There’s always something to learn!

There’s always something to learn!

Monday March 4 and Tuesday March 5^th, 2024

There are many incidents where one receives unwelcome news.  After a long day of sailing, being told that you are “on the hook for a blog” is particularly deflating.  I was feeling good about the nearly nine hours of sailing ….!

On Monday, we went to shore to check out and do some provisioning.  Our previous trip to Dominica left us with the impression that meat was hard to obtain.  So we thought it wise to stock up on frozen meat in the Super U in St. Pierre.  We were quite laden down with our purchases and so we returned to the boat to get the food stored either in the freezer/fridge or in the various cupboards.  In the afternoon, we went back to land for a stroll along the beach.  Mike clambered over some rocks to get a closer look at a wrecked sailboat that was washed onto the rocky shore.  I entertained myself watching a boat trying to pick up a mooring.

The moorings in the French islands are not similar to anything I’ve seen elsewhere.  There is the large mooring ball.  From the top an iron ring stands upright.  The boater needs to be able to grab the ring (usually a fair way below the level of the bow) and thread a line through the ring and secure the loose end back to the boat.  Ideally, one wishes to have two lines, one on either side of the bow.  As it turns out this maneuver is a lot easier to describe than to execute!  

Our solution is to tie a special snap hook to the loose end of the mooring line. The back side of the snap hook can be attached to the end of the boat hook.  Approaching the mooring, one needs to reach over the side with the snap hook/boat hook/line combo and attach the snap hook to the ring.  Quickly bringing in slack on the mooring line and securing it allows you to stay close enough to the ball to thread other ropes through the ring.  If you aren’t close enough you can launch the dinghy and sort the lines out from water level.  The people I was watching made many attempts and were finally successful with one boater lying flat on the bow and hanging over the side to thread the rope.  What could possibly go wrong with that approach!

Today, Tuesday, our alarm went off at six am.  Mike was already making coffee and sandwiches for lunch by the time I rolled out of the sack.  (Who knows when he got up?).  A quick bowl of muesli was our breakfast and we were underway shortly before seven am. We had about 45 minutes of motor-sailing before we emerged from the wind shadow on the north end of Martinique.  We had the full main up and unfurled the whole genoa.  In short order we were facing 20kts with some really large swells.  Recent trips had probably lulled us into a false sense of security, we had the dinghy on the davits!  Each time a swell would roll under the boat the ends of the dinghy tubes would hit the water.  However, we were so overpowered at that point, reefing the sails had to be top priority.  With partial genoa and one reef in the main, we were in much better control and it was possible for Mike to stand on the aft deck and lift the dinghy higher and retighten the lines.  There’s a lesson learned!  As we proceeded the wind eased somewhat and the sail was excellent. It took us about four hours to cross between the islands and once we reached the south end of Dominica, the wind and waves were honking.  We had 20 to 24 knots of wind for an extended period.  We were doing more than eight knots of boat speed.  Strangely enough, somewhat later the wind died altogether and filled in lightly from the west.  Go figure!  We sailed and motored behind Dominica and arrived at Portsmouth. Thankfully there was a mooring available and we quickly got our lines sorted. We covered 55 nm in a little under 9 hours, at an average speed of 6.5 knots. Mike saw speeds consistently between 7.8 and 8.5 knots over the ground for the half hour or so as we passed the southern tip of Dominica, but our Chart-plotter log said the maximum speed was 10.1 knots. We must have been surfing at that point!   Right about now, it’s getting to be time to swim.    

Gloria

One of the many houses of character along the waterfront at Saint-Pierre

An oar resting alongside the thwart of a boat ... abstract, partial B&W

A friendly guy sitting on the deck of one of the beach houses

"Mellow ... unreadable" ... a wrecked metal hulled sailboat (maybe 30-35ft) on the rocks to the south of Saint-Pierre

Two views - this one looking forwards, with Saint-Pierre in the background

... and this one look back down the decks to the rocks and sea. Although rusty, I suspect this boat only washed a shore a year or two ago. The engine, boat hardware and  electrics were all still visible and parts of the sails were all over the rocks