Les Saintes, Guadaloupe to Dominica

Les Saintes, Guadaloupe to Dominica

Monday, January 22, 2024

The forecast for the journey to Dominica was suggesting 6 ft waves with a 6 second period.  Alongside the waves, the wind was forecast to be about 18-22 kts with gusts to twenty-five kts. To my mind this sounded like a repeat of the conditions from Guadaloupe mainland to Les Saintes a week ago.  The seas and winds were predicted to be building during the day (and continuing to build during much of the week). We were keen to make the passage today and to depart early.  We had some foredeck work to accomplish—removing the three lines to the mooring and bringing the anchor back on board.  Once those steps were accomplished we were on our way.  Initially conditions were fairly mild until we got outside the islands that make up “The Saintes”.

Once into the more open waters, the waves and winds increased noticeably. (I was glad to have slapped on a scopolamine patch, reducing the worry about seasickness.) Because the wind had turned to the northeast, the angle to our direction of travel was just about 90 degrees.  We had one reef in the main and the stay-sail flying.  This sail plan seemed just about right for the conditions, which mirrored the forecast pretty well. Our average speed was close to 7 knots with a maximum speed of 10.5 (surfing off a wave, I presume). It was a pretty good sail except for the occasional dousing with seawater.  Personally, I was tucked up behind the dodger, so the helmsman took the brunt of these errant waves.  When Chris Parker talks about “salty sailing”, I imagine this is exactly what he means. 

We saw a number of boats coming north toward Guadaloupe and several on a similar path to ours.  Once we entered the bay at Portsmouth, a PAYS (Portsmouth Area Yacht Services) guide approached us.  With his help we were able get tied onto the mooring and found out what we had to do to check-in.  After completing the on-line portion (via SailClear), we traveled by dinghy to the dock at the Customs office.  Several groups of boaters were in line when we arrived, but the process seemed to go pretty smoothly.  By early afternoon we were back on Cotinga, enjoying lunch.  We are both tired but happy to be here!

Gloria

Don't forget you can see where we are on our Predictwind tracking page

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Cotinga/?mapMode=useAtlas&windSymbol=BlackArrow&weatherSource=ECMWF&trackDuration=0

Departing Les Saintes shortly after sunrise

The clipper ship "Star Flyer" with Dominica in the background

An additional shot of "Star Flier"

We thought the forecast today was spot on ... but what do 6 ft seas really look like? Photos and videos tend to make the ocean look quite benign, but this shot of another passing sailboat gives you a better sense of the seas. We saw some larger waves today that I estimate were approaching 10 ft, but Cotinga handled it all brilliantly.

Approaching Dominica ... this is not a B&W shot, just the high contrasting light as the camera saw it.

This is a B&W photo of Cotinga closing in on the north west corner of Dominica. B&W gives you more latitude to adjust brightness and contrast when the lighting is extreme (as it was here)