Romping along
20 January 2018
Phew that was a bit busy. We are at anchor in Jolly Harbour, Antigua having moved north quite quickly.
We left Carriacou on Thursday 28th December with winds of 18-20kts and boat speed of 6.5-7 kts, but we were close-hauled so the 37nm rhumb line became 51nm of sailing. Bequia was busy – lots of boats and it seems a particular favourite with Swedish cruisers. We met up with John and Ellie on ‘Serenity’ and had a lovely New Year’s Eve with them. We were in bed by 2100 but awoke at midnight for a quite impressive fireworks display.
With a helpful ESE wind direction we then headed for Rodney Bay, St Lucia on 3rd January and the 70nm took 10 hours with the inevitable motor-sailing up the west coast of the island. We stayed just the one night and moved on to old favourite Sainte Anne, Martinique where we met up with Ann and Stephane on ‘SAS3’ for a very convivial time.
One of our main purposes in visiting Martinique was to take on more food and drink – we had stocked up pretty well in Trinidad but the French have a few goodies that are … well … French. We also needed to replace our windex at the top of the mast so went into the marina Le Marin for a few days.
Small world eh? We are always on the look out for boats we know and the OCC burgee, and for anyone with a Northern Ireland connection. So, what a nice surprise to see an Allures 45.9 called ‘A Capella of Belfast’ flying the OCC burgee. An even greater surprise was that Julian and Patricia are also members of our club, Royal North of Ireland YC. A splendid evening was spent recounting tales and enjoying good food and wine.