Planning - Two Steps Ahead

Planning - Two Steps Ahead

Friday 15th - Saturday 16th March, 2024

We have known for more than a month that we will be flying home to Massachusetts on 28th March for a two week break and that we must be back in Jolly Harbor to put Cotinga on a dock two days before that. So over the past several weeks we have been planning our travels to make best use of the time available, and there we have been fortunate to have the flexibility to go where we want, when we want. There is an old cruisers saying that it’s fine to agree to meet at a certain place OR a certain time, but never to be specific about both, because circumstances change and weather can be unpredictable. To get to Jolly Harbor from Les Saintes (before the 26th March) we would need to cross the short passage to Guadeloupe (~8nm), travel up the west coast of Guadeloupe to Deshaies (~25nm) and then sail northwards across open water (~45nm) to Antigua. The first two legs should be easy enough under any conditions, but the final passage could be easy or hard depending on the winds and seas. Specifically, we would want to avoid winds with a northerly component, so that we wouldn’t have to beat all the way. So sitting on Cotinga in Les Saintes we have been monitoring weather forecasts and looking at predictions for the passage up to Antigua and it has started to look like Monday 18th or Tuesday 19th March might be a good time to go, with moderate trade winds (< 20 knots) from east-south-east. Given that, we decided to spend an extra day in Leas Saintes on Friday and head up to Deshaies on Saturday.

We were keen to check out the Pain de Sucre anchorage, and so on Friday morning we dropped our mooring at Ilet a Cabrit and motored over to Pain de Sucre and picked up a mooring there. It is a pretty location, but overall we found it to be quite rolly and our least favorite of the three locations we have stayed at in this area. We did get to go snorkeling directly from Cotinga and say some beautiful fish including a puffer fish, a couple of trumpet fish and some large iridescent blue parrot fish. 

On Saturday we were up early and departed Les Saintes. We had a very fine broad reach sail over to the south west tip of Guadeloupe. As expected, winds accelerated around the point and there was a period where we were consistently sailing at over 8 knots. I personally saw 9.2 knots and our log recorded the top speed as 10.1 knots! The remaining 20+ miles up the coast were a bit of a challenge. The winds varied from < 5knots to 17 knots and so at times we were sailing well and at other points we had to motor. It’s weird, we even experienced light winds from the west, which we think are due to convection winds behind the mountains. We arrived at Deshaies in the early afternoon … in time for lunch! 

Our plan was to get an updated weather forecast on Sunday morning and make a final decision on sailing to Antigua on Monday or Tuesday. However, when we went to shore we found that the “Pelican Store” that used to have a customs and immigration computer for clearing in and out, no longer has that facility. We presume that you now must go to the customs office south of town, which isn’t open until Monday morning. So there is no longer a decision to be made, we can’t leave on Monday because by the time we check out it will probably be too late in the day. It makes us a little nervous because when we checked in at Deshaies several weeks (when the “Pelican” computer was broken) it took us many attempts before we found the customs office open. By Thursday the winds are likely to be out of the north east and strengthening, so we definitely have a window that we are working with.

Mike

sorry - not to many photos today.

Although we had good weather on our sail from Les Saintes,  showers kept rolling through all afternoon in Deshaies, meaning we had to keep opening and closing the hatches ... a bit of a pain.