Saint Martin is a beautiful island in the Caribbean that has gained notoriety as the filming location for the TV show Below Deck. The show has showcased the island’s stunning beaches, vibrant nightlife, and luxurious lifestyle, making it a popular destination for fans of the show.
We set off from St Kitts as the sun was setting, ready for a night sail to Saint Martin.
This was the first passage that we tried 6 hour watches for. We knew that we would only need 1 night sail, so being able to get a full 6 hours sleep each sounded quite nice. Adam stayed up until about 2am, with Kathryn keeping watch from 2am until 8am (ish). The passage was smooth sailing most of the way, but with a fair few gybes in the first hours.
We decided to stay on the French side as clearing into and out of the country here would be easy (a similar experience to other french islands with a computer and little paperwork), so on arrival we anchored on the outside of the french bridge into the lagoon, as we would need to wait until the evening or following day to enter through the bridge.
This is not the only bridge option… The first bridge is located in Marigot on the French side (our choice). The second bridge is a swing bridge that connects the Dutch side of the island to the French side. The third bridge is located near the airport on the Dutch side.
We dinghied to shore to check in, and have a little look aroud, and found outselves at a delicious pizza place! No bridge activity for us until the morning (this one only opens twice a day).
We made it through the bridge just fine, though it was very tight for a catamaran infront of us…
While contemplating where to anchor, the monohull 1 boat ahead of us decided to go north and imediatly grounded on the bottom. So rather than follow them into what seemed like shallower waters, we headed south.
The Navionics chart with sonar chart overlay is pretty good for the channel that should be dredged. On top of this, we added some fresh depth soundings to te Navionics “active captain” community overlay.
We anchored close to a small bit of land for a little bit of shelter in around 2-3m of water, so not much space under Hannah keel, but also we were back in a flat anchorage! (with the exception of the odd incosiderate motorboat that would drive through the lagoon too fast).
Next it was time for a long awaited boat job. Parts of the cabin top had some old holes form old rigging hardware etc that needed re filling. They were filled in the past but in the UV sun light whatever was in them had started degrading. We have had some fresh filler onboard for some time now to use, and this was the perfect oppourtunity.
We don’t have a comparible before pictures, but here you can seen the holes nicely filled with a gelcoat filler.
We havn’t seen Blue Note in quite some time (except for a brief chat in Antigua), but we once again found ourselves anchored next to them as they came through to the French side of the lagoon from the Dutch side.
We made a pasta bake, had some beers and a catchup as the sunset.
The following day we were also once again joined by Extress, all anchored in a little triangle.
More catching up, eating, drinking and chatting.
But the rest of Saint Martin will come in future posts!
Remember, you can subscribe to these posts by email! It’s not long until we start sailing in the Atlantic again heading back to Europe, and this time we will be trying to blog along the way!
The weather still wasn’t perfect, but in this anchorage, we made another boat friend that we would spend the next few days on St Kitts with. Sailing Yacht Zora.
Interestingly while we had some severe westerly winds the night before, they had some severe easterly winds that had actually caused them to drag anchor out to sea a little. We can only assume that the small stormy system passed right in between St Kitts and St Nevis, causing the swirling wind on both islands.
In theory, there was a wreck in the anchorage to snorkel on, so we headed out together, but couldn’t locate it. But the snorkeling was still pretty good.
This seems as good a post as any to say that you can actually follow along with most of the nature stuff that we see on a site called iNaturalist on adams profile.
From this snorkel session, for example, we have all of these observations, and more, recorded…
We sailed with Zora to a new anchorage, had a walk around a town, did some shopping, and had some lunch. The anchorage was horribly rolley giving us memories of Montserrat, so we all agreed to head somewhere else to allow for a better nights sleep.
Here there was actually a wreck, but in the 2017 hurricane, it got washed up onto the shore.
One of the best parts of this snorkel session was the small group of Caribbean reef squid that seemed to like hanging out near the rudder of Hannah.
We had some sundowners aboard Zora where we also met 2 other boats and chatted about all of our very different travels through the Caribbean.
Wanting to move on to St Martin so that we could also move on to the BVIs we headed to another anchorage a few days later so that we could check out and set sail.
As often happens in the Caribbean there was a festival of some sort going on as we were walking through the town, which included some plank walking! Who can get the furthest?
The anchorage was even more rolly here than we had had in the previous week or so. So we decided to spend as much time on land as possible, using up our remaining XCD currency which we would no longer be needing in a nice restaurant. We made sure to have some leftovers to being back to Hannah for our night sail on to St Martin.
Here you can see how rolly the boat was, no chance of sleep on that.
After leaving Montserrat in the morning we sailed in the direction of St Kitts and Nevis, which took us close to Redonda.
One of the most interesting aspects of Redonda is its large population of wild goats, which are believed to have been introduced to the island in the 19th century. These goats thrived on Redonda’s rugged terrain and became a valuable source of food for the island’s occasional visitors. However, in recent years, the goats have become an invasive species and have been damaging the island’s delicate ecosystem. They had eaten the island down to nothing and were starving due to too much breeding. In 2018, a team of conservationists worked to remove the goats from Redonda using helicopters to airlift them off the island. Today, Redonda is a nature reserve and bird sanctuary, attracting bird watchers, and nature enthusiasts from around the world. You can read more in this national geographic article.
It was nice to see an island that wasn’t populated with humans, from afar it looked incredibly deserted but as we got closer we saw all the birds circling above, a flock of brown boobies came to say hello and started flying around the boat and fishing very nearby, we think they like fishing around boats because flying fish jump out of the water and fly away to get out of the way of boats, the birds then easily swoop down and grab themselves dinner as we sail by.
We arrived on Nevis in Charles Town in time to get to the clearance building before they closed so after grabbing a mooring buoy we started to get ready to go to land, which included putting the engine on the dinghy. This daily task was made a little more interesting because we found there was a crab in there!
We think it must have been attached to the mooring buoy rope so when we took the dinghy forward to untangle the mess of rope on the mooring we’d chosen the little thing had fallen in. We returned him to the sea and set off for the town dock
Clearing into new counties can be quite funny, there are usually 3 or 4 rooms which you have to go to, this is normally the order
Port health
Immigration
Custom
Port Authority
Port health just make sure you’re not bringing in disease or animals etc. Then at Immigration, you give them all your boat details and they hand you back no less than 5 double-sided sheets of paper which the captain has to sign and date the front and back of, immigration keep some of this paperwork whilst you take other sheets to customs who stamp it and then tell you to take it back to immigration, then immigration say you can take yourself to port authority and pay the huge fees for all their paper usage 😉
With the exception of the French islands who have it down to a tee with their self-service computer stations and low physical paperwork needs, all the other islands really need to drag themselves into the present era and make the clearing in and out process a bit more user friendly.
A lot of islands have a system called SailClear which is supposed to make everything easier on arrival, you fill in the online forms and present your SailClear code on arrival, this does make it slightly quickly to input your details into their system but you still need to answer all the usual questions, like where have you come from and where are you going to and how long are you staying even though they are already written down!
Anyway back to St Kitts and Nevis!
After all that paperwork we went to find a snack and we came across a bakery that smelled delicious, they sold the biggest fresh iced cinnamon buns you’ve ever seen and although I’m not one to choose cinnamon usually, we bought one to share, it really was amazing, soft, moist, sweet and tasty! So good in fact we got another one the next day!
We went back to the boat after a stroll along the seafront and came up with a little plan for the next day, we had heard that Nevis had some hot springs, open 24/7 and free so definitely had to try that, we got to land as early as we could to go before the day got too hot.. no one wants a hot spring when your already sweating buckets!
It took about 15mins to walk there and we found a small covered pool with one local guy in already, normally many more hot pools would be open, in a little chain of pools with a stream connecting them but that day they were being pumped out and power washed so we got in the open one.
It was incredibly hot and took us a few minutes to actually get all the way in, as we were halfway down the steps, someone who clearly came here regularly, strode down the steps into the pool without hesitation, and at that point we didn’t want to look like numpties so got in quicker!
We got chatting to this guy, his name was Tee. He told us how to correctly say Nevis and we chatted about the two islands some history and also about traveling in general.
Back to the dock, and back to the boat!
Our next stop was a beach just slightly further north along the island where we would pick up a mooring bouy and enjoy some interesting weather, but let’s save that for next time!
Antigua and Barbuda are joined so you can clear in on one and clear out on the other if you wish, which is what we were going to do but after finding out it would have been a 45min dinghy ride from the closest anchorage in Barbuda we decided that passing by Antigua on our 60mile crossing to Montserrat would be a better option!
So we headed the 30 miles downwind back to Antigua to check out and spend one more night in Antigua’s most popular anchorage, Jolly Harbour.
And the following day we set off for Montserrat.
We could see the island before we’d even left the bay so knew it wasn’t going to be rushed sail, it was fairly leisurely albeit a bit rolly, but on our way we actually overtook a sailing catamaran that was headed in the same direction. It’s not often that we are the ones catching up on and overtaking boats, particularly catamarans which should be faster than us downwind!
It’s a Saturday and clearing in on weekends can be very expensive, Montserrat has a few out-of-hours charges which we didn’t want to pay, so instead we stayed on/around the boat at anchor in Little bay anchorage (which is totally allowed as long as you don’t go to shore and keep your yellow Q flag up) We swam and tried to relax in the most rolly anchorage of all time.
We were glad when Monday came around so we could go to shore, check in and explore.
We hiked in the morning to a lookout over the bay we were anchored in and sat for a while under the shade of a tree admiring the view and the few birds that graced our presence.
The day was getting to be unbearably hot so we decided not to take the trail any further and go back down to the town
On the sea front we saw a fun-looking dive shop/bar and found ourselves a nice cold drink whilst eating our packed lunch of ham, cheese, and everything wraps.
In Montserrat half the island is restricted due to volcanic activity which has destroyed a large city called Plymouth (yup spelt exactly the same as Plymouth back home!)
You’re not even allowed to sail around the south end of the island because of it too so travel was a bit restricted, instead after lunch we took a walk through the town, the local school was having a sports day on a playing field and we laughed whilst watching the egg and spoon race!
We wondered some more and got back to the sea a little way up the coast. The waves were smashing up against the rocks and sending spray high up in the air. I enjoyed the stillness of the land whilst watching the sea as this place has got to be the most uncomfortable anchorage we have ever spent more than one night in, even the barman at the dive shop asked how rolly the anchorage was!
Walking through the restaurants and bars we found one with an outdoor pool table so naturally we had to play, we spent as long as possible on land before going back to the rolly anchorage.
We played best of 3 games to start with and after winning two Adam said we’d better up it to 5! We were fairly evenly matched, even if the table, cues, and balls were a bit rubbishy, the red was our black 8 ball because we were missing two balls but had 2 8 balls instead so anyone looking on probably wondered what on earth we were doing!
So that we didn’t need to cook on the super rolly anchorage we bought a whole bunch of wings and cheesy fries from the bar to take away, quickly walked back to the dinghy and headed back to the boat for sunset.
Unfortunately for us our outboard engine decided to have some issues this evening and didn’t want to start to deliver us back to Hannah quickly, so we ende dup slowly rowing half of the way until the engine eventually decided to start.
The anchorage doesn’t look rolly from the shore, but you can see the breaking waves on the beach.
Montserrat was lovely, but we will be glad to put this anchroage behind us.
Our guests left a couple of days ago and we spent some time tidying the boat a fixing the floor which had dropped making it feel like you were going to fall into the main bathroom when walking into the front cabin!
Barbuda is a sister island to Antigua and only 25 miles away so we heaved the anchor up again and had a fast sail over there on a close haul.
It was such a nice sail, Kathryn even had a little nap in the reefed main.
We arrived to beautiful sandy beaches and a calm anchorage on the southwestern tip of the island.
The next day we spent on land walking from the southwestern tip to the most southeastern tip totaling a 15km walk, mainly barefoot along the sandy and rocky southern coast.
It seems Antigua and Barbuda harvest a lot of conch at the beaches were what you could describe as a conch shell graveyard all of which had a distinct trait of an elongated hole presumably for prying out the snail inside.
We also saw another interesting sea creature which we have not come across before, a West Indian fuzzy Chiton. It’s armor and shape making it look like a prehistoric relic of a bygone era. And on looking up this creature we found it’s present form hasn’t changed since the Mesozoic period, meaning their morphology hasn’t changed in at least 65 million years and potentially up to 245 million years!
We eventually made it to the other side of the island where the Atlantic swell was smashing the rugged coastline.
We ate lunch in the baking sun as there was no shade and then carried on to look out over the ocean. The rock formations here were fascinating with some places eroded so much that the rock was sharp and spiny, most of it was very porous and as the waves crashed over, the water quickly dissipated down holes creating little whirlpools as it went.
The walk back felt long and even hotter as we took the inland more direct route, but by the time we reached the dinghy again I was desperate to get in the sea!
After a little drink at the beach bar we walked the dinghy into the sea but didn’t get in, instead we swam back whilst the dinghy floated along next to us.
The sunset was a beauty.
Next, we sailed up to the southern end of a beach that was previously called 17-mile beach. This incredibly long beach used to fully enclose a very large saltwater lagoon but after a 2017 hurricane called Irma the beach has been broken in the middle allowing access to the lagoon for shallow draft vessels (not us!)
The beach was still lovely, lightly strewn with driftwood it made for some cracking photos!
Due to the hurricane, the infrastructure on the island is poor so although we wanted to do to the Darby sinkhole and coastal caves on the northeastern side we decided it wasn’t worth the hassle or expense of trying to get there, instead, I’m writing this as we sail along on a speedy beam reach back to Antigua to check out, grab some fresh veg and fruit before shortly carrying on to Monserrat.
Before leaving, we had one of our most fun-to-date fish interactions while at anchor. We had some crisps that had gone bad and were slowly leaving them to float out into the sea to get eaten. Little did we know there were some shark suckers right underneath the boat that apparently really liked the crisps.
They would swim around coming to the surface, gobbling up a crisp before swimming around some more. They were there for so long that we managed to get this great little underwater video.
We arrived in jolly harbour on the … after a slow motor sail from Guadeloupe with about 2-3 knots of wind.
Check in here is very strict and it’s the first place that’s actually asked if we have a courtesy flag, luckily we had one already and after a while of doing paperwork and $80XCD we were free to explore the island.
The anchorage at jolly harbour was picturesque with turquoise waters but the water was actually pretty murky so we didn’t go in the sea at this point. But we did go out and have a nice lunch, explore a beach and generally walk around.
3 of our friends were due to fly in to Antigua for a weeks holiday onboard Hannah Penn with us so we set sail for the eastern side of the island to be closer to the airport for pickup.
With fairly strong winds we flew round the northern end of the island tacking every 10mins or so to stay inside the reefs. Another boat was doing just the same and we were able to catch up with them in a little unspoken tacking race before entering a shallow and narrow channel which took us into …. Bay.
After a good boat tidy and clean we went to pick up Tom, Harriet and Ollie in the dinghy, somehow we managed to fit all 5 of us plus luggage, including the extra hold bag of things they’d brought for us from home in our 2 person dingy and got everyone back to the boat without getting wet!
Some spag bol, garlic bread and a catch up later we all hit the hay ready to start a fun week of sailing.
The first day was exciting and memorable, starting off by sailing off anchor in very little wind in very protected waters, then the wind went from 5knots to 20+ in a matter of seconds as we left the bay, we quickly put a reef in the main and Genoa and dropped the mizzen.. this was the expected wind for the whole week, but after turning down the east coast we levelled out on a broad reach
Out of nowhere Adam spotted a huge splash to our starboard side and to everyone’s surprise it was humpback whales! A mother and baby we think, breaching and tail slapping over and over. I don’t think we could have had a better first morning.
By lunchtime we arrived at ‘StingRay City Antigua’ which is a semi captive population of Southern Stingrays (fed for tourist attraction)
We didn’t want a tour but did want to see some rays so went for a snorkel when the tour boats left.
The same day we sailed a little further south to a protected bay on green island as we knew some big swell would be rolling in from the northeast.
We took the free mooring buoy there and I decided it was in acceptable condition if we put a back up line down to the stake itself in the seabed as the buoys chain was in a poor state and lashed together with rope!
After a windy but stable night we braved the swelly ocean to get to Falmouth Harbour on the south of the island, it was an uncomfortable sail where at one point Adam who was on the helm got thrown across the cockpit by a wave hitting us side on, he stayed mostly upright and still holding onto the wheel so no harm done.
On arrival we all had a break and then decided it was a good time and place to do a little belated birthday celebration for Tom and Adam by going out for dinner at a place called Cloggy’s
The next day we moved from the northern part of the bay to near the entrance to go snorkelling, the water was nice and clear and we got to see a spotted eagle ray and some colourful fish, even got an underwater selfie.
Sunday came around and we’d heard … lookout in English harbour puts on a bbq with music a couple nights a week, so we upped anchor again and set off on the very short journey to get to English harbour ready for a big hill climb to get to the lookout in the evening.
After anchoring in the most popular outermost anchorage and not being happy with the bay we moved further in to find an alternative and what a great one we found, we shore tied to the mangroves and had a wonderful peaceful spot.
The view over the bay from the lookout was stunning even if we were a bit late for the sunset, the bbq was tasty and the music was fun, a lonely evening spent with lovely people.
We spent some time exploring the area and Nelsons dockyard and went for breakfast at a local cafe as well as getting part of the Genoa re stitched by the sailmakers of a good speedy job done by ….
Next we snorkelled at Cade reef where we saw more rays and some fish called ‘shark suckers’.
Our goal was to circumnavigate the island in the week so next we pushed on to Jolly Harbour and then to Deep Bay where we snorkelled an interesting wreck of a British three masted sailing boat which was carrying barrels of tar to Chile when they started to overheat, the boat caught fire and sank in …. All crew survived and the wreck is in outstanding condition, you can see the bow sprit, whole hull super structure and masts with intact lookout point.
<We might insert a wreck dive video here soon, but we are currently at our daily YouTube upload limit…>
With our guests due to leave in two days we headed back to the first bay to climb up bird island for one last spectacular sunset and some scheduled ‘dicking about on a boat’ time where we SUP boarded behind the boat. Tom took this opportunity to look like he was walking the boat like a dog on a lead whereas Ollie had more of a water boarding than a paddle boarding session.
We had completed an entire Antigua lap, and that was quite satisfying, even if we forgot to turn the Garmin on to track the route sometimes….
The following day we said farewell over a last lunch and waved them off in a taxi to the airport.
We had just had a lovely light wind sail over to Marie-Galante, which is a round island just south of mainland Guadeloupe, on the lookout for some crystal turquoise waters we went to Anse de Mays, an anchorage on north west of the island.
It looked very picturesque so after anchoring I took the waterproof camera and jumped in. Immediately I was greeted with some of the most inquisitive fish I’ve come across. Later I found out they are juvenile Highfin Amberjacks and all they wanted to do was say hello and follow me around🐟 they were so friendly I could almost touch them.
There was also a huge shoal of Bigeye Scad, and swimming through them I was engulfed in little fishies! It was really quite cool.
A few other things were starfish, a gold spotted eel, and a perfect sand dollar.
The next day we went for a sail, probably in the least wind we’ve ever sailed in! Was about 3knots of wind, we were able to pull up anchor without the engine, hoist sails and get going though, probably thanks to our ultra clean new antifouling gliding through the water!
We pootled along at 1.5knots and really enjoyed the tranquility, we could see every starfish on the bottom and Hannah Penn’s shadow on the seabed was really cool too.
Even had a go standing on the bowsprit whilst sailing.
During the sail we kept hearing loud splashes but could never see what was making them, I had to go and investigate, Adam kept sailing I leapt in with snorkel and flippers, it didn’t take long to see huge sea turtles swimming around, I took hold of a line out the back of the boat and got towed along whilst looking at these magical creatures 🐢
We eventually arrived at the next anchorage, which was only about 3miles away and I think it took us about 2.5hrs and got ready to go to land, there wasn’t much to do there but there was a fun looking bar which had some very tasty fruit cocktails 🍹 We took a table in the sunshine and the bar dog came and laid down next to us in the sand, a few moments after getting our drinks a brave little Bananaquit bird came to try and steal the sugar off the rim of my glass!
We realized Björn and Linda off SV Sirena were in the bar sitting behind us, we didn’t really know them so thought we’d say hi, and had a lovely time chatting before heading back to Hannah for dinner.
The next day our plan was to go to an anchorage called Petite Terre.
It was on a reserve so we needed to book and pay in advance, we sailed over in very nice conditions, not much swell or waves and a little wind, which we thought was going to be perfect for the approach. This anchorage is notorious for dangerous approach conditions due to breaking waves across the entrance to a lagoon like area protected from reefs on the east side
So we arrived and got our sails down and engine on ready to go in about a mile out, we could see though that the little swell that was outside was growing in size due to the shallower waters around the little island and the effect of the wind coming from the other direction whipping up the waves into steep peaks.
We were counting the swells coming in and watching from afar to see if we could get in, in-between the waves which were really quite large, we inched closer to find most of these waves were breaking all the way across the entrance and quickly looked behind us to see what was coming
At that moment we both thought the wave bearing down on us was far too big to purposefully surf down so we quickly spun the boat around and throttled down to ride up the wave, it was quite an adrenaline-filled moment as we both held on as Hannah Penn’s nose rose up, we reached the peak and smashed down the other side dipping the whole bow under the water before popping back up again
And at that point, we agreed it was a terrible idea to continue going in so we put our sails back up and headed out.. this time not back to Guadeloupe but to Antigua!!
The boat jobs we won’t bother diving into any detail for include:
Permenantly fitting our saloon fan
Fixing 1 piece of wood in the dinghy floor & painting the wood
Applying new mast boot tape
Resealing the shower sump pump
Removing twists from the anchor chain
Replacing the Mizzen boom topping lift
Painting the inside of the cockpit roof
Fixing a hinge on the aft cabin doors
Replacing the hinges for the cockpit seat lockers
Removing a worn piece of rope from a reefing line
Cleaning behind the stove
Adjusted stove locks to make them lock the oven off better
And now for a couple of boat jobs that have some nice pictures 😃
Chain Paint
Back in June 2022 our anchor chain had some lovely paint marking every 10m of chain.
As the boat was on the hard we spent a bit of money on some cold galvanizing spray and also red spray paint and gave the anchor chain a bit of love and care.
We never had much luck with the paint hanging around for that long, so we also tied small pieces of string every 10m. One at 10m, two at 20m, and so on.
We were hauled out for a number of days so this allowed us to properly patch all the holes we could find to stop the various leaks.
After a few days of applying Sikaflex, waiting for it to dry, and again filling the dinghy with water to see where the water leaked out, we had a totally sealed dinghy once again. Yay, now we won’t have to pump it up and bail it out every time we use it!
Relaxing on land
While hauled out we spent our evenings in 2 different Airbnbs. We had some pool time, lots of space in the kitchen to cook, a microwave, etc 🤯. One of the features of both of our Airbnbs was the fact they lacked glass in the windows into the kitchens, so you frequently got birds coming to say hello nibbling on your bread or bananas. After we found that this was pretty normal for them to be in the house we started leaving bread outside on the balcony for them.
We had a few meals out, including some birthday celebrations too, including a creole massage at a spa. 💆♂️
One of the features of our 30min morning and evening walk to the boatyard while staying at the first Airbnb were 2 dogs that seemed to live in a pile of rubbish at the side of the road.
It was very sad to see, but we think someone was feeding them and we gave them water, they were super friendly and came to say hello.
The boat dropping
Don’t worry, Hannah didn’t get dropped!
While we were hauled out in the boat yard though, there was an almighty bang followed by a bunch of shouting.
One of the boats that was about the be hauled back into the water had slipped out of the slings holding it and landed on the floor.
Not a great day for the owners here.
The keel was dented and paint had come off around the weld for the keel attaching to the main body.
They were still hauled out after we had finished painting and were back in the water, we assume waiting for a survey and for insurance companies to decide what to do.
In the last post, we ended up in Fort du France celebrating some smaller carnival festivities once again. Andrew has left us for a hotel and his flight, and we have another big night of Carnival coming up.
We have created quite a little schedule for ourselves over the coming days as we are on a list to get hauled out of the water on the 23rd of February and the last big day/night of Carnival we want to attend in some way is on the 19th in Fort du France.
Between the 19th and 23rd we need to:
19th Attend Carnival
Sail to Dominica
Explore Dominica
Sail to Terre-de-Haut to meet Teulu Tribe (another British ketch)
Sail to Guadeloupe Marina ready to get hauled out
First job, Carnival!
The parade walked a circuit around the whole of Fort du France, and we mainly watched from a large patch of grass near the dinghy dock, where ours, Extress’s and lots of our other boat friends’ dinghies were tied to.
We had decided to sail to Dominica on the same day as the carnival, well in reality this was just after midnight. So we headed back to the boat after lots of celebration at around 9pm eating some dinner and heading to bed.
Lying asleep in bed we heard some sound outside and went to investigate. Extress had rowed all of the way from the dinghy dock to Hannah to try and steal our boat flag (ensign). They rowed not only to make less noise but also had a broken outboard engine. Unfortunately for them, they made a bit too much noise in the process of stealing it and we heard and were able to keep it! We actually did a lot of flag “swapping” in Sal, Cape Verde but we forgot to write about it… Maybe next time Extress 😉
Midnight rolled around, our alarm went off, we had a little nibble and pulled up anchor.
To our surprise, we pulled up quite a large rock stuck under the rollbar of our Mantus anchor. We actually saw another boat have this problem a few days ago, but with a much larger rock, they basically pulled up half the sea bed!
We managed to get rid of the rock, pull up anchor, and be on our way.
Extress radioed us a few hours later to see how the sail was going and played us a little tune. The night started off calm, and with the main and Genoa out, we were making good progress in the flat seas with Adam on watch and Kathryn sleeping.
When the time came to switch roles, the sun was just rising, the wind picked up and we started coming out of the shelter of the island, so Kathryn had a bit more of an exciting sail, and Adam a bit more of an exciting sleep. Time to reef.
We arrived early afternoon into the same mooring area as Danae who were just one mooring buoy over.
We arrived over a festival weekend so most things had closed for the festivities but we managed to get a local guide to take us on an intense day of hiking with a refreshing dip in a gorge after.
The boiling lake trail is a volcanic hike to a thick grey lake at the top with an intensely boiling centre, supposedly well over 100 degrees in the centre and still over 80 at the edges. The trail leads to a flooded fumarole, a type of volcanic vent that emits steam and gas. The Boiling Lake is the world’s second-largest hot lake and is filled with bubbling greyish-blue water that’s heated by the magma beneath the surface.
The hike was about 15km in total and my phone thinks it was the equivalent of climbing up and down 239 flights of stairs!!
The first part of the hike was through dense rainforest, all the plants were vibrant greens and even some pink-leaved ferns.
After a little while the environment changed to more open mountainous views overlooking both sides of the island before dropping back down to a milky-coloured stream that ran over smooth rocks.
After yet another steep climb up we came out looking at sheer rocky cliffs stained with a rusty brown colour from all the minerals in the volcanic rock
As we descended another stream formed from a spring in the mountainside, as we got closer the smell of rotten eggs was intense from the sulphur bubbling out of the rock. The volcanic activity here causes the water to boil in many places along the little stream and you can even boil eggs in it!
Some areas were safe to touch so we got to experience the warm water.
As the stream continued it collected in natural pools in which you could bathe if you want, we didn’t really want to smell that bad for the rest of the day though so just admired them from the shore!
We finally reached the boiling lake summit and we were greeted with thick steam rising out of the lake. Every so often enough breeze would come through a blow the steam away for long enough to have a good look into the crater. The power coming from the centre was amazing, no wonder so much of the energy generated in this area comes from thermal power!
After the hike back again It’s safe to say my legs were dying for quite a few days, totally worth it though.
Hidden deep in the verdant wilderness of Dominica at the end of the Boiling Lake trail lies the enchanting Titou Gorge, a picturesque gorge formed from molten lava that cooled and split apart, it was then smoothed by a pristine river and waterfall. It’s a serene oasis that feels like a secret paradise, sheltered by towering cliffs, lush vegetation, and a stunning waterfall that cascades down into the dark pool below. With a life jacket, we swam through the clear, cool waters and marvelled at the natural beauty that surrounds them, enjoying the cold waters after a strenuous hike.
We got back to the village in time to see a little bit of the festival and its incredible costumes before heading back to the boat for a well-earned rest.
These festival celebrations were a little different to what we had seen before, each event we have gone to has slowly added more and more speakers and bigger trucks. Some of the trucks here were so loud, we really could have done with ear defenders and to think that the first event we went to in Saint Anne was mainly just instruments like drums etc.
We had to leave for Guadeloupe the next day but in the evening SV Danae snapped a great pic of us on our mooring just before all the light disappeared.
Onto Guadeloupe next and the fun of hauling the boat out in a foreign country 😲 stay tuned for next time!
This time the sail was much easier and the motor was not needed at all, although the crossing was a little rough and took its toll on Andrew’s stomach!
We once again met up with Danae and Artemis who had now overtaken us in our adventure since we hopped back south for a few days.
They let us know that some Carnival celebrations would be happening in St Anne, so we went to investigate with them! Little did we know this would be the start of a month of carnival for us.
We couldn’t ignore the amazing supermarket that was Leader Price, so once again headed there for another trolly full of supplies for the coming week.
We probably bought more Brie than we would normally eat in a year during our short stay in Martinique.
Our next stop was Marigot du Diamant, a less visited anchorage in Martinique, according to reviews it can be a little tricky to navigate and anchor in, but we had no problems.
As we approached the anchorage, Kathryn managed to catch a Cero Mackeral which made for a perfect sunset dinner cooked Mediterranean style in the oven for three. This is the biggest size fish we can fit whole (minus head and tail) in the oven 👌
It’s always nice catching a fish, but it can be a lot of effort in the Caribbean due to the amount of sargassum seaweed floating around and the risks of ciguatera toxin poisoning which comes from fish that eat reef fish, particularly as we near and pass Guadeloupe.
In this anchorage, we got Andrew out on the water for his first-ever SUP experience, and we all (one by one) explored the bay ourselves, including to try and catch a few small waves that were breaking on the central reef.
Next, we aimed to try and find some mangroves and headed all the way into the Fort du France Bay to Petit Ilet.
We anchored just in the lee off the island in mud. Researching the island we knew there were some picnic benches and knew that people came on little tours here so there must be some things of interest over there.
After cooking up some pesto pasta, we headed with the pot in the dinghy to eat on the island and then have a little walk around. The first bit of wildlife to come to our attention were the 2 friendly chickens that wanted some of our pasta. But there was more to see too.
The following day we moved anchorage to the other side of Petit Ilet to be slightly closer to the entrance to the mangrove-sided river, just on the edge of a no-anchoring area.
We took both the dinghy and the SUP up the river to see the mangroves and wildlife that lived in and around them. To our surprise, the most common animal here were the mangrove tree crabs, which are normally bright yellow and seemed to cover every single mangrove we could find, even way up in the canopy, and always hiding on the other side of the branches.
We had to move back to our previous anchorage as a local came passed in his boat and told us that apparently, we couldn’t anchor overnight where we were even though the chart said it was fine. We moved mainly to avoid any further confrontations 😲.
Before we knew it, it was the 12th of February, and Andrew had less than a week left with us.
First on the tourism list for Saint Pierre was the zoo which was literally a stone’s throw from where the boat was anchored, the zoo’s landscape and environment were lovely, based within the ruins of the oldest habitation in Martinique, the main house and its outhouses, including a small hospital and waterwheel were put to ruin by the volcanic eruption which we found out more about in the museum we went to the following day.
Further into the town was a fairly nice and modern museum covering the history of the island, particularly the Saint Pierre area which was dramatically impacted by a volcano eruption.
Saint Pierre was once the thriving cultural and economic capital of Martinique, known for its bustling port, vibrant arts scene, and luxurious lifestyle. However, in 1902, the town was completely destroyed by a massive volcanic eruption from nearby Mount Pelée, which killed almost all of its inhabitants. This tragedy left an indelible mark on the town and its people, and today, the ruins of Saint Pierre serve as a powerful reminder of the town’s rich history and the devastating impact of natural disasters.
Andrew loves a good meal out, so once again we headed to find some delicious food after the museum.
Keen to start heading back toward the airport (a short taxi ride from Fort du France) we started heading south once again, choosing to anchor at a place called Four a Chaux.
There wasn’t a whole lot to see snorkeling this time, but there was a wonderful Hawksbill turtle! (We do love them, especially when the visibility is great!)
Hawksbill turtles are sea turtles found throughout the world’s tropical oceans including the Caribbean and are known for their beautiful shells and important role in maintaining the health of coral reefs by feeding on sponges and other reef organisms. Unfortunately, they’re critically endangered due to threats such as habitat loss, pollution, and over-harvesting, so it was a blessing to see a young one.
Continuing south we entered the Fort du France bay but once again headed deep into it to anchor somewhere new at Les Trois-ilets.
We had already prepared to have a couple of BBQs toward the end of Andrews’s time with us. One just the three of us and another with Extress as once again as they would be catching up with us.
With plenty of BBQable food aboard, Andrew set about making burgers and we lit the BBQ which hangs off the back of Hannah.
Sausages and bacon went on first while the burgers were being prepared. The burgers came out and looked delicious and gigantic, and on they went. Unfortunately upon flipping the burgers, the weight of them had bent the inner BBQ (which is just a disposable BBQ), and the entire thing slipped into the sea.
It’s probably one of the saddest moments so far aboard Hannah, seeing 4 delicious and gigantic half-cooked burgers drifting away downwind to become fish food. 😭 At least the sausages and bacon were already cooked and off the bbq so we got to eat those.
Anyway, the next day we headed back to Fort du France to anchor once again. Extress arrived a few hours later and we brought a bag of BBQ supplies to BBQ aboard Extress so as to avoid any more BBQ disappointments.
Our sailing with Andrew was complete, with Martinique part 2 being the final set of hops.
Andrew decided to spend his final night in a Hotel to freshen up on stable dry land before his cross-Atlantic flight back to Europe. 👋👋
Carnival struck once again, and although the big day would happen once Andrew had left, there were some pre-carnival carnival events to go and see.
The first being the introduction of the carnival queen.
And the second that evening being a show of floats and cars.
Before the two of us could contemplate continuing on to Dominica and then to Guadeloupe where we had arranged to get hauled out in a boat yard for some repainting, there was a little more carnivaling to do. But that will have to wait until the next post, as its quite intertwined with the crossing to and being on Dominica itself.
