Author: doodle-ventures

So it’s relatively early morning here in Guadeloupe anchored just outside the Marina in Basse Terre Rivière-Sens, we headed up here yesterday afternoon following a change in the wind at our anchorage of Isles de Saints. Later this morning we will head into the marina to escape a large swell due to travel through the islands this week.

Since my last blog entry we have been on a grand tour of the Windward Islands and are now starting to make our way North through the Leewards. We left Rodney Bay for Marigot Bay for a quick overnight with our new crew on board the Lewis family, we returned to Rodney Bay by Road for the prize giving where we celebrated third in class and best blog award (blog prize really goes to Kirsty).

Marigot Bay

We then headed south skipping out St Vincent and overnighting in Bequia with a quick trip ashore in the morning to clear customs. We then had a Christmas Eve sail to Tabago Cays to spend Christmas on the beach swimming with turtles and a Christmas lunch of BBQ Lobster thanks to Captain Kojak.

Tabago Cays

The anchorage in the Cays was a bit blustery so Boxing Day morning was spent sailing round to Chatham Bay on Union Island. We then had an interesting afternoon water taxi and land taxi not to mention four by four taxi to check out of the island in Clifton and pick up some supplies. The evening was spent at anchor before heading to Tyrell bay the next day. Tyrell Bay was a check in point for Grenada so with that done a night onboard celebrating Dave’s Birthday with home made Pizza we hauled up the anchor and headed for the southern most tip of our voyage and Grenada before picking up a Mooring in Prickly Bay.

So a trip ashore to find some WIFI and some Lewis family time a shore turned into an afternoon / evening session in the bar trying to work out why the place didn’t quite meet up with its full description in the guide book. Chatting with a few of the inhabitants and other cruisers we decided it was a place where boats and dreams were abandoned and we decided to reconsider our new year plans.

The following morning whilst supping on a mug of tea we noticed the sight of a yacht on the rocks on the western side of the entrance, we were later told the Mooring line had chaffed through and the boat had drifted on to the rocks. It lead to some painful watching over breakfast as we watched half a dozen tenders all try their best to rescue the yacht which was now hard aground, eventually a Swedish yacht managed to pull the yacht from the rocks by pulling on the rig and canting the boat over. Amazingly there was no damage to the yacht and it was safely returned to its Mooring. With this in our minds an advanced party were dispatched to St George’s to check out the marina options and within the hour a berth had been reserved and Dave and I were on our way back to the boat for the short upwind trip to St George’s.

From St George’s we had a tour of the island getting friendly with the monkeys and finishing up in the islands rum distillery sampling their range of 20 or so rums a nice little sharpener for the evening ahead. We then returned to the boat and headed out for sushi for our New Years celebrations.

The Lewis family left us on New Year’s Day for their long trip back to the U.K. a couple of days of boat sorting and life admin followed for James and I before we headed back up the coast and a cruise through the rushed bits of the islands to meet up with the OCC rally in Dominica in mid January.

St George’s from the sea

We revisited Union Island and had a couple of nights in Clifton discovering the kiteboarding mecca and almost giving the sport a try. Definitely one for the future. With an upwind slog on our hands the next morning we decided to nip back round to Chatham Bay to wait out the unfavourable winds. The next day we headed to Bequia a bit of an upwind motor sail but we got there in the end. We then had a long day sail to Rodney Bay to redeem our blog winning prize joining back up with the crew from Degree of Latitude who had returned from Christmas in the U.K. The following day we headed for Porte de France in Martinique where we stayed a couple of nights to see the fort and the town. The place is the French equivalent of Gibraltar a slightly old military town hanging on to the worst bits of France.

From Martinique we headed off early on the Sunday morning for Portsmouth at the top end of Dominica. A good day sail with varying wind but a good day at sea none the less. Now with all these islands thus far our couple of day visits have not really given them the justice they deserve each one you could easily spend a fortnight on of not six weeks for the bigger islands. This is why we decided to spend a week in Dominica and the same again if not more on Guadeloupe. So I am going to leave these two islands to their own blog posts and will wrap up our adventures later.

So around 1045 on Thursday 13th December 2018 we crossed the finish line of the ARC 2018. The last few miles were sailed at a good pace with Gitana picking up her heels as the land breeze filled in and we climbed higher and higher on the breeze towards the finish line. We had a last minute tack to cross the line after causing a scare at the committee boat end. After the finish line we had to head for some sea room to sort out the propeller issue we had encountered in the last few days of the rally. With this sorted we motored into the marina under our own steam to be treated with the first rum punch and a Caribbean an welcome.

The first few days in Rodney bay were intense a constant vibe of people finishing a lifetime challenge and celebrating into the small hours. We caught up on war stories with our new friends from the Canaries and discussed our future cruising plans.

So first thing Monday morning after the OCC pontoon party we slipped away and headed for Marigot Bay a marina come hotel resort which has Mooring bouts in a small natural harbour where the berthing fees allow full use of the hotel facilities. The next two days had us swimming off the back of the boat, taking on a small snorkelling expedition from the dinghy and at last some quality RNR.

After two nights at Marigot we headed for Anse Le Raye a small fishing village with an anchorage, the first time in months that we are at rest and are the only boat in the anchorage / Mooring. It is now dark and there is only the background noise of the waves on the shore and crickets in the trees, also the odd car going up the coast road and the quiet background music from the beach bar ashore, which must also be supplying the BBQ smells.

Tomorrow we will head back to the hustle and bustle of Rodney Bay for our first crew change and resupply so we can then head south for Christmas.

So as we were preparing to leave Las Palmas for the ARC 2018 (#arc2018) one of our crew stated “there is a start time, a start line and a finish line also a handicap system in place to provide a finishing order on corrected time. Therefore we must be racing?”

As mobile signal started to fade on the first evening the first and last views of the yellow brick tracker showing the spread of the ARC fleet in the early stages. The first morning saw updates of positions of the boats from family members saying well done on our third place, hang on a minute this is a rally?

The mid day internet connection saw the first email position sched land in the inbox a rather antiquated list of positions. It is rather like reading stories from the old Whitbread races where the daily radio sched would be read out and positions plotted on a paper chart. I remember the weekly BBC shows showing a leader board with lat and long and distance to the finish. So with a little help from a spreadsheet we can quickly plot all the positions and see that we are in mid fleet.

This morning came news of our fellow rally participants (2nd place in the rally) had lost both head sails overboard during the night and had spent two hours recovering them. At the time we had lost a few places to seventh confirmed by text message through the yellow brick tracker. However a good pace was set through Thursday which saw us climb back up to 2nd in our group following the places we lost due to our later than ideal gybe all though we are not racing so this does not matter too much.

When I say later than ideal this was based on our weather routing information supplied by Libby via email. Later due to the redbox Comms box failing to connect the evening before. Oh Libby has just come back from the Volvo Ocean Race 2017/8 edition as navigator for team Scallywag so knows a thing or two about ocean weather routing. Gybe angle limitations have been set to ensure us a good run into St Lucia and remain in the good breeze. A Rally with lay lines all sounds a bit racey to me.

So it’s day eight of our sail across the Atlantic.We have encountered lighter winds the last couple of days which has slowed our progress slightly. We are still optimistic that we will arrive in a week or so as we are now well below 1600 miles to go.

We have been trying to decide which is the half way point on our route be it time, total mileage, geographic or the rhumb line. I think we have finally decided that today 3rd December is the halfway point in time and tomorrow will be the halfway point in distance.

The number of sightings of flying fish are getting more by the day although other wild life apart from the dolphins the other day has been scarce. Hopefully as the water gets warmer in the next few days we will see some more.

So a bit late in writing this we are on night three and setting into the swing of life onboard the good Yacht Gitana.

The start must be up there amounts one of the yachting industries greatest sights, I have done the round the island but the sight of seeing 160 odd yachts all loaded up for a three to four week passage was truly amazing.

We are currently topping our division more by luck than judgement. We will be looking to set a course for St Lucia in the morning and hope to make good speed for the rest of the crossing if the weather goes as planned.