The South Coast of Martinique

It's amazing, but after all these years in the Caribbean we are still finding new places to explore.

This time it was Le Marin and St. Anne on the south coast of Martinique.

Neither of us was prepared for Le Marin.  We knew it was the boating center of Martinique with every kind of marine service available.  But that didn't prepare us for the size of the bay, HUGE, with more then a 1000 boats at anchor, on moorings or in the marinas.  It's not exactly a swimming bay but it is close to lots of shopping and restaurants.

Customs office in Le Marin.

Looking downhill toward the crowded bay.

The small town is colorful and picturesque.

Poor weather kept us on board for the first 4 days.  The wind blew 20-25 knots with frequent rain squalls.

This wasn't the only flag unraveling in the wind.  We are on our 3rd French courtesy flag in 4 years.

Less then 3 miles from Le Marin is a beautiful beach and the small town of St. Anne.

These beautiful racing boats were out practicing for the upcoming Bastille Day regattas.

Hauling in the sail.

Half-full of water after a rigorous practice, this one is sitting a little low in the water!

Street scenes from St. Anne.

Our lunch spot on the beach.  We had acras morue (fishcakes) and poulet coco (chicken in a coconut sauce).  Tres bon!

On Sunday afternoon, a large catamaran with about 16 people on board anchored next to us for the afternoon.  Girls in bikinis, bare-chested guys and photographers who seemed to be shooting a video. 

Nice eye-candy!

The only downside was that we had to listen to the same song blaring for 4 hours.  We couldn't make out the words but Jim thought they were singing "Who's got the hockey puck, who's got the hockey puck?"

Yeah right, on a French island in the Caribbean!

Photographer getting the close-up butt-shot.

Photo shoot is over and we are left alone to enjoy another beautiful sunset.

A quick position update for those readers who are wondering where we are currently.  We are on a mooring between the Pitons in St. Lucia.  Tomorrow at dawn we'll sail to Bequia in the Grenadines, approximately 57 nautical miles south.

St. Martin to Dominica

Just a quick update to let everyone know where we've been the past few weeks.

After waiting 2 weeks for wind, (a little wind, we'll take any wind please!) we finally left for St. Barth's on June 11th, just 1 day later then last year.  We spent 1 day enjoying Anse Columbier before heading off to St. Kitt's.  It was a quick stop this time, just long enough to say hello to friends Mike and Renee before grabbing a weather window to head south. 

We planned to island hop, overnighting at Montserrat and Deshaies, Guadeloupe but the winds weren't north-easterly as predicted so after a few hours we had some decisions to make.  Option 1 was to keep on a close-hauled course and do long tacks to work our way up to Montserrat.  This was going to be difficult and we couldn't be sure we could make it before dark.  The second option was to continue on a close reach and take advantage of the full-moon to do an overnight to Dominica.  We were having a good sail in that direction, doing between 5 and 6 knots in moderate seas.  This seemed like the best choice.  We probably would have traveled the same amount of miles tacking back and forth to Montserrat!  Decision made, off to Dominica.  Contrary to what some of our friends think, Merengue can stay out after dark.  She just doesn't like to!

That afternoon we had a wonderful dolphin encounter west of Montserrat.  Jim spotted a pod of dolphins chasing a school of fish about a quarter of a mile off of our port side.  A moment later a group of rowdy dolphins broke away from the chase and came to play on Merengue's bow wave for a short time before heading back to their dinner.

The night sail was beautiful, star-lit before the moon rose to light up the sea and sky.  But as the clock turned to midnight the weather changed with the new day.  A squall blew through with 25-30 knots of wind.  The seas rose and the wave interval dropped to about 4 seconds.  It became a bumpy, miserable ride!  It was difficult pushing through the waves even with 20 knots of wind.  We should have arrived in Portsmouth, Dominica mid-morning on Friday but with these conditions we didn't drop anchor until 4:30 p.m.  We were also having some engine problems so we didn't want to push it.  We were only getting 1800 RPM's and thought that we might have stirred up some gunk in the fuel tank in the rough conditions causing the fuel filter to clog.  The last 10 miles took us almost 5 hours!

Fast forward a week and Jim has changed the filter, installed a new fuel pump because the old one decided to quit and filtered all the diesel in the fuel tank.  This afternoon we moved to Roseau, Dominica for the night and as we were pulling up to a mooring ball the engine died!  We're hoping that it can be fixed by adjusting the idle which we'll try first thing tomorrow.   If that works we'll head to St. Pierre, Martinique.  We're hoping to spend a few weeks along the south coast of this beautiful island.  If I close my eyes and breath deep I think I can smell the baguettes!

I'm Back!

 First I have to comment on the previous blog entry posted by Jim while I was off visiting family and friends in Milwaukee.

I Loved It!!!

What women wouldn't?

Married 31 years and the guy can still surprise me!

Of course it did come at a cost.  He did take a few hits from some of his guy friends.

 Our friend Tim came to visit while I was away and stayed with Jim onboard Merengue.  He appears to have survived the experience.  Jim and Tim (I know, it sounds like twins!) were college roommates so they have lived together in a small space before but that was many years ago.

 In Brew City I was doing my best to take in every brewery tour and taste every micro-brew I could find.

This is Natalie, Bill, Connie and me each with a different flavor!  Jim really misses having a variety of beers so I was doing my best to taste them all for him!  Yeah right!

 Back in St. Martin and we are provisioning the boat for our trip south and look what we found.  BEER!  Not just beer but different flavors of beer.  A supermarket here has expanded it's stock and we found bock, dubbel, tripel, and more!  Merengue's sitting a little lower in the water today!

 Ruby Leffe.  Delicious!

 Another great bargain.  Appleton Estate Rum for $4.51 a bottle.



 The grocery receipt was the longest on record and I'm still not sure that we have anything but beverages.  At least we'll be well hydrated!

 Happy cat playing with the grocery bags.

Continuing on the drinks theme, here's a great combination of signs on the boardwalk in Phillipsburg.  It's the St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church with a sign out front that reads "1 umbrella, 2 chairs and 3 beers."

What times mass?

It's Been 6 Weeks...

.....and.....

Fun with Orchid

The main reason for heading to St. Martin this year was to catch up with Orchid and crew before they left for their Atlantic crossing.  This Australian family of four will be exploring the Mediteranean for the next year or so.  We met up in St. Barth's. 

Here they come, heading in past the mega-yacht.

 

 Alexander and Nicholas did a great job of grabbing the mooring ball and securing Orchid.

It must be nice having crew!

 Nicholas (age 8) jumped in the water and swam over to greet us.

 A moment later, Alexander (age 9) appeared via dinghy.

 These two kids can climb the mast and forestay like a couple of monkeys!  No bosun chair for them.

I'm trying to get my fill of snuggles before they head off but it's never enough.

 Time to sail to St. Martin.  Alexander and Nicholas came along as crew onboard Merengue.

Alexander at the helm.

 Nicholas takes a turn at the helm.

 Here's Merengue under a full mainsail and reefed genoa and still going over 6 knots.  I think we surprised Orchid with our speed!  Of course this picture was taken by Rachel as they passed us by!  We look rather small in this picture and we are accustomed to being the smallest yacht in most harbors but if you really want to feel small........

.....sail past one of the mega-yachts!  This is Merengue cruising past one of the big-boys!

St. Martin will be our base until June while Wendy flys to Milwaukee to visit.  Jim will be staying with Bailey and Merengue and contining to enjoy the beaches, baguettes and brie!