Les Saintes to Portsmouth

Hi everyone,

Today we sailed from Les Saintes in Guadeloupe to Portsmouth in Dominica.  Twas a 21nm blast!  15 to 25 knot winds with stronger gusts, mostly from the E.  Dominica is a little SSE of Les Saintes so we initially 'put a bit in the bank' sailing almost close hauled.  Then gradually we bore off onto a close reach and finished on a beam reach in the lee of Dominica.

Once again we were in company with Cerulean.  They still have engine problems so we followed them out of Les Saintes then tried to catch them.  We sailed with a reef in the main and 2 to 3 furls in the yankee.  Heavy showers with gusty winds came over several times which washed off some of the salt we were constantly shipping.

Here's our track and graphs...

Track

Arrival Detail

Graphs

Our average boat speed was 6.4 knots which is fast for us.  The graphs show we were pushing into a 1 knot current at least.  Once cracked off Zen Again was romping along at over 7 knots boat speed.  Initially we held on to Cerulean, but as we both bore away she gained about 1nm on us - we're happy with that given she's a 43 footer!

Following Cerulean past Pain de Sucre on Les Saintes

As we got into the lee of Dominica the seas calmed and the wind eased a little.  Once around Prince Rupert Bluff we motored into the bay to give the batteries a bit of a lift.  Daniel of PAYS came out to welcome us and directed us to the quarantine area where we anchored. 

Approaching Prince Rupert Bluff, beyond which lies Portsmouth

I went for a swim and the bottom appeared to be coral rubble with a little weed.  After a couple of hours the anchor started dragging to we weighed it (STILL heavy) and picked up a mooring.  The moorings here have no pickup line or metal eye, rather an rope eye sits in the middle of the mooring buoy.  One simply grabs the eye, lifts it up to feed a line through it, and takes the tail of the line back aboard.

On a mooring in Prince Rupert Bay

It's great to be back in Dominica.  We really enjoyed our brief stay in 2016.  Looking forward to clearing in tomorrow morning then doing some exploring with sv Cerulean and sv Ruffian of Amble.

Trust all's well where you are!