Isles des Saintes

The basic change to these lovely islands is the installation of moorings in all of the anchorable spaces – out to depths of 55 feet (where one would need to put out at least 165 feet of chain to anchor). Last winter we could not find a good spot in the lee of Isle Cabrit or in the harbor by the town and anchored behind the beautiful Pan de Sucre, the lump behind ILENE.

 

From there it was a long dinghy ride to town. We were at Pan do Sucre because the town area anchorage was too crowded. This time we moored close to the town in 52 feet of water. 

Though the spaces between the moorings are not segregated by boat size, with spaces for larger boats being further apart, they charge larger boats more per night than the 11 Euros, about $15US, we were charged. 

We are third from the right and note the big Italian white boat off our stern, to the right. it bears the flag of Milan. Aboard were a grandfather two kids and two crew. Its boot stripe (ours is blue a few inches above the water) is gold! 

We were happy with the greater security of a mooring compared to our anchor because  the wind howled about us for most of the four nights we stayed here with 35 knot gusts.  Even the cats, who love to hang out topside, came below quickly, disturbed by the excess wind.

The difficulty with these new moorings is their design. They are large flat white plastic cones with rounded bottom edges but the line comes up through their center to a heavy metal ring. It has a six inch rod with a six inch diameter metal ring at the top. This is convenient for grabbing the ring, but the heavy metal piece will do major damage to a plastic boat when the winds slacken and permit the mooring to rub against the sides of her bow.  We put mooring lines through the ring and back to our cleats from both port and starboard and then passed a third line over the most forward anchor roller to the ring and back, by which we pulled the metal piece up out of the plastic through which it slides and secured it against our anchor where it could not get to our gelcoat. The result was security against damaging the relatively soft plastic of the boat, but a frequent clanging sound as the two heavy metal pieces ground against each other, day and night, as the boat bobbed and veered on its mooring.

We visited the church, all prepared for Christmas.

     Where there are hills, we like to climb them. Last season we climbed the two most famous heights in The Saintes: Le Chameau, to the south, the tallest peak, with a military observation tower at its top (at the extreme left in the next photo) and Fort Napoleon, to the northwest, now a museum and garden -- less high but closer to town (at the right). Pan de Sucre is the tiny lump just to the left of center and the Bay of Marigot, with its fishing boats tied near shore in in the foreground.

The next photo shows the switchbacks by which one ascends Le Chameau.

Both of those we climbed last winter are reached by paved roads, though vehicles and bicycles are prohibited on the switchbacks leading to Le Chameau. This time we visited the ruins of Fort Caroline, to the northeast, via yellow-blazed unpaved footpaths that approached the hill much more straightforwardly – straight up. Marie Gallant is the smudge above Ilene's head and to the left, 20 miles to the east.

Beautiful Pompierre beach, which we will visit on our next trip, lies at the foot of Fort Caroline. Huge waves beat upon the small island that blocks their force from creating a big surf in this lagoon.

And we took a different path down which led us nearer the fishing port of Marigot, where we lunched at La Pailotte: the blue plate special (though they don’t call it that), the most traditional French-Creole food one can get: Accras which are bits of cod deep fried in batter (cod fritters), boudin (short fat boiled sausages of pigs blood, a starch? and spices—who knows, really), salade, and baguette. And licorice soda!

By the way, butter seems never to be served with the baguette in these islands and Roger noticed another thing about these breads:  at the bakeries (boulangeries) they always bake them an inch longer than the bags they put them into. Why? So it looks like you are getting more than you bargained for? So you will tear off and eat the exposed piece while it is still warm? Who knows?

The dinghy dock, our parking lot for jaunts into town, is not yet crowded.

The ferry dock, by which most people arrive here, although they do have an airport on the island.

And we did what we do on French Islands:  ate in restaurants more than we do on English islands. Our other lunch out was at la Saladerie, which was nearer to our boat by dink than was the dinghy dock. It is run by a man, Edouard, who displays his art which is collages of mostly wood and fiberglass bits from wrecked boats. This was sad, thinking of wrecked boats. Lene had their smoked wahoo and lentil salad, while mine was more conventional, both artfully composed. At our one dinner at la Fringale (“the hunger”) I had a local desert that called Torment D’Amour (the pain of love) which is a very sweet cake with guava paste as its filler. Two stylishly dressed older women sat near us, spending a week in a house here, on vacation from Paris.

Maintainance projects continue: (1) replaced the joker valve in the forward head (don’t ask), (2) cleaned out the three spots that had become clogged with bits that impeded the delivery of fresh water from our tanks, (3) finally created a good working ratchet strap to secure the dinghy when it is hanging up behind the boat, by using the new stainless steel ratchet device instead of the rusty hunk that Home Depot had sold us and sewing together the strapping from the old rusted one to the new one to extend the straps so the end product is long enough to be useful and (4) with advice from friends, ordered a new hot water heater to be picked up and installed in St. Martin in a couple of weeks.

Isles des Saints is one of our favorite isles.

A Walk in the Woods

I, Roger, am pleased to report that Ilene has become quite a homebody (“boatbody” actually). On December 12, 17,  19 and 20, she did not go ashore. On the intervening days I estimate she was ashore an average of only three hours per day. True, she was feeling poorly, but what a joy that to me she feels so homey on the boat.

However, for me, to visit an island and not take a walk upon it – to claim at least some small part of it as territory observed – seems pointless. So on our lay day In St. Louis I decided to take a walk on Marie Gallante. The tourist map said the hike was 5.9 kilometers, but it was longer due to detours caused by poor marking, and it began 3.5 km from the beach via the Island’s main highway, 

adding another seven Km to the total.

The hike started on a one lane paved road, which became a dirt road, 

and finally a rocky downhill path. (Note the yellow blaze at right)

 The brochure called the path “Sentier de Sources,” which, according to my highly suspect French translation, means a trail in the neighborhood of the town of Sources. The sign at its beginning said it involved a walk through the “agricultural region” of Marie Galante. The trail marking, I came to learn, was the yellow dash painted occasionally upon rocks or tree trunks. Except that these marks did not appear at forks in the trail. So one guessed and either wound up in someone’s driveway and back tracked, or eventually  found some yellow blazes if you guessed correctly.

I took a lot of photos so I could tell Lene what I had seen. One thing a did not see was wild birds: I heard a lot of bird calls and occasionally heard the rapid beat of wings close by as I had noisily crashed by in the residents’ habitat. The other thing I did not see was any human being during my two hours on the trail.

I saw sugar cane:

Bananas:

Bamboo:

Breadfruit:

and Coconuts:

I saw myriad varieties of wild flowers and if I ever take this walk again I will attempt to photograph the flowers, but not this time.
In addition tochickens, hogs and goats:

which one finds on the other islands, this one had cows, 

lots of cows.

And each cow had a bird, perhaps a stilt, that accompanied it.

I just loved this tree:

And this view reminded me of the Catskills.

A bit of solitude can be good for the mind.  I took the loop in the counterclockwise direction for only one reason: someone was weed whacking out along the other way. And I’m glad I selected the way I did because the wildest part of the route was at the end, down hill on a barely marked one lane, overgrown path through the jungle; I may have given up if I had gone the other way.

I saw strange rock formations suggesting the possibility of prior quarrying, 

and strange natural rock formations making me wish I knew more about the geological history of this most unusual  non- coral but flat island.

Likewise a naturalist could have told me the names of the various trees and plants. I saw, but was unable to capture on film a totally jet black butterfly except for a cardinal red stripe on each wing.

The sign said not to litter and I was pleased to see how very well this rule had been observed.

Domenica and Marie Galante

From St. Pierre we sailed 56 miles to Prince Rupert Bay, Domenica, and then the next day, 22 miles to Marie Galante. We loved Domenica last season and devoted several days there to hikes to two waterfalls,  being rowed up the Indian River, red rocks, snorkeling in Champagne Springs, a tour of the botanical gardens, and climbing to the fort. But we have other islands to visit, so we disappointed the friendly and non-aggressive boat boys there by declining their offers of services, other than to take away a bag of garbage, and rented a mooring for a quiet night’s sleep after all the rolling at St. Pierre.  We did so under yellow quarantine flag, without going ashore and without checking in or out of Domenican customs.

The 56 miles to Domenica started and ended slow but for about five of the nine hours, in the middle, amidst six foot waves, under sunny skies and using small jib and reefed main we beat into the wind averaging  6.7 knots, including periods of much less speed, with apparent winds of 15 to 22 knots. Lene took the helm for two one-hour watches.

Each of us, while at the helm, got about a bucket full of seawater dumped on us: picked up by the boat’s bow as it dipped into the sea, thrown up and carried back by the wind. Our course was almost due north and the wind was from the northeast, so this entire passage was done on a single starboard close hauled reach. Once we got in the lee of Domenica, the waves diminished, but because we were sailing about three to four miles off the coast, the wind did not diminish much and with smaller waves hitting our bow and slowing us down, we kept the good speed.

We checked the weather and the same was predicted for the next day. It would have been easy to go on to the lovely Iles des Saints, where we planned to go next, but the challenge was Marie Galante, a much less visited island because it is a 22 mile detour to the north east, requiring tacking. The challenge is what attracted Roger. The wind would be behind us on the way back to The Saintes. Both The Saintes and Marie Galante are part of the nation of Guadalupe and all three have places where one can check into customs.

Rogers plan was to head north almost to The Saintes, and then tack the required 90 degrees to the east, toward Marie Galante. But after ghosting slowly out of Prince Rupert Bay, Domenica, and sailing close to shore the few miles remaining of Domenica’s west coast, we got to the open sea and, steering as close to the wind as we could, were able to sail on a course of 030 magnetic, only ten degrees from the rhumb line of 045 to our destination. But after an hour or so the wind shifted so we were steering a course of 000 – a mammoth thirty degree shift that would have taken us far away from where we wanted to go. So we tacked and now our destination was on our port bow but we were steering a course of 090.  An hour later, when the wind came back to near where it had been, we were able to steer  045, directly toward the destination, until  about an hour before the destination is shifted adversely, requiring us to steer 025.

But this sail was not as much fun as the prior one. Interspersed with all these course changes were about five rain squalls with accompanying strong winds. Roger had put up the full main without a reef and the small jib. The first of these squalls came upon us while Roger was doing something else and Lene sort of panicked due to the heavy heeling until Roger reduced the heeling and then put the reef in the main. Lene demanded a promise never to make inter-island passages without a reef in the main.

The island, named after one of Christopher Columbus’ boats on one of his voyages of discovery after his first, is roundish, and flat topped, it looks like a like a mesa from the sea. The passage, from 9 to 2, took us to the island’s capital, Grand Bourg, on the southwest coast. We think this translates into “Big City,” which it is not: about six blocks long along the waterfront and three blocks deep from it. They have built a seawall and enclosed a small area for the ferries, fishing boats, and a few sailboats and there we anchored.  

(The birds are a happy accident in this photo; they hang about at fishing docks.) But the nights we spent there were uneasy ones because our stern was only 40 feet from the rocks piled to make the seawall – zero margin of safety if the anchor had dragged.

One benefit of being at Marie Galante is the ability to see the storm tossed, less viewed eastern sides of Domenica, Isles des Saintes, and Guadaloupe.

It being Sunday, customs (called douanes in French) was closed, so we remained aboard and Sunday became a cleaning day. Monday we breakfasted ashore at this shop,

cleared customs, visited the tourist information office, and engaged in a frustrating and fruitless search for wifi. We also bought a one inch thick, ten inch round tuna steak, sliced off the fish at the dock where we landed and kept it on ice until dinner time, for 5 euros (about $7.60). It made two dinners.

Then on to St. Louis, the beachfront town about five miles north on the western side of Marie Galante. This was our third beat and again in big winds. Roger used the Genoa only and when it came time to tack toward shore, we furled it and motored in. Here we were in the back of the fleet with lots of room around us and with 100 feet on chain out in 20 feet of water, we felt safe, despite the rolly nature of the anchorage. Roger tied a second line to our snubber so we were snubbed through both port and starboard bow chocks, which made for a quieter night. After six years with this boat, I think Roger finally got snubbing right!

During our lay day here, Lene was feeling a bit under the weather again and did not want to tour, but wanted a day away from Roger, so he dinked ashore.  The touring guide talked of dinghy docks but none remain and the ferry dock was too high to climb out of the dink onto so it was on to the beach. There Roger met a French man, Fred, on vacation, and offered him a ride to Iles des Saintes the next day or the day after, depending on weather and on the concurrence of our respective women.

Then after a 30 minute wait in this little local Post office for postage of two items to the US, Roger took a five hour hike, which will be described in another posting, checked out wifi,  thermometers (but they were all Celsius except a high tech electric one which measures when pressed to the forehead, bought some cucumbers (no lettuce available here as in most places) and returned for another home cooked meal after a call to Fred confirmed a beach rendezvous for 8 am but without his girlfriend.

In the morning we discovered that the clip atop the stack pack to which we attach the main halyard when it is not in use, had broken loose and were able to detangle the halyard with boathook and messenger line.  The voyage was only 15 miles but with winds of 20 to 25 knots, we dared not attempt to run dead down wind. We headed west of our rhumb line toward mainland Guadelope and then gybed to a more southerly course straight to our harbor. Surfing down six foot waves we reached a peak observed speed of 10.1 knots. And the trip was not a long one. Fred is a salesman in his native Brittany town, speaks a lot better English than Roger’s French and expressed fear that he might become nauseous toward the end, but hung on.

The waves toss the boat’s head about quite a bit and it was a great joy for Roger to see how well Lene handled the boat.

Rainbow Over St. Pierre, Martinique

First, here are photos of our new cockpit lampshade,  and the light it emits on the table at night and through its holes that create the cat pictures.

We spent five more days in Martinique, in three ports,  after leaving St. Anne, with three boring, low wind and hence motoring passages, aggregating 34 miles. Our first night we had intended to stay at Petit Anse D’Arlet, but the wind's direction made the other part of the bay, Anse Chaudiere, a better anchorage. This was after passing between the mainland and Rocher Diamont (Diamond Rock) which the British had commissioned as one of its warships. One of the Ste. Anne photos showed it in the distance and here it is up close.

We could have dinked to the pretty town of Petit D'Arlet, with its church at the head of the dock and some racing going on:

but elected to stay aboard, except for snorkeling where we checked our anchor lying on the bottom. Roger swam for ten minutes watching a turtle down below, and Lene found several schools (possibly part of one big school) of yellow fish, about 7 inches long that were as stationary as they could be. They moved perhaps a foot one way with bottom currents, and a second later, without turning, they were moved back. Hundreds of them.  There were only three other boats in the entire anchorage and one of them was a 26 foot bright yellow one on which Marie and her husband live. Lots of room here.

Marie has no water tanks (only bottles of rain water), head (but has a bucket), or outboard for their dinghy (but it has oars); living on a budget one might say. We had met Marie on Teepee and they speak no English so we hailed them, and next day watched them row their dink to town.

Next day, it was to the Capital, Fort de France, as we continued our clockwise passage around the island to its north.  Actually, we did have about one hour of a glorious fast beat as we headed into the huge bay in which FdF is located -- full sails and strong winds and 6.9 knots speed over the bottom. We were winning the undeclared race with a green-dodgered, French-flagged Beneteau until we had to tack, at which point Roger just furled the Genoa and motored the last mile. The anchorage was lovely, under a massive stone fort still in active service abutting the town. 

They have a large wood and metal seawall which serves as a dinghy dock, to the left of the fort and to the right of the ferry dock which is adjacent to the bus terminal. 

Mercifully, the little ferry boats, which run fast, frequently and all daylong, creating big wakes, do not run at night.  We visited the Schoelcher Library, which is the first listed tourist attraction in town.Here is the front door with its name above.

It is named (as are streets and another town on the island) after the leading abolitionist of the island. It was built in Paris at fin du siècle and brought over brick by brick and reassembled. They had an exhibition of their Gaugin books. Roger had always associated Gaugin with Polynesia, but apparently (all signage in French so Roger could be wrong) he worked on Martinique as well. We visited markets and got some southern Bahamian charts and a new dinghy lock to replace the old which had become so “crusty” that the key had broken off in the lock while Roger tried to open it to lubricate it. We spent four hours in an internet café.

One night, Roger tore the boat apart (and later put it back together again) to inefficiently but successfully locate a leak.  It turns out that the sea water (taste test) was coming through the seacock (valve) that lets seawater into the macerator (pump with teeth in it to chew up sewage and pump it overboard), through a hose to the macerator, then through it and to a hose connecting it the holding tank for sewage, filling that tank which overflowed into the bilge and was being pumped out by the bilge pump.Closing the macerator seacock has solved the problem for now.

Our last port on Martinique was St. Pierre. We visited last season.  It was quite rolly here with wind, tide and waves pushing the boat in different directions. Our first anchorage spot was between a boat from Annapolis and one from Nantucket. We were the last to arrive so when things got rolly and boats faced all different directions it was much too close for comfort and we moved further from the dock to a spot where there was lots of room around us. Carl of Nantucket came over, attracted by the cats; his were at home. He keeps his boat in these islands and uses it as a vacation home for six weeks twice a year. He is a chef and carpenter and looks and dresses a bit like the sailing columnist in Cruising World magazine, Fatty Goodlander. Roger offered him a beer and had one with him. He is headed to St. Lucia to meet his wife, a teacher, and drop off his two sons and one’s girlfriend, in their 20’s. We helped him with recent local knowledge of St. Lucia, to which he has never sailed;  he returned the favor with information about favored spots in the lower Bahamas, which he has sailed often. 

In the evening we had dinner at Tamaya, a very fishy restaurant. It is named after a 19^th century square rigger built in Liverpool which died here in the volcanic eruption of 1902. It is decorated with boat pictures and paraphernalia. Small, 28 seats, it is very French, and the proprietress, who served us, speaks no English. We had tuna and shark for our main courses. A group of six Germans, from the ten aboard a chartered catamaran, entered after us. One of them worked in the small town in SW Germany where Roger’s father was born and raised, 100 years ago. They took our picture for us. Lene with une verre d l'eau. 

On our lay day, we had planned to hike to a rum distillery, a beach or a butterfly farm but it rained so after an internet cafe and checkout we repaired to ILENE and had a quiet night aboard.

We noticed that throughout this island (and perhaps it is true of the other French islands) they do not believe in cleats atop the dinghy docks; rather they attach rings, perhaps 4” in diameter, to hang from the vertical face of the dock, to which to attach one’s dinghy. These French Islands are “Departments” of France (whatever that means). France seems to support them more than the English do their former colonies.  They seem less poor. Construction cranes are in several locations we observed, and on weekdays they are moving. This may be an illusion of relative affluence, however, based on insufficient evidence. It was on this island that we were victimized by petty crime. The portable, hand held, battery powered navigation lights that we use when motoring in the dinghy at night, one red and green and the other white, were placed in the dinghy’s little forward enclosed locker space while we were ashore, and were gone when we returned. Perhaps someone found their Christmas colors too irresistible.

Moonlight over Ste. Anne

The sail here to Martinique from St. Lucia was strange. The wind was from 350M, west of north, instead of from the east like it is supposed to be. And rhumb line of 025M is too close to the wind to sail, but we were being set to the west, and hence able to steer a bit more east and steering 035 to 045, were able to stay pretty close to the dotted line on the chart plotter.  We actually had the motor on except for about two hours before the final hour, in which the winds got strong for a while and then faltered. With main and small jib we were able to make about four knots speed on average. During the earlier motor sailing we passed a magnificently romantic looking older Polish flagged vessel, which was motor sailing slower than us; because she caught up with us once we turned off the engine.  We saw Martinique from St. Lucia and St. Lucia from Martinique. The 25 miles from Rodney Bay to the village of Ste. Anne, which is in a big bay inside the southeastern peninsula of Martinique, took us about five hours.  We got in too late to clear customs, which is in the much bigger sailing city of Le Marin, about two miles further into the bay, so we hoisted the yellow quarantine flag and waited till the next morning.  About 75 boats are anchored at Ste. Anne, compared to well over 500 at docks, moorings and anchor in Le Marin, which has four chandleries and three supermarkets.

We really enjoyed being at Ste. Anne which, in a way, was kind of surprising.  For 3 of the 4 nights we were there, there was some guy broadcasting LOUDLY on a microphone that could be heard all over the bay…which isn’t a small one…  He broadcast throughout the night..at 1 AM…at 3 AM at 7 AM.  There was no stopping him, and we couldn’t understand anything he was saying as he obviously broadcast in French in a hyperintensive voice.  We later learned there was a running race on the island that ended in Ste Anne.  It was much longer than even a marathon with the distance being about 70 miles or so and the terrain is quite hilly!.  Every time someone crossed the finish line, no matter when, we heard it VERY LOUDLY!  Yet, even with that, the place is kind of magical.

The full moon, which rose even before sunset, actually kept Ilene awake with its brilliance.  She had to put on a sleep mask it was so bright!   

 And the sunsets! OMG! Incandescent! These photos have not been "adjusted" in any way.

The reds and yellows and oranges were just magnificent.  And the days were just as beautiful.  After living so many hours in wet and muggy weather, the weather since arriving on Martinique has been sunny, with the occasional  white, billowing clouds that give relief from the heat.

 We remarked how different this stay in St. Anne was, as compared to our stay here on our way south last winter. The difference was the wind: calm to 10 knots this time as compared to 25 to 30 knots last time.

We dinked into customs the morning after our arrival, and to shop in chandleries, supermarkets and got a sundress for our brand new grand niece, Chloe.  We shared dinners with Michelle and Manu (hereafter referred to as M&M) on three of the 4 nights we were in Ste Anne. Here we are on Teepee:

    And on ILENE:

Our last night’s dinner was at the restaurant in town where last season we enjoyed one of our favorite meals.  It was with great anticipation that we dinked into town to relish in beautifully cooked French cusine.  So..how does the saying go?  You can’t go home again?  It’s never as good as one remembers.  We enjoyed dinner aboard more than dinner out.  We really have grown to appreciate our growing, close relationship with M&M.  They will be heading north as well but more slowly than us right now as Manu’s brother is visiting Martinique for 2 weeks and they will hang out with him and his girlfriend.  I know will see them again even if it takes a long while as they are also sailing to NY and will be our guests for as long as we can keep them anchored!

Manu helped Roger install two new devices which will make cockpit dining much more fun on our boat. The first is the installation of a Magma kettle style grill on the starboard quarter, attached to the side of the radar arch. We had bought this little marvel about ten years ago, but never used it on this boat due to Roger’s paranoid fears of burning up the bimini. But everyone else uses them so we shipped it down and it works well. Turning on the propane stove in the galley heats up the cabin and this grill reduces the need to use the galley stove.

The other improvement is the installation of a small LED light, hanging from the underside of the top of the bimini, in its own custom (cat pictures) designed lampshade made of the top of a gourd and powered by a wire running from the cigarette lighter.  The lampshade was made by Annik, who lives on a small older turquoise boat and paddles a surfboard, rather than drives a dinghy. Here is Manu soldering the wiring for the plug.

This little baby generates so much light that we were able to play cards after dinner. It makes eating in the cockpit that much more enjoyable.

One day we took a five mile roundtrip hike to the south facing beach. We took the Trace du Cap (path of the Capes) on which we only got as far as Pointe Dunquerke last winter due to my bad back. Here is that point, looking back from way beyond it.

 This time we made it all the way to the long beautiful sand beach (with Rocher Diamont a/k/a HMS Diamond Rock just to the right of the sailboat.

We swam and ate our picnic lunches before taking a road home—a shortcut.

While not impossible, it is hard to feel anything but gratitude when surrounded by the beauty of this place and the unselfish behavior of true friends.

St. Lucia

The passage from St. Vincents to St Lucia was varied, with very light wind during the time we were behind the islands to about two hours each of seven plus and then 6.5 knot boat speeds between the islands. The cats found a new cat box, the cubby beneath the helms person's seat, normally stuffed with stuff, but they wormed their way in. The photo also shows a bit of our new cockpit cushions. In Whitty's picture one can see the shift lever turned to reverse_ the best position for sailing because it locks the propeller so its blades feather, showing their narrow edge to the water.

And Alfie has taken to sleeping in the clothes locker above my hip at night, locked into a small space and happy. She lets us know when she wants to leave in the morning.




The Pitons, the nation's symbols, are hidden most of the way south, but heading toward the island from the south they are quite prominent -- on this clear day we saw them from St. Vincents. The smaller and sharper one to the left, Petit Piton, is about 2400 feet high.

Our destination today was the tiny hidden harbor, Marigot, whose entrance is shown in this photo. From further out at sea, if you blink, you will miss it. The British hid their fleet in here once, disguising their spars with palm trees and then sneaked out behind the French and defeated them -- or at least that's what the guidebooks say. It is a popular spot, with a Moorings Charter Company base in it. We had high expectations but found it small, crowded, dirty, noisy, and expensive: our mooring cost $80EC ($32 US). We cleared into customs here with no mention of the fact that we had inadvertently forgotten to check out of St Lucia last spring, and hence faced a "fine". But since the records of innings and outings are not computerized, our risk seemed low. We dined aboard after a bit of shopping and our major activity next morning was a walk to the post office to mail some letters. "Ten minutes up the road" said the man. But it was 45 minutes up a steep hill and down again on the other side, to the P.O., which was a stall in a local food market.  This was our first hike since our arrival here and good practice for more of them in the future, with the bonus of photos from the "lookout" spot at the top where buses unload masses of people from the big cruise ships that come into the big harbor of Castries. This one from half way up shows ILENE, smack dab in the middle

 Here is the entire harbor, from the top.

 
After lunch we motored all the way to Rodney Bay, eight miles away, with about three miles of true wind on our nose. Last winter we spent about four days in the big modern Marina entered through an inlet from the Bay, but this time we anchored out in the Bay. This was the finish line of the ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) similar to the Caribbean 1500 but with over 300 boats coming across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands. Day and night we saw boats sailing as fast as they could toward the finish line, a boat on a mooring by its stern with huge flags up by day and an orange flasher by night. As these boats passed, they got a big Toot on the air horn and gave a big yell.
During the first night our anchor dragged and so we moved from the south side of the bay, nearer the marina and wifi, to the north side at night where our anchor held well. The only problem here was what Roger believes is inaccurate information in the electronic charts in our chart plotter. Our eyeball view of the situation had us in the same place that the chart plotter showed us to be, but our very reliable depth meter said we were anchored in 36 feet of water while the chart on the plotter showed depths of only ten feet all around us.
Here we went in to the Marina for Lene to work on the computer while I visited hardware and marine stores, we shopped for groceries at the two big supermarkets, by dink, we had the starboard valve of the dink removed and replaced, we checked out of customs in anticipation of a departure the next day, and we had Allen and Lisbeth of "Life of Reilly" for a drink and dinner. I say "a drink" because gradually, our gin and vodka, which we had used on Wednesday afternoons at the Harlem Yacht Club, had dwindled, and there was just enough for one drink a piece. They lived aboard their boat all summer and are heading north for a planned jump back to England to visit relatives this summer. Dinner was whole wheat pasta bolognese, braised cabbage (alright, it's not the traditional vegetable) and a store brought whole wheat natural bread that we could not place but later learned had molasses in it and was delicious.