowly picked up and we turned engines off, they pulled away from us… until the winds filled to over 15knots – at which point we were faster than them! We’ve got ourselves a boat race!

Spiky Mountains of St. Lucia

As close as we got to St. Vincent

We came up to St. Vincent still close together and I fully expected the winds to die, but they stayed up and we were able to continue sailing in the lee of St. Vincent – an island we’d been advised to stay clear of for security reasons. Pity as it looked rather like Dominica in the northern part of the island. The wind had dropped some, so Savana was now well ahead, but again, as we came to the south end of St. V. it picked up again – with gusto! The south end of St. V didn’t look so appealing – much more habitation (like Martinique) so we were glad of our plan to bypass.

Sailing on to Bequia required a tightening of our heading and a current was flowing in Bequia Sound that was significantly adverse, requiring an even tighter heading – we were close hauled. The wind came up to a solid 15 – 18 with a few gusts to 22 and 25, but we maintained full sail and went for it! Savana was way off to our leeward side, such that we suspected they were headed elsewhere, but as we approached the island they tacked – now well behind Toodle-oo! Line honours to Toodle-oo!!!

After a couple of false attempts, we set the anchor in the north side of Admiralty Bay, at about 4:30pm – plenty of time to spare before the light failed.

In the morning, we checked into Bequia – and there was the crew of Savana. Unfortunately, they were French(!) so either didn’t want to talk with us – or couldn’t… (or were sulking!)

We took a Taxi Tour to get our bearings – it’s a nice island with a lovely feel. I can understand why people keep coming back here.

Admiralty Bay – Toodle-oo! tucked well off in the back right. Click to biggerize.

An Atlantic-side beach

Back in Admiralty Bay, as we walked along a shore side path, I spotted a dive company and decided to look in to see how easy it would be to get my certification… 4 days later, here I am, a certified PADI Open Water Diver! Woo Hoo! Now I can spend lots of money on kit and then scrub the bottom of Toodle-oo! as my reward! During the training, we dived to over 50ft on coral reefs. Quite remarkable surroundings with colourful fish everywhere. On the final dive, I took my Go-Pro along for the ride – now all I need to do is work out how to make the files smaller so that I can link them to this blog for all to see.

We plan to stay in Bequia for a few more days before moving further into the Grenadines on our way down to Grenada, where Toodle-oo! will probably be hauled for some bottom paint and a general look-see.

All well aboard – we’re having a blast!

We ended up staying in Martinique much longer than initially planned – and then added a couple more days to it when we heard of a planned walk up behind Le Marin. Turned out to be really enjoyable – certainly not a ‘Forced March’ – and offered lovely views over the harbors of Le Marin and St. Anne where Toodle-oo! is currently lying. We were accompanied by a French couple Patrick and Veronique and their dog Jacko and by German Leader of the walk, Andrea who is now resident (on her boat) in Martinique – though it sounds as if she’s sailed most of the world extensively…

Looking over Le Marin towards St. Anne

View from the top

This tree was cut down to it’s trunk just 5 years ago – Things grow fast in Martinique!

OK – this one didn’t make it…

We were also made aware of another walk – from St. Anne, so we stayed a second day and did a hike by ourselves of about 25km along the coast. It was very beautiful and we’re really glad we stopped to do it. Interestingly, on the south coast, the land is virtually desert – though unfortunately, I was unable to photograph it as it was raining!!! Other than the water from above, there was none to be seen – the land very barren with the occasional succulent struggling for a living…

Looking from St. Anne to Le Marin

Yet another Beach! THis one not of the nudist variety

Looks like Quick Draw McGraw (or Magoo!)

Challenging stepping stones

Today we’ll head on towards Bequia via a short stop in St. Lucia…

Yesterday it was raining.

So we rented a car with Patty and Peter from Serendipitous, drove 2 hours up to St. Pierre and then walked (clambered) up Mont Pelée! Hard slog – for which we got about 50 foot visibility in the mist!

Made it!

Not such wonderful visibility!

Probably not a bad thing we couldn’t look down! Thanks for the photo Patty!

And then there was this great pic of Kate – helming Toodle-oo! from Dominica to Martinique… She’s a natural!

Phew! What concentration!!!

We ended up having a lovely visit from my sister Kate – once we were secure to the dock having dealt with her injury and then our silly mistakes with water in the sail locker – though the thing she wished for most, swimming in the Caribbean ended up being elusive since her stitches were only finally removed on the last day of her vacation. Next time Kate…

We managed to make a visit to the Pitons – very impressive – and to St. Pierre, and we made a couple of stops at a super beach – very relaxing! We had a nice stroll through a formal garden – somewhat too staged for our taste – though the canopy walkway was fun and then we did a more authentic rain forest walk…

Arrival in St. Anne’s Martinique

Carnival in St. Anne’s

Pointy Mountains – The Pitons

Canopy Walk in the Garden

The fish are this side ladies!

St. Pierre Anchorage and Volcanic Ruins…

Amazingly, her route home proved easier than the flights here, in spite of there being an extra flight in there. Confirmation has been received – she arrived!

Kate and Bill

The Beach

Hopalong

Great to see you Kate – come again!

We left Dominica and had a nice passage to Martinique, arriving in St. Pierre. However, with a forecast of higher than comfortable winds and waves, we decided not to stay in St. Pierre and instead headed to St. Anne’s at the south of the island, a trip of about 35 miles. We knew that the last 12 miles would be bumpy – directly into wind and waves and sure enough it was, with waves crashing and the bow pounding into and on top of them.

We finally arrived at the anchorage in St. Anne and as I went forward to release the anchor I realized that I had inadvertently left the forward sail locker open. Open to the oncoming sea! It was full – yes full – of water. Sails were floating, empty diesel cans were floating…

Once anchored, I went below – and noted that somewhat unusually, it was downhill to the bow and I opened the valve to the forward sail locker – allowing the water in the waterproof bulkhead to escape into the bilge. Boy did it come!

I have an electric bilge pump purportedly capable of pumping 2,000 gallons/hour… It ran for 15 minutes and was losing ground. So I finally switched on an AC bilge pump that throws out about 15,000 gals per hour… In the end, I estimate we had about 750 gallons of water aboard – all up in the nose of the boat! No wonder she was acting rather sluggishly!

We emptied the sail locker of a couple of very wet light air sails and thought we were good.

Not…

The water had penetrated the master berth and there was water all throughout the starboard side cabinets (Laurie’s side 🙁  ) so all her winter clothes were soaked.

Then we realized the bed was also soaked.

Finally, while lying awake last night, I realized that the storage area under the boat was also compromised… it indeed was, though fortunately there was not much ingress there and the delicate items were mostly in sealed bags or plastic bins…

And we were just congratulating ourselves on having stopped screwing up too badly on a regular basis.

Memo to self: Stop congratulating ourselves when we’re clearly still novices!!!

We moved today to a slip in Le Marin, hoping to dry out for a while – and to allow Kate to get on an off the boat at will…

When things go wrong, they normally go in threes… We’ve had at least two threes!

Sister Kate was to arrive Monday evening – but she’d had a bit of an adventure on her trek from the UK, including having to have all passengers get off one flight because they had one too many bags aboard – this delayed them somewhat, but she recovered and made it as far as Martinique – where the pilot had a heart attack! Flight cancelled. She’d come as far as she could that night – so they put her up in a hotel. Meanwhile, Laurie and I made our way to the airport to meet her – not. We waited for the last flight in but nothing.

We came back in the morning for the first flight of the day and fortunately she was aboard.

When we got back to the harbor, it was pouring rain – harder than we’d experienced to date – so we went and had a beer and a bite to eat. When we got back to the dinghy, which was beached on the sand, Kate managed to stumble and fell on a piece of glass buried in the sand and was awarded with a massive gash in her shin. We did some quick triage, but it was clear she needed stitches, so Jason, one of the PAYS guys (the organization that keeps all the yachties secure) took us to the emergency room where she was promptly seen to with 15 stitches!

When we got back, the wind had turned to the west – highly unusual – creating a large on-shore surf. There was no way we could get Kate onto the dinghy and then off again, so Jason very kindly offered to put Kate up for the night in his house.

Meanwhile, with the help of 3 big guys, I was able to launch the dinghy and rode back to Toodle-oo! and recovered some of Kate’s clothes. I headed back to the dock, but the swell was so high I managed to get thrown out of the dinghy (with Kate’s bag!) and was lucky that the dinghy didn’t come down on top of me. Unfortunately, I was carrying our only phone – which appears to have suffered terminally, though Laurie is currently trying to revive the bloody thing. In the beaching accident, I also managed to bugger up the engine!

With Kate packed away with Jason, I considered options for getting back to Toodle-oo! Fortunately, new OCC members (had only applied that morning!) Mark and Lynn  on Roxy were also ashore, and we all went to a local beach bar to wait out the worst of the surge. Finally at 9:00pm, things had died down a little and we managed to launch their dinghy and they brought me back to Toodle-oo!

Kate – Finally enjoying a beer!

In the morning I recovered Toodle-Pip! and found that the damage to the engine was annoying but minimal – we can get if fixed in Martinique.

Kate has since managed to get aboard Toodle-oo! – though she probably regrets it to a degree due to the adverse conditions – we have been rocking and rolling in the anchorage for the past 3 nights with a northern swell creating havoc along with the westerly winds… Hopefully it’ll settle tonight…

We went bird watching today with Dr. Birdie – with Patty and Peter off Serendipitous and Al and Tess from Ingomar…

Big bird 1 – I forget the name…

Can you see the green hummingbird?

Another neat bird

I think this one is a twitcher

This one’s a Wren

Fly Catcher

Jacko Parrot We also saw the rarer Imperial Parrot, but it was too fast for me!

Humming Bird

Solitaire

Another Twitcher

Pretty Blue Hummingbird

And a stick insect!

Twitcher in the making… (Tess)

More pictures from Dominica:

Our anchorage – Prince Rupert’s Bay

Overgrown Garrison Guns

Officers Quarters being engulfed by the forest – click on it

You can hardly see the ruins for the trees

Shopping at the market with “Boat Boy” Martin of Providence

Dominica is probably the least spoilt island we’ve been to so far – with the possible exception of Barbuda. Very lush.

We arrived for the opening of Carnival which was a very colourful and noisy affair!

Lush Dominica

Beach was laid in a day during Hurricane Erica

Fresh Produce

Carnival Parade

The Emerald Pool – Peter and Patty from Serendipitous

Neat reflection

Took a tour around a large part of the island, stopping at the Emerald Pool and having a fabulous lunch high in the mountains.

Lunch with fellow OCCers

Checking out the Bar (A cruiser’s life!)

Our first night in The Saintes we arrived too late to get a mooring so we were at anchor – having been moved twice by the harbor master for being in the wrong place… The anchorage is well outside the mooring area and far more exposed. It was windy and the swell was significant. We tried playing dominoes, but they went flying – so we played Liar Dice instead! Sleeping was all but impossible without a seat belt, so in the morning I had a motivated crew to help me find and secure us to a mooring!

Mike and Jane took the dinghy and sped off in search of a newly vacated mooring ball which they were fortunate to find quickly – just as a French boat was approaching it! They valiantly fought for their rights and held on tight!

Meanwhile, Laurie and I had to haul in the 250ft rode – while avoiding boats on both sides of us – one of whom had anchored almost on top of our anchor – making retrieval especially difficult. Laurie managed to steer her way through the maze and we emerged and quickly attached ourselves to the hard fought mooring. It was much less rolly.

We quickly explored the small town and then took a walk up to Fort Napoleon – quite a hike! We had a well deserved dinner at Peter and Patty’s invitation at a wonderful French restaurant that evening.

Chatter Boxes

Terre de Haut

Flying Leap

Marigot Bay and FOrt Napoleon

Looking down from Fort Caroline

Today we took another hike up to Fort Caroline and then down to Pompierre Bay. The scenery here is quite dramatic with Guadaloupe in the background to the north and Dominica in the background to the south. We’re really looking forward to Dominica – it looks quite impressive from 10 miles off!

We managed to secure a spot in the anchorage at English Harbor. However, we ended up a little close to the boat next to us – we could hardly fit a dinghy between us! So we moved a bit and ended in a great position. We then realized that the guy we’d nearly bumped into was none other than David Reid who’d kindly showed us around his garage full of Minis up in Marblehead last summer. I even got to sit in his all-out racing mini! He’d toured me and Laurie and Mike and Jane – and Mike and Jane were about to arrive in English Harbour… Small world indeed!

Mike and Jane arrived and we promptly got them out onto the hills surrounding the harbor. Great views – especially since the weekend was to be full of not only the Super Yachts racing, but also the arrival of the transatlantic rowers. What a contrast – massive boats with crews of over 20 people and the rowers with between 1 and 4 crew.

Michael Made it apparently!

Walking

Looking over English Harbour

Neat Super Yacht

Mike and Jane

As you can see, the scenery around the island is pristine…

Good Walk!

Trans-Atlantic Rowing Team arrives after 2 months at sea!

We left Antigua – having made sure that the Patriots did indeed win the Super Bowl yet again – at 5 in the morning on Monday, destination Isles des Saintes… We had a very lumpy and uncomfortable seasick inducing sail – but it was at least fast – and we decided to make a pit stop in Deshaies in Guadaloupe which is where we are now. We’ll push on to the Saints tomorrow…