Author: Paul and Claire

The wind has been blowing East 15-25kn for 4 months. Part way down Martinique is switches to North West? What’s going wrong? Initially we motored back winded as it was only 5 kn but as it started to pick up we went on the other tack. Now the boat is only stored such that provisions can take a starboard tack as there should be no port tack going north. It could be that we won’t see the floorboards again for a while if we heel. But ahead in the distance is a line of white water. The mountains are causing

In Martinique we have a shopping centre (like most lots of the units are closed) with a Carrefour – and suddenly we are in a world of cheeses. I don’t especially wait to take these photos. There’s just nobody in these large supermarkets. You can count about 3 people in the shopping centre foyer – it’s getting busy.

A taste of France with a stop in Martinique. At last good food, cheeses, back to French wine prices for French wines, good restaurants. But how easy is it? We arrived at Fort de France. Nice calm protected anchorage with probably the best dinghy dock in the world.                                             It’s a bit of a city mind                                              

St Lucia delivered the usual disappointments. In the middle of the day there was a knock on the hull following which we were quickly boarded by a young girl who made it to the cockpit. This was clearly an opportunist looking for something to steal. Then there’s customs. And here’s the dummy….                         Checking in and out is a lottery. The chance of getting some kind of aggro I put at about 50/50. The typical power games include: Mumbling instructions so you can’t understand anything (this is clearly good

Our boat has largely made the decision for us and we have deferred our circumnavigation in favour of returning home. We are now making our way north for the essential ‘get you home repairs’ in St Martin before routing via Bermuda, the Azores and then onto somewhere in Europe. There are improvements that we want to make to the boat for life in the tropics and we would rather complete the work ourselves in the UK in our own time.  Not having headsail furling for about 3200 miles and with a generator throwing out odd voltages the decision to take

We have broken our record living at anchor stretch after 3 months and a day (apart from a couple of compulsory mooring buoys) and we are now in a marina again, good old Rodney Bay, St Lucia.  

We edged our way into the narrow anchorage at Marigot Bay and who should we find?                     Pssst! Have you guys checked in yet?                       And the surrounds. Remember if you go to Doolittles jump in a bath of strong mosquito and noseeum repellent first…then check the USD pricing for Happy Hour….oh and the 18% uplift on all prices for VAT and service…or was that 25%?

Like a small green version of the Matterhorn they look great from the sea. Emergency manual furling on the foredeck is such fun on a reach – get ready for a salt shower.                                                  

As usual as we rounded the point of Admiralty Bay the wind went from 5 to 28kn. We were well reefed and the boat loved the reach up to St Vincent. The north of St Vincent is known to be a bit rough and the pilot suggests taking it close to the coast. This also gives a good reach up to St Lucia. We don’t know how we did it but we were making about 9.6 knots on the reach suggesting a strong current. The back of St Lucia was very turbulent and it was like being in a tidal