Chapter 115: Windward sailing and plan changes!

We started the week in Les Saintes, Guadeloupe.  We enjoyed our time there but found a weather window to continue making our way south so we cleared out of Guadeloupe with customs and immigration on Monday anticipating a Tuesday departure.  After doing some research, we decided to bypass Dominica and head directly to Martinique. We had some supplies we needed (more on that in a later post!) and there are many chandleries in Le Marin in Martinique so we decided to head there. 

The trip to Le Marin was estimated to be around 130NM.  We had to make a decision whether or not to travel on the windward or leeward sides of Dominica and Martinique to get to Le Marin which is all the way to the south in Martinique.  The windward side typically gets more wind which is good for sailing but the sea state can be a bit rougher.  On the leeward side you can have wind shadows which are not as good for sailing but a calmer sea state.  We left Les Saintes at 4pm so that this would be an overnight passage to arrive in Le Marin around noon the next day.  We decided to go for it and travel on the windward side.  We did have good wind for sailing (actually too much at times, needing to reef) but we also definitely had some rough seas.  We actually considered altering the plan when we got to Dominica to instead go around to the leeward side but we also knew the wind was supposed to drop by morning and then we would be stuck having to motor, using diesel and taking longer.  So we stuck it out on the windward side and we were glad we did as we were able to sail the entire way and the sea state eventually calmed down some. We arrived at the anchorage at Sainte Anne just outside of Le Marin around lunchtime.  We knew to expect a lot of boats in Martinique, especially in Le Marin but wow we still didn’t expect this many at this point in the season.  We tucked into a spot, dropped the hook, and then exhaustion hit after a long overnight passage.  Naps were the order of the afternoon!  One bonus of Martinique is that their customs and immigration clearance is all online so we did not need to go ashore at all which was great.

After an early bedtime and a good night’s sleep, we awoke on Thursday and got Piccola (our dinghy) in the water and prepared to head into the marina at Le Marin.  We needed to get diesel, visit a few different marine specialty shops and of course look for croissants. We rounded the corner from Sainte Anne and realized there were many, many, many more boats in the marina.  Truly impressive – some of them were charter boats but also many individually owned vessels. After a fairly long and wet dinghy ride, we headed to the dinghy dock and the first stop was for croissants, pain au chocolat, and a cafe au lait.  It was very good but not quite as good as the ones on Les Saintes and in Deshaies.  We then had a bit of a walk to the other side of Le Marin to get the parts we needed.  Enroute we passed a McDonald’s- the first one of those we have seen in a while and the drive in was quite busy! We successfully got the necessary parts and walked back along the waterfront to the dinghy dock. This is a much busier port than we have been to in a while and lots of restaurants and shops. We headed back to Meraviglia to drop off our supplies and pick up our laundry to visit the laundromat in Sainte Anne.  As we have shared previously, our washer on board is quite small and uses a lot of water and power. When we have an opportunity to visit a laundromat we try to take advantage of it.  Unfortunately, this one ended up being a bit longer walk (and more uphill) than anticipated – sorry Bob! At least we had our rolling cart which helped.  We then headed back into Sainte Anne to a local restaurant called La Cour Creole.  The menus are all in French here and unfortunately I seem to have no recall of my four years of high school French. So we decided to just try the popular local appetizer of Boudins Creole followed by the Poulet Colombo and Poulet Curry for our mains.  They were served with rice, mashed taro root and chayote. The mains were excellent but I wasn’t sure about the appetizer- it had a weird texture and I couldn’t decide exactly what was in it.  I learned the next day when reading an article about specialty dishes in Martinique that it actually is a Martinican sausage made from pork that includes pig’s blood. Um, not sure I will be eating that again. 

Friday was a rainy, squally day off and on.  Bob wanted to run a few more supply errands and I hung back on board to research a bit for our upcoming passages.  We had been planning to visit St. Lucia next and have a friend visit us there.  We have a number of online forums and cruiser specific websites that are helpful when we are planning our passages that we can ask about the best anchorages and places to visit.  Unfortunately, we quickly learned that St. Lucia has had a pretty high number of crimes against cruisers including friends who experienced having their boat boarded and needed to fight off the assailants. There are definitely safety issues so sadly we felt we needed to adjust our plan.  While we are sad our friend cannot meet us there, we definitely did not want to take any chances with his safety or ours.  Hopefully we will be able to reschedule his visit for somewhere later in the year.  So we are now going to be staying put in Martinique for a little longer than planned.  On the plus side, it will hopefully enable us to see Le Tour de Yoles 2024.  This is a multi stage race of traditional Martinique sailing boats or yoles around the coast of Martinique.  It is a huge event that celebrates the history and tradition of these beautiful boats so definitely an upside to our plan changes.

Saturday was quite windy so we had another wet dinghy ride to go into the marina at Le Marin from where our boat is anchored in Sainte Anne.  We wanted to visit the marina office to ask some questions and visit the grocery store.  The marina office is in a complex of shops and restaurants that definitely caters to the large cruising community.  We visited a few shops and then had a lovely lunch at L’ Annexe.  Their specialty is cooking on a hot stone at tableside. They bring the hot stone out and then you get your plate with items to cook and you cook it yourself at tableside – it was quite fun as well as delicious.  They also had great desserts – the lemon mousse and espresso were the perfect ending to a great meal.  After lunch it was back to the boat to do chores and then relax for the rest of the day. We are planning to stay at least one more night here in Sainte Anne and then will decide where to explore next in Martinique! 

Au revoir mes amis!