Martinique and Grenada

The Battle of The Saintes
 

Hello Again
 

It is grey and overcast as we raise the anchor from Terra D’en Haut, The Saints. We had rain before dawn, and it looks like there are more squalls about. We are about to enter the Dominica Channel. It is only an 18nm run to the north end of Dominica, but these waters saw one of the great sea battles between the English and the French. There must be many a wreck sitting on the sea floor in these waters.

Local sail boats, Marin
 

It was called “The Battle of the Saints”. The year before – October 1781, Count de Grasse, commander of the French fleet, plays an important role in the war of Independence of the U.S.A. His victory at Chesapeake, shared with George Washington and others, leads to the surrender of Yorktown by the British. England has now lost its American colonies.

Forward to April 1782 and once again Count de Grasse and the English come face to face in yet another sea battle. The English had 36 vessels and a total of 2,640 canons, the French 31 vessels and 2,558 canons. The battle begins at around 0700, and is all over by about 1300. It takes until 1830 for the French to officially surrender. 7,000 men died in the battle. 22 English ships suffered a lot of damage, and France lost 7 of its ships. There is a magnificent painting in Fort Napoleon on the Saints of the battle.

So, as we sail over these waters, who knows what lies beneath..  We have a lovely beam reach crossing with easterly winds of 14-17kts. Again once in the lee of Dominica we lose the winds. It is here we have a fairly large pod of dolphins joining us for about half an hour.

Shamal at sunset, Prickly Bay
 

We have decided we will continue on past Dominica as we have been here on our previous visit. We will continue on to Martinique. As we motor sail down Dominica’s west coast, it seems to take forever to reach the southern tip. Then it is out into open waters again for the 26nm crossing to Martinique. The winds are back with us, and again squalls show on the radar, but we manage to avoid them. Winds average 14kts with seas no more than a metre. Again a lovey run.

It is not until just after 2100 that we drop anchor in the little bay of Le Carbet, 2nm south of the old capital, St. Pierre on the N.W. end of Martinique. St. Pierre lies at the foot of Mt. Pelee, the volcano that erupted on the 8^th May 1902 leaving only two survivors. An estimated 29,933 people were burned to death. Again we visited the ruins and the museum on our last visit here.

Approaching Diamond Rock
 

The following morning just before 0600 we are woken by a local fisherman who is asking us to move. They are bringing in their nets. Not that we are in their way at all, but we oblige. We raise the main, but the wind is too light, so we end up going out to sea more, away from the lee of the Island. It is a very relaxing sail to Cape Salmon and around past Diamond Rock, where we do encounter tide against current, and on down to Marin towards the southern end of the Island. Again we have visited Marin before. It is a huge bay with one of the Caribbean’s largest yacht centres. We plan to spend about a week here, before our final leg down to Grenada.

Marin
 

Again we are seeing more yachts moving about. People seem to be enjoying the lighter winds that summer bring. There are also a number of charter boats out. We visit the boat shops, go for walks, stock up on groceries, and weather watch. We now have a couple of systems developing off the coast of Africa. It is a little too early yet to see which way they will head, or how strong they will become. After a week, the first system has a name – “Florence”. That means it is now a tropical storm. We notice a few boats are starting to head south. Time for us to check out and do the same. Most insurance companies nowadays do not cover you if you get caught in a “named storm”.

St. Anne
 

We move SHAMAL out to St. Anne, a lovely bay with a seaside town at the entrance to Marin. We spend the afternoon and night here. We swim, and in the evening I put my fishing line out – nothing! Next morning we up anchor and are on our way. We are going to do the run through to Grenada without shopping, passing through the Windward Islands of St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Carriacou and down to Grenada. A trip of approximately 156nm. It will just be an overnighter. Again we visited many of the places four years ago on our trip north through these Islands.

Catamaran in floating dock, Marin
 

Sailing down the coast of St. Lucia we see for the first time, dolphins fishing. It is something we have seen on TV, but not ourselves. A pod was swimming around in a circle thrash their tails on the water, and others were leaping out of the water, making the circle smaller and smaller, then they disappeared, we presume to eat their catch. It was amazing watching them working together.

At 0800 the following morning as we are a beam Carriacou I catch a medium size mahi mahi – yummy, at long last.

Yachts in Prickly Bay
 

By early p.m. we have dropped anchor back in Prickly Bay, Grenada. We are sitting at the southern end of the Island – 12 deg. N. Let’s hope that is far enough south to avoid any systems that may pass through the Caribbean this season. We now need to check and see what tropical storm “Florence” is up to. We do that to find another system has also left the coast of Africa. At this stage “Florence” is gaining strength, and we have “Isaac” heading for the Caribbean.

Yachts are anchored all around Grenada
 

Our sailing season this year in the Caribbean started out of Guatemala on 6^th April, and has taken us all the way around, and down to Grenada, ending on 5^th September. A 5 month journey. We have visited 15 different countries, plus Islands within those countries. We have totalled 2,559nm. The total on our log now is 49,177nm.

Steel Band at Tiki Bar, Prickly Bay
 

We will now sit in Grenada for the remainder of Hurricane season, moving to different anchorage for variety. If something does head our way, in the way of bad weather, we will head further south to Trinidad.

So this is the Admiral and the Commander signing out for the time being.

To all our other yachting friends, stay safe.