St.Lucia

Tuesday 3-April: Another glorious day. And with a good wind the decks are almost dry after their coating of Boracol yesterday. Great that it didn’t rain and wash away all our work!
Today we leave St.Lucia and head for Dominica with a quick stop over in Martinique on the way. We will be back to Martinique later in April when Oana’s brother and family come out.
Ashore we check-out with customs and immigration and also pick up a new winch drum which has kindly been sent from Lewar in the U.K. One of our mainsheet winches had started to lose its chrome coating. Not by corrosion or wear but due to a bonding problem onto the bronze. Even though the winches are 9 years old, Lewmar identified it as a manufacturing issue and gave us a replacement, including shipping to St.Lucia. Now that’s what we call great after sales service!
In the marina there is also a well stocked chandlery which Glen loiters in for some 20 minutes. Oana knows that boys must have their toy shops once in a while! This time the damage is light; just a $10 roll of spinnaker repair tape which Oana needs to repair the ensign flag.
Once back on Cloudy Bay we take some time to reply to all the many great comments on our blog and YouTube channel. The St.Vincent video we uploaded just 24 hours ago already has 2000 views! We are simply amazed just how many people enjoy watching them.
Then it’s up anchor, full sails up and off on the passage from St.Lucia to Martinique. And at last the wind is firmly on the beam. For each passage between islands, as we head north from Grenada the wind is better postioned as the island arc curves westwards. First passage north from Grenada was a full-on beat. Now we are actually off the wind. So in 13-17 knots we are at full speed, 8-9knts as we cruise along effortlessly.
The only problem being our hydraulic vang. It has a leak, and it won’t stay on. Meaning the only thing holding down the boom is the mainsheet. Even with the car right down the track we are still spilling a lot of wind out the top of the huge mainsail. Well, at 8-9 knots we can’t complain. But we will have to be very careful furling the main into the mast, where the boom angle is critical. The vertical battens have to go into the mast parallel to the mast or the system could jam – our worst night mare. Well, there are worst nightmares on a sailing yacht of course, but this one is up there in the top quartile.
This aside, we have a great sail over to Martinique, just 30 miles away from St.Lucia. We are aiming for the Fort de France Bay, but the wind dies as we round the SW corner, and we motor close to the coast past several bays with lots of yachts. We almost decide to go into Anse a l’Ane but it seems bit shallow, so we continue on to Anse Mitan.
Not surprisingly, there are lots of French yachts and very few others. Although we, for some reason, both feel drained of energy today, we make the effort to put the outboard back on the dinghy and head ashore. There are lots of people on the beach and notably a lot of white people. Clearly we are in a French holiday area. As we walk on the road we come to Creole Village – a purpose made tourist village in Creole style. It’s odd to see so many French cars around, boulangeries, creperies and tabacs. We could be in a France seaside resort! We have a wander through the village and sit for dinner at an animated cafe, where we have a rather poor quality burger for more Euros than seem to add up. But try as we might, they won’t clarify the bill for us. Yes, this is France alright!
Back at Cloudy Bay, we settle in for an early night. The multiple sessions of black music we fell asleep to last night are replaced tonight with Brazilian drums from a nearby restaurant. C’est la vie!