Passage to St Lucia

After a few days stocking up and socialising with frends in St Martin we set off for St Lucia on Friday 29th. Winds were predicted to be northeasterly 15-20 knots, perfect for our 275 mile passage. What we encountered was rather different - an easterly to southeasterly direction meant we were sailing at 52 degrees to the wind the entire way. Just to make it more wet and uncomfortable we had winds gusting Force 8 and 3 metre waves. We nearly lost the dinghy from the davits and very sadly, Nic lost a watch he has owned since he was 21 to the sea. It was a wonderful relief to anchor back in familiar Rodney Bay on Sunday morning.

Beautiful St Barth

We were joined in St Martin by Nic's mother, Chrissy, on 12th January. We rented a car and toured the island visiting its many lovely beaches. The Dutch capital, Phillipsburg, is lovely, despite being a major cruise ship destination. The next day, we sailed around to Baie Orientale and anchored overnight before sailing down to St Barth on particularly rainy, grey day.
The island has a unique character to the other islands we have visited; a St Tropez in the Caribbean with a very affluent European population. The port of Gustavia is dollhouse-sized and very picturesque. The beaches are stunning and remain largely undeveloped. We anchored in Colombier, snorkelled with the many turtles there and had a beautiful walk across to Flamands on the Atlantic side.
We stopped at Ile Fourchue on our way back to St Martin - uninhabited it has a desolate charm and good snorkelling.
Our time with Chrissy went all to quickly and we were sad to see her off on her flight back to Spain.

In St Martin

We sailed up to St Martin last Monday, getting horribly dusted by the continuing eruptions from the volcano on Montserrat. We are now anchored in Simpson Bay Lagoon and looking forward to Chrissy's arrival tomorrow. We plan to take her on a cruise around this island, St Barts and, if there is time, Anguilla.

Happy New Year!

After torrential rain dampened New Year's Eve, we enjoyed a lovely Carnival parade in Basseterre yesterday.

St Kitts

We had a very "Mediterranean" sail from Martinique to Nevis - fickle winds from all directions! We checked in at Charleston, a very picturesque town and then sailed up to Frigate Bay on St Kitts the next day. Meeting up with friends, we spent Christmas Eve at the Shiggidy Shack with rum punch and limbo dancing. Since then unusual weather has ruled our schedule - we've had endless southerly winds which have brought big swells into all the bays and made anchoring very rolly and uncomfortable. It's Carnival here and we missed the big Jouvert celebration on Boxing Day but there's more going on over New Year. We can't complain too much, it's warm and we've had some fabulous snorkelling in White House Bay on a wreck.

Merry Christmas from Irony

On to Martinique

We had a fantastic long walk (4 hours +) across to the Atlantic side of St Lucia ending up at Cas en Bas Beach and then taking the coastline further north. It was a wonderful mixture of scenery and the weather was perfect, not too hot and a nice onshore breeze. It really is a stunning island.
Friday we checked out and on Saturday we sailed up to Martinique. Irony made good time and we arrived 4 hours later. After a lunchtime beer at a cafe we hit the supermarkets to stock up on French wines, cheeses and other European goodies. It's far cheaper on the French islands despite the bad exchange rate of £ to euro.
Our dinghy has once again sprung a leak and has had more tlc and glueing. Bad timing so close to Christmas as we are meeting up with friends in St Kitts. We sail off there tomorrow morning and hope to arrive by Thursday. We're not expecting a fast passage as the winds are predicted to be light.