Fort de France to Rodney Bay

Hi everyone,

Yesterday we sailed from Martinique to St Lucia.  We had planned to sail to Sainte Anne on the SE tip of Martinique but decided against after finding the chandleries in nearby Marin to be poor.  Perhaps we didn't find the right ones.  Rodney Bay was where we made landfall after our longest passage to date, from St Helena in the South Atlantic in 2016.  We figured it'd be fun to visit again, and to hit the Island Water World chandlery here.

Zen Again and Lady of Lorien in Rodney Bay

The passage started well with a beam reach across the bay from Fort de France.  As we sailed down the SW side of the island hard on the wind we copped a 25G30 rain squall.  We thought the SSE wind we had would back around to the E as we cleared the island but it didn't.  And the NW current was flowing at 1.5-2.0 knots around the cape.

Our course over the ground was WSW which would take us to the ABCs - not what we wanted.  So the engine went on and sadly it stayed so for the rest of the passage.  We 'tacked' ESE to try to get S of Martinique and out of the worst of the current.  Our speed over the ground was down to 1.5 knots at times and Diamond Rock at the SW corner of Martinique was close by for a very long time.

Eventually we tacked SSE and had the apparent wind 25 degrees off our port bow.  The true wind was SE when it was forecast to be E!  It stayed SE all the way across.  The passage took 9 hours.  The route was 34nm, our track 35nm and our log 45nm.  So our average speed over the ground was 3.8 knots and our average boat speed 5.0 knots, giving an average of 1.2 knots contrary current.  Our Craftsman CM3.27 engine earned its keep!

Here are the tracks and graphs...

Track

Arrival Track

Graphs

We arrived in Rodney Bay just after twilight.  We motored in gently, watching carefully for boats, and anchored in about 6m over a rubble-strewn bottom.  Happily the anchor bit and we got a good night's sleep with the anchor watch app running.

This morning we moved closer inshore.  We tried two locations in about 4m but again found rubble and the anchor dragged.  Finally we anchored in the charted deeper hole where the bottom looked like sand.  The anchor dug in immediately and we're now in 9m over sand with 50m of chain out.

Morning visit from the Fruit & Veg boat

Later this morning we went ashore to clear in.  A quick, easy and friendly process with visits to the Port Health office on the ground floor then Customs & Immigration on the 1st floor of the many-sided building.  No Covid tests required and EC$30 port fees.

Zen Again back in Rodney Bay

It was nice to find our friends on Lady of Lorien here.  We met them in Gosport, again in Lanzarote and also via SSB during our Atlantic crossing.  Looking forward to catching up with them for coffee tomorrow morning.

Trust all's well where you are!