Bouillante to Les Saintes

Hi everyone,

Yesterday we sailed in company with sv Cerulean from Bouillante to Le Bourge on Les Saintes, a small group of islands south of Guadeloupe.  It was an interesting 22nm sail in a light coastal sea breeze, then becalmed and then beating into light trade winds.

Livin' the Dream

Here are the usual tracks and graphs...

Overall Track - love that arc

Arrival Track

Graphs

We initially accompanied Cerulean closely since they have a drive train problem.  They needed to avoid using their motor so we waited for the sea breeze to come in before departing.  Like them we sailed off the anchor which was good practice.

The sea breeze held down the W coast of Guadeloupe, giving us a very nice sail in 4-8 knots of breeze.  As we approached the southern tip of the Basse Terre the wind gradually died and we closed with Cerulean.  Happily we'd both entered a 1 knot S current.  So we both bobbed around becalmed and let the current carry us south and into the channel between Guadeloupe and Dominica.

Light wind sail down the spectaclar coast of Guadeloupe

Once into the trade wind in the channel we were close hauled on port tack with 22 knots over the deck.  Zen Again loved it and so did her crew.  We hand steered all the way to Les Saintes, gradually being lifted as we beat clear of the point.  Once away from the point the wind moderated to 15 knots.  We tacked twice to work into the bay, having left Cerulean behind.  Our tacking angles were amazingly good considering there was a 0.5knot W current in the channel.

Cerulean over a silver sea

We motored the last half mile to give the engine a run.  We picked up a mooring since the main anchorage here is full of them,  They're E14/night which is reasonable.  We dinghied over to a vacant mooring to stand by in case Cerulean needed assistance.  Of course they didn't but we handed them a mooring strop anyway.

We expect to spend a few days here exploring ashore and visiting a few anchorages around the islands.  We'll probably move on to Dominica after Easter.

Happy Easter everyone!