Hurricane season is well and truly upon us and the buzz is that this year will be an active lively one. We were anxiously watching the development of a tropical wave out in the Atlantic last week with predictions at one stage that it had a 60% chance of developing into a tropical cyclone. We made the decision to stay in St Martin until it passed rather than be caught sailing into it on our way south.
We were hoping to explore the two Dutch islands just south of here, Saba and St Eustatius, but the weather hasn't cooperated - too much rain and cloud combined with heavy seas has made them unfeasible as they have a reputation for being uncomfortably rolly to visit.
A small weather window of easterly winds finally opened up on Monday and we decided to set off for Dominica before the winds turned more southerly. It all started out well but, as we approached St Kitts around lunchtime, the winds turned south easterly and remained so for most of the next 30 hours. We battled our way upwind in high waves cursing the weather reports inaccuracy - where were the F4-5 east winds and 1-2 metre seas predicted? The only thing we could be grateful for was the lack of rain we were expecting on Tuesday.
We haven't quite made it as far as Dominica, we pulled into The Saintes, south of Guadaloupe, yesterday evening, exhausted and salty. It seemed a better plan than trying to anchor in an unknown bay in Dominica at 1130 at night.
Torrential rain washed off the salt last night and continued through this morning but it has cleared up a bit this afternoon. We had a wonderful snorkel here, typically without the camera, moray, drum fish, 10/12 flying gurnards all together, a colour-changing octopus and a striped burrfish with irridescent green eyes.
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