Bequia to Martinique

We left Bequia on Monday the 11th to sail to Martinique. We hoped to sail close to St Lucia but the wind had other ideas and we decided to do one long tack away from St Lucia and then tack towards Martinique the following morning. Twelve miles off Martinique the wind died and we began to motor. At about five in the morning we slowed down and found we had picked up a bizarre collection of empty quash bottles and ropes around one of the rudders. We cut as much off as possible but it meant only using one engine and limping into the nearest anchorage at 1.5 knots. This took us eight hours to do twelve miles. We reached the pretty village of Anse d’Arlet in the afternoon. The children all went swimming and Chris swam under Octopus to free the tangle. We ended up with a black bag full of bottles and various coloured ropes which were wrapped around the rudder and occasionally had been getting caught in the propeller.

We set off early the next morning planning to go to Marin to catch up with our friends on ‘Norn’. We arrived at Ste. Anne and were just motoring up the channel to Marin when we notice the generator had stopped and we were low on battery power. Rather then negotiate winding through the reefs on low power we went and anchored off Ste. Anne. Just as we were setting the anchor we noticed the boat next to us had some familiar faces on board. Rob and Ruth, who crossed the Atlantic with us, were busy on the boat next to us getting ready for their next trip through the Panama Canal and across the Pacific. We invited the couple they are crewing for and them over to lunch and had a nice time catching up and hearing their plans for their voyage.

In the evening we took the rib up the channel to Marin and found Ben, Kristle and Amber on Norn who were beginning to wonder where we had got to. We spent a pleasant couple of hours exchanging stories of our trips from Bequia.

Next day we moved up to anchor next to Norn up at Marin, the girls could play together and we could go ashore and stock up at the big supermarket. The last few islands we have been to were a bit limited on supplies, so I was looking forward to all the French food and was not disappointed. Chris found that the generator problem had been caused by weed being sucked in and blocking the filter.

Over the weekend we travelled in convoy with Norn to Ste Anne for one night, then Anse d’Arlet for another and then on to Anse Mitan on Pointe du Bout. We arrived, as planned, in time for Chris’s Mum arriving. Margaret is in a hotel just twenty minutes walk away from our anchorage and we our now doing the touristy stuff again.