As we had previously walked northeast along the coast to Club Med, today we walked southwest. We followed "La Trace du Caps" which we think means Trail of the Capes. It is well marked on the map and on the trail and is well maintained; well except that some small animals made lots of holes; note the dirt scraped out of the holes at their side.It reminded us of walks on Long Island, Maine, with the sea on one side and the forest on the other; except in Maine, big North Atlantic rollers crashed on huge granite rocks while here, as we started on the lee side of the island, gentle waves lapped the shore. We walked on the narrow beach itself at times, and other times on cliffs to perhaps 100 feet in altitude. The trail is 34 kilometers long, each way, and we had not intended to finish it but walked even less of it, only to Point Dunquirk, where the high shot looking down was taken. this is because Roger's back is not fully healed. The next photo is of the Ste Anne anchorage area, ILENE is out there, but the purpose of this photo is to show a five minute rain storm which here was moving from right to left. Were it not there, Diamond rock would be quite visible.
Upon our return to the village, Roger rested in the church (see its chandelier, which swayed in the breeze through its large non-staned glass open windows) while Lene climbed the switchback path to the shrine/observation point above.
We had lunch in Les Tamarindiers. They made a dish that Roger wants to experiment and make for friends: Cassoulet de Canard au Fromage. The duck leg was cooked till it fell off the bone, the anticipated white beans had been replaced with tiny cubes of roasted potato, and the cheese, added last, we think, was Roquefort. Wow!
Next day we motored the two miles or so to Le Marin. This used to be a small town and is now wholly devoted to pleasure sailing, a "Port de Plaisance". Five or six yacht charter companies, mostly of and for Europeans, have their bases here. This is a very French island. The natives are black and the tourists are French. Roger was fearful that we were almost out of diesel fuel and this made our passage, by motor, through a well marked channel, guarded by nasty shoals on both sides, in 20 knots of wind, scary. We were prepared to fly the small jib to get out of there in a hurry if the motor stopped due to lack of fuel. False alarm: one tank was almost full. We fueled up and then anchored in Le Marin, reputed to be a hurricane hole. We did this partly to try to avoid the 20 to 25 knot winds that blew through the mooring field at Ste. Anne. But the same wind, from the east, blew here as well.
We took a dink ride into town to explore it and to mail postcards to our grand daughter in Oregon and buy a few things. This simple task became a problem when we got stuck on the bottom in our dink. The harbor is arranged thus: To the north is the marina and fuel dock. south of this an area where boats are moored, then comes a shallow area and finally the area where boats anchor, where we were. We knew that the shallow area was too shallow for our boat, with its 5' 8" draft to cross, and so had rounded it to the east in going to our anchorage. But having seen other dinghys crossing the shallows, we sought to do likewise and got the outboard prop stuck in the strong weeds and the mud. We learned that our new AB inflatable dinghy has a lousy rowing system and ended up (A) digging around the propeller by hand to free the prop so it could be raised and then (B) using the oars to pole ourselves out of the shallow area. There are deeper paths through this swamp but they are unmarked. So we had some excitement and the mud washed out of our clothes.
We also started listening to weather reports on our SSB radio. What a complicated system that is: you have to learn how to tune in to a channel, which we have now mastered; there are hundreds of them. Then you have to know which channels have weather reports and at which times they are broadcast (but the times are in Greenwich Mean Time so you have to subtract four hours to get to Atlantic Standard Time). And then the weather reports are in a sort of code, so you have to wait for them to mention the area that includes you and the final problem is that they talk very fast and reception, even in our top of the line ICOM 802 SSB with Tuner, is poor. But the bottom line is big winds and hence big waves were expected the next few days, though the following day seemed better than the next few.
So the next morning we cleared out of French Douanes (Customs) and took off for Rodney Bay, at the noth end of the west coast of St. Lucia, where we are now. With the wind expected slightly aft of the port beam at 15 to 20 knots, we used a double reefed main and small jib. The winds were in the predicted direction, but from 17 knots in lulls to 27 knots in gusts and the rollers entered the side of the Caribbean from the Atlantic at up to 15 feet in height. Even with such reduced sail we felt slightly overpowered at times and held our 205 degrees magnetic course, plus or minus 25 degrees, as the waves picked us up in one direction and we slid off in a different direction. Autopilot couldn't handle it so Roger steered. But it was a very fast 22 mile passage once we got the sails up--less than three hours.
Here in St Lucia, we put into the Rodney Bay Marina in a lagoon behind the bay, where we checked into customs. This was the first time ILENE has been at a dock, other than momentarily at a fuel dock, since we left Nanny Cay, the day after Thanksgiving. We are at a very modern well equipped marina with real slips, wide piers and lots of services. In Rhode Island the cost would be $3 - 5 per foot per night. Here, in high season, it is $0.70 per foot. We had our laundry done, hired a man to clean our stainless steel which was getting rusty, and cleaned the interior of the boat.
We had lunch in Les Tamarindiers. They made a dish that Roger wants to experiment and make for friends: Cassoulet de Canard au Fromage. The duck leg was cooked till it fell off the bone, the anticipated white beans had been replaced with tiny cubes of roasted potato, and the cheese, added last, we think, was Roquefort. Wow!
Next day we motored the two miles or so to Le Marin. This used to be a small town and is now wholly devoted to pleasure sailing, a "Port de Plaisance". Five or six yacht charter companies, mostly of and for Europeans, have their bases here. This is a very French island. The natives are black and the tourists are French. Roger was fearful that we were almost out of diesel fuel and this made our passage, by motor, through a well marked channel, guarded by nasty shoals on both sides, in 20 knots of wind, scary. We were prepared to fly the small jib to get out of there in a hurry if the motor stopped due to lack of fuel. False alarm: one tank was almost full. We fueled up and then anchored in Le Marin, reputed to be a hurricane hole. We did this partly to try to avoid the 20 to 25 knot winds that blew through the mooring field at Ste. Anne. But the same wind, from the east, blew here as well.
We took a dink ride into town to explore it and to mail postcards to our grand daughter in Oregon and buy a few things. This simple task became a problem when we got stuck on the bottom in our dink. The harbor is arranged thus: To the north is the marina and fuel dock. south of this an area where boats are moored, then comes a shallow area and finally the area where boats anchor, where we were. We knew that the shallow area was too shallow for our boat, with its 5' 8" draft to cross, and so had rounded it to the east in going to our anchorage. But having seen other dinghys crossing the shallows, we sought to do likewise and got the outboard prop stuck in the strong weeds and the mud. We learned that our new AB inflatable dinghy has a lousy rowing system and ended up (A) digging around the propeller by hand to free the prop so it could be raised and then (B) using the oars to pole ourselves out of the shallow area. There are deeper paths through this swamp but they are unmarked. So we had some excitement and the mud washed out of our clothes.
We also started listening to weather reports on our SSB radio. What a complicated system that is: you have to learn how to tune in to a channel, which we have now mastered; there are hundreds of them. Then you have to know which channels have weather reports and at which times they are broadcast (but the times are in Greenwich Mean Time so you have to subtract four hours to get to Atlantic Standard Time). And then the weather reports are in a sort of code, so you have to wait for them to mention the area that includes you and the final problem is that they talk very fast and reception, even in our top of the line ICOM 802 SSB with Tuner, is poor. But the bottom line is big winds and hence big waves were expected the next few days, though the following day seemed better than the next few.
So the next morning we cleared out of French Douanes (Customs) and took off for Rodney Bay, at the noth end of the west coast of St. Lucia, where we are now. With the wind expected slightly aft of the port beam at 15 to 20 knots, we used a double reefed main and small jib. The winds were in the predicted direction, but from 17 knots in lulls to 27 knots in gusts and the rollers entered the side of the Caribbean from the Atlantic at up to 15 feet in height. Even with such reduced sail we felt slightly overpowered at times and held our 205 degrees magnetic course, plus or minus 25 degrees, as the waves picked us up in one direction and we slid off in a different direction. Autopilot couldn't handle it so Roger steered. But it was a very fast 22 mile passage once we got the sails up--less than three hours.
Here in St Lucia, we put into the Rodney Bay Marina in a lagoon behind the bay, where we checked into customs. This was the first time ILENE has been at a dock, other than momentarily at a fuel dock, since we left Nanny Cay, the day after Thanksgiving. We are at a very modern well equipped marina with real slips, wide piers and lots of services. In Rhode Island the cost would be $3 - 5 per foot per night. Here, in high season, it is $0.70 per foot. We had our laundry done, hired a man to clean our stainless steel which was getting rusty, and cleaned the interior of the boat.
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