The 1st May ushered in Nic’s 50th Birthday! To ease the trauma of embarking on another decade, I booked us into the Hotel Marquis in Anse Marcel. It was a real luxury to have unlimited water for 24 hours. Nic was also spoiled with 2 hour-long massages. Now we are trying to take advantage of the big chandleries and services here in St Martin before we explore the British Virgin Islands.
Andrea arrived on Monday afternoon sadly missing the last of the racing in the morning. On Sunday we watched the gig races and enjoyed a cream tea on the lawns of Admiral’s Inn in English Harbour. The next day we rented a car and toured the island ending up at Shirley Heights for its spectacular sunset view across both English and Falmouth harbours.
Our next stop was Deep Bay where we snorkelled on the wreck seeing lots of angelfish, a turtle, barracuda and a ray. We were plagued by mosquitoes at sunset and dawn so were relieved to sail up to Barbuda and anchor on the stunning Cocoa Beach. We then moved around to Low Bay and had a great beach BBQ with another boat, Belle.
After a long walk along the 11 mile beach we hired Clifford to take us by boat across the huge lagoon to do our check out. This involves 3 stops, the one for customs is actually in someone’s house! Clifford is definitely the man to use for this if you are planning to visit Barbuda – 25 EC for 3 of return and he helpfully escorts you around all the offices. He also does visits to the frigate bird sanctuary.
Our sail the next day to St Barts was a slow one. We arrived after dark and anchored in Baie Colombier to avoid the swell running in Gustavia. Under the full moon we could clearly see the bottom as we dropped the hook in 7 metres of water. The next day we snorkelled with the many turtles and had a lovely walk to Baie Flamands before motoring around to Gustavia for drinks and dinner. It was then up to St Martin in readiness for Andrea’s flight out on 30th April - another passage with no wind necessitating employing the iron sails. We went through the the 17:30 opening of French bridge into the lagoon.
On leaving St Lucia we managed to sail up the coast of Martinique before we lost the wind. We had to press on because we needed to be in Antigua to meet our guest arriving on 19th April. After a night of motoring we dropped anchor in the Saintes, islands just south of Guadaloupe. We only had a short time in Terre d’En Haut but loved it. The water was fantastically clear in our anchorage at Pain de Sucre and we had a hot but interesting walk into Bourg des Saintes, the pretty “town”. We left wanting to return and spend some more time exploring these islands.
Since the winds were still either non-existent or against us, we decided to head up to Pointe A Pitre in Guadaloupe and traverse the island via the Riviere Salee, a saltwater mangrove channel through the centre of the island. We had to anchor near the first bridge ready for its only daily opening at 5am. The dark and early start was not improved by heavy rain showers which severely limited our visibility and made the short transit somewhat unpleasant. Dawn broke as we left the last bridge and made our way towards the north of Guadaloupe where it was impossible to eyeball navigate through the reefs to our chosen anchorage at Ilet a Fajou. We had instead to rely on our chart software, never a comfortable feeling but as we monitored it for accuracy through the buoyed channel we decided it was worth the risk.
The anchorage was stunning despite the grey skies and continuing rain. We stayed overnight waiting for some more favourable winds and were ready to sail up to Antigua the next morning. It was a fast passage and we arrived in time to anchor and head in to the Yacht Club party for Classic Week. It was a night to catch up with many friends all there to participate or watch the racing.
Rather than the expected white van, we happily ended up with a car although the passenger window didn't work. We drove out of Fort de France up into the Pitons du Carbet on the Route de La Trace (opened by the Jesuits in the early 1700s) and stopped at the Ancienne Station Thermale d'Absalon, where we enjoyed a wonderful 2 hour circular walk in the rainforest. Steep paths laced with tree roots took us through luscious tropical greenery and exotic flowers populated by brightly coloured hummingbirds. At the end we climbed down into the gorge and had a refreshing swim under a waterfall.
Our first stop after Le Marin was the little village of Ste Anne, still in the same enormous bay towards the south of the island. The long white sand beach there is buzzing on Sunday with large crowds of locals picnicking under the trees. Joined by our good friends on S/Y Scorch, we had a delicious three-course lunch in town at Le Sud, which we would highly recommend to anyone.
A pleasant downwind sail took us to Fort de France, the capital, where we anchored under the imposing fortress of St Louis. The town has a very French feel to it and offers some good shopping and a number of interesting buildings. The most striking is Bibliotheque Schoelcher, built for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris and then shipped to Martinique; it is still in use today. Disappointingly there is a dearth of street-side cafes in the town centre where one can enjoy a coffee or a cold beer and watch the world go by.
We moved on to Trois Islets (confusingly the name of an area and a small village). The anchorage feels very rural with the sound of birds, crickets and some very vocal cockerels. Bourg of Trois Islets is charming and was the home of Princess Josephine up until the age of 16. There is a lovely stuccoed church and a plethora of fish-scale tiled buildings. We walked across the peninsula to see Anse Mitan which was a complete contrast – very touristy and rather naff.
Finding a rental car has been a challenge, there simply aren’t any! Apparently after the strikes of last year, the rental agencies divested themselves of much of their stock. Now, in high season, they don’t have enough cars to go around. We finally managed to find a 2-seater white van to rent and are picking that up tomorrow to explore more of the island.
We sailed up to Martinique from St Lucia last week and took our ailing GPS to Jacques at Diginav Electronics in Le Marin. It took several visits over a few days for him to determine that, it was uneconomical to repair. Jacques gave us a fantastic deal on a new Furuno 32 which is now installed and running.
At the moment we are anchored off Ste Anne but we plan to spend the next couple of weeks exploring Martinique before returning to St Lucia for 22nd March.
