Going Home

Well good news on the sail front and some bad news on the weather front.
We arrived at the sailmakers for an update on Thursday morning as planned, expecting the headsail to be ready on Monday and he advised all was done and ready to collect. Those couple of boat jobs quickly got tidied up and we set sail Friday morning. The trip down the coast from PP was somewhat rolly as the wind had been slowly increasing. Average wind speeds were around 15-20kts until we hit the south west corner of Guadeloupe and turned north on what should have been the sheltered side and a motor sail in light winds and flat waters. Not so….. I did comment to Meryn that we could expect an increase in velocity as we turned, mostly it would be because we had been running with the wind and we were turning across it, our 7-9kts down with the wind was only feeling like 10-15kts and when we turned across the wind we would get the true wind speed across the deck. Well at the corner things didn’t go quite to plan. The wind suddenly increased to 30+ knots as we approached the corner and continued to increase blowing a gale down off the mountainside where we should have been in the lee. There were 2 other boats near us and just ahead as we turned the corner while we were thinking we were going into the calm, a small 25foot mono that was in real strife and a twin headsail ketch further up around the corner laid flat. Being able to see what was ahead gave us just enough time to lose half of the headsail on the furler. Even with less than half a headsail we were still reaching at 7-8kts on semi flat water with wavetops streaking white. Given the conditions I am not sure my wind instruments are working correctly. The instruments were sitting at 30kts and then dropped back to 15-17 with no easing of the conditions so I have some doubt to the accuracy. Note to self. Another boat job…..find a way to check the accuracy of the anemometer.
Well all three boats in this maelstrom decided that this type of sailing was not on the brochure and headed for Marina Riviera Sans about a mile further along the coast from Viex Fort on the corner this is where we checked into Guadeloupe a few days earlier so we already knew of a couple of spots to anchor. We were only a mile off the coast and headed more or less straight into the wind making around 2-3 kts. On approach we could see a monohull yacht trying to pick up a mooring and going round and round. The bullets of wind coming down the hill made the whole place untenable and would not have made for much of an anchorage so once we closed the distance to the coast we turned and reached at 90 degrees to the shore and made our way up past Basse Terre (the capital)
I had seen a couple of inlets further up the coast while doing the passage plan and we were hoping to get to one of them anyway. We continued in those winds for about an hour and we could see flat water a half a mile ahead…yep no white caps and wind lashed water just smooth sheltered waters. It was quite eerie as we approached as you could virtually see the line on the water. We crossed the line and immediately the wind dropped to less than 10kts. Sailed for a hundred meters and looked back and it looked like a monster trying to break down the door. We happily sailed on for another hour or so enjoying the strange quiet under motor now due to no wind…….
On approach to one of our plan B anchorages the wind turned and came back at us on the nose as we entered. It turned out it was pretty full and the only spots were in 40 feet of water. With the wind that strong we did not have enough chain to anchor that deep and still have a 5 to 1 scope on the anchor so we continued on to plan C.
Well plan C turned out to be a great little spot. The wind was still there but we anchored in a sandy spot close to the beach in around 12 – 14 feet of water. Plenty of scope on the anchor which bit right in and we felt quite safe. I still set the anchor drift alarm on the plotter.
Meryn has become quite the anchor demon, on arrival she grabs the remote and heads for the bow. She is in charge of the bow and does a champion job. I just head up to connect the bridle that keeps us into the wind after she had set the anchor and then she lays it back on the bridle. All hand signals back to me and nary a word spoken. Makes it look easy ( I am yet to get a rude hand signal so we must be doing something right..).
Well the anchorage was called Pigeon Island Anchorage on the chart and it was in a bay inside …..yep Pigeon Island. Once we had anchored Meryn realised she had lost her sunnies off the trampoline when we were anchoring and we wanted to check it anyway so in she went. I did not hold much hope of finding them but she stopped and said yep here they are but it’s a bit deep for me. While I was getting my mask she went off chasing a turtle that just wandered by. We had just anchored on the edge of the Cousteau Marine Park (as in Jacques Cousteau). The next morning we wandered off ashore and sat down to a coffee (sorry but not anywhere near Melbourne standards) a couple of fresh baguettes…yes we love french breads…..
There were tour boats all over the place and dive and snorkelling tour places all along the water front. Everywhere we looked there were people snorkelling. As we pulled in the anchor to unclip the bridle we could see a large turtle foraging in the grass just under the boat and another small one just surfacing for a breath 20 feet of the bow. A truly amazing experience,
We had a great sail up the coast, 2 reefs in the main and a full headsail gave us around 7-8 knots in 12-15 kts of wind for a few hours and it then dropped off and the last couple of miles into Deshaies we furled the headsail and motor sailed as it was around 3-30pm and we wanted to get to customs to update our papers as we are illegal aliens and were supposed to leave for Montserrat by the 18th.

This is an eagerly awaited arrival into Deshaies as mentioned before we were watching a BBC series that was partly filmed here. Well for anyone who has seen the series “Murder in Paradise” we wandered up and stood in front of the Saint Marie “Honore Police Station” and I can say that we saw no-one we recognised but it was fun to see it in person. We went off to see if anywhere else looked familiar and ended up in a bar watching the sunset. What a lovely way to end the day.
Back on board now and bbq wings for dinner with some French Pastries picked up in Pigeon for desert. I was sure this trip would be good for my health with all the swimming and snorkelling and healthy lifestyle but with the Rum, G&T’s and French Bread and Pastries it’s not working out as planned.
The next destination is Montserrat about 35miles away to the north west. We have to skirt an exclusion zone around the old capital Portsmouth in the south and proceed up the island to the new capital “Little Bay” the forecast is not going to be any better and weather is deteriorating so our window to go is early tomorrow morning and then perhaps sit out the front coming through before heading to Nevis and St Kitts to meet Mick on Boxing Day