Wednesday, January 7, 2015
St. Anne to St. Pierre
Miles traveled: 30.8nm

Finally after staying in St. Anne for a week and a half, the wind and waves had decreased enough for us to travel in the Lee of Martinique to St. Pierre to stage to go to Dominica, the next island north of here and the first island officially in the Leewards. We raised anchor at 616 am which had a lot of slime in the anchor hook and chain, YUK!

Phil will talk about the sailing trip. Once the anchor was up we motor sailed west toward Diamond Rock 12 miles away. There was a good breeze so out came the jib and the engine went to idle. Around 7 the engine was turned off and we sailed the rest of the way to Diamond Rock. Once we rounded the SW corner of Martinique the wind died so on went the engine. As we motor sailed north we came to the bay where Fort De France is and started to sail again. After we got north of the bay we motor sailed the rest of the way to St. Pierre.

You have to be careful where you anchor in St. Pierre as there is a large triangular area with many sunken boats from the volcano erupting in 1902 with 3000 degree gas and killing everyone except a prisoner in a cell locked up inside with only a very small window. The anchorage is deep so we had to get close to shore before there was reasonable depth. By 1140am we anchored with 15′ under our keel. This anchorage is also know for being rolly, but wasn’t too bad that way. We towed the dinghy on this trip so it wasn’t too long that we had the outboard in the dinghy and went into town to check out. The Customs here is in the Tourist Office and we were the first to take care of checking out on the computer. Our next order of business was to do our laundry. We had gathered it together and pulled it along in our folding cart. We had to go down the old stone steps as the 2nd street from the shore is 30 ft above the next street closer to the water where the laundry was located. So I carried the full cart down the steps and landing and more steps. Just in case other cruisers are reading once down the steps you turn left and it’s down 50′ on the left.

This laundry is different in that there are numbers on each of the washing machines and driers. On the wall there is a Bill acceptor where you put in the money and get euro coins back, push the number and the machine is ready to start so its best to load the machines first. We used the largest washing machine for 9€. One of the driers was broken so I loaded the equivalent of two loads into the drier. 30 min later they weren’t dry because of the towels, so removed the towel. Another 15 min and they were dry. Be careful as the hot is HOT to touch. As we were waiting, two young women with their a baby and 2 young girls came in washing clothes. Their BO was very noticeable unfortunately. No one spoke English, but the older 2 girls came over after a bit and were happy to play a couple kids games on my IPad. By 330pm we were done with the laundry and went back to Changes. Rick and Peggy came over to tell us the story how they saved our dinghy from sinking after getting caught under the dock. Waves were lapping over it so they pulled it out and then bailed out the water. Thank you!! The top rail is a ruffed up but it’s still working thanks to them.

After dropping off some postcards to be mailed home to family with Seaquel, we started getting the outboard off and dinghy on deck for our passage to Dominica leaving tomorrow morning.

Supper was warmed up curry chicken, chicken Paprika, with a burger for Phil. We did our usual evening activities until time to go to bed.