We left St. Pierre in the Northwest corner of Martinique yesterday at 7am. Arrived in Portsmouth on the Northwest corner of Dominica five and a half hours later....56 miles, averaging 8.6 knots. But that's not the story.

As often happens, we motored the first six miles out of St. Pierre in the lee of Mt. Pellee, in infamous volcano that killed 30,000 people in less than minutes when it erupted in 1902. When we entered the 20 miles tongue of the Atlantic that stretches between Martinique and Dominica, we set the sails and took off like a shot. The true wind was about 20 knots from the east. Our apparent wind was about 28 knot at 60 degrees. With a reef in the main and a full Genoa we powered through the 6-8 feet seas at 11-12 knots. Our max SOG was 14.4.

About 10 miles before Dominica, the seas became steeper and a large swell developed. To increase the comfort quotient, we turned off about 10 degrees....and kept on coming. By turning off, we ended up reaching Dominica about 5 miles off the western shore....just beyond the edge of the wind shadow of the island's volcanic peaks. The seas flattened...we released the reef in the main....and continued to sail up the coast at about 8 knots to within five miles of Portsmouth before the wind gods turned off the air.

Behind us, our friends Ken and JoAnn on the Privilege 465 Allicat were struggling to find us within the range of their binoculars. The Privilege is a heavier boat that Archer. It has reputation as one of the faster cruising cats with no daggerboards. Our "go to" sail is a large 110% Genoa that is particularly effective powering the boat through seas above the beam. Allicat has a smaller self-tacking jib that may not provide the same power.

All that being said, Ken thought Allicat should have gone faster....and couldn't understand why he came into port two hours after we did. That made for a long conversation between Ken and Rick over cocktails last evening.

We'll stay in Dominica until Monday. The Super Bowl is showing at one of the local bars.