Martinique The other side of the island
East Coast vibes, a feast, invisible fishing buoy slalom and our new crew member
The weather is favourable at the moment, so we decide to explore the east side of Martinique away from all the 0815 sailors (🤣). This is atypical because the wind blows from the east and therefore the east side offers little to no protection from the waves of the Atlantic. So we have a few nice days before we head to Le Marin to pick up our next crew member.
Better safe than sorry!
We leave Dominica early in the morning. The crossing to Martinique will take the whole day, heading hard into the wind. Cervino once again shows her best side and we make great progress ⛵. We're making good headway through the blue at 7 knots, and then it happens: Suuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrr first one fishing rod, then the second! Fiiiiiiiiiiiiggh Alaaaaarm: a double bite can only mean one thing: a pair of mahi mahi 😍 Thank you Poseidon! We catch up with the two of them, dropping off course a little so that we're less off-centre. Kaya takes over the gutting with Thierry and soon we can set our sights on our destination again. We're having a feast today! 😍
We reach our destination bay at sunset. We sail behind the reef more easily than expected and are moored on a mirror-smooth sea with only 2 other sailing boats. Both a rarity in the Caribbean 😂 Of course we have cevice for dinner 😍 because we can. It could hardly be better!
We spend the next few days relaxing, doing a bit of work, chilling out and going for a run. Kaya and Gabriel go surfing for two days at the spot next door. Then we set off for the "îlet Thiery" 🤣 We can't miss out on that!
Achtung, da ist was im Wasser!
Conditions are rarely as smooth as the ones we have at the moment. We are making good progress with a nice, unbraked 10 kn wind and hardly any waves. There was just one thing to spoil our sailing luck: a friend had warned me. "Welcome to the kingdom of invisible fishing buoys" he said, and he probably meant it exactly that way. Fishing buoys in the water mark the traps of fishermen lying on the seabed. They can use these buoys to find their traps again and haul in their prey. Normally, these buoys or small buoys are coloured and relatively easy to see. But the local fishermen don't seem to want to do this and simply use transparent pet bottles, which are connected to each other and sometimes even lurk just below the surface of the water 😵 A bit annoying and we have to be careful not to get caught in such a chain and get tangled up. So I take my place on the lookout, it could be worse 😉
It's playtime!
Here, too, we find a super spectacular anchorage: protected by a reef, we are moored with an unobstructed view of the Atlantic! 😍 You don't often get that.
We stroll around the island, play beach ball and Thierry has a kite session. The next morning we have a cosy start to the day with home-baked bread and homemade passion fruit jam. How simple life can be! 😎
And so, after a few days of "time out", we set off for Le Marin. We're only staying here for a short time, and once again we have a few tasks to complete! The list is as follows:
Take a warm shower in the marina (highlight!!!!)
Do laundry
Have a fridge dude come
Buy 3 weeks' worth of provisions
Collect our new crew member
It looks quite manageable at first, that's easy for a change. We thought so 🤣 Sweaty, salty and with our dirty laundry in tow, we set off straight away to the marina to wash our clothes and take a shower. Unfortunately, there is a water shortage on the whole island and so the water has simply been switched off. 😅 So we return to the boat still sweaty and salty after this unsuccessful endeavour. Fortunately, we can make our own water 🙂
The next day, the water seems to be running again and we start working through our list. Thierry goes shopping with Kaya & Gabriel, I clear the ship and receive the fridge dude. Our thermostat is broken, even though it's barely a month old. I've bridged it in the meantime so that everything doesn't run out 🥴 Replaced as a warranty case, tiptop, hopefully it's working now!
Thierry and the shopping team are now back on board, Kaya & Gabriel are going to do the laundry. For us it's now time to stow away. As always, this takes a long time but somehow we manage it. We've also seen David, our new crew member, and have already got his luggage on board. However, he has a farewell party today (he has now worked here for four months) and will be on the boat late. So we're ready to go again, it was a short but intense stop! 😅 The next morning, we refuel the boat, get the gas and off we go!
A few words about our new crew member: We've known David since Gibraltar, saw him again in Cape Verde and met him in Martinique a few months ago. He and his mate Dan are travelling the world as hitchhikers and we told them that if they needed a ride to Grenada, we'd take them with us. And that's what we're doing now 😊 So it's just David, Dan is staying here for a while.
The five of us now have two weeks to get to Grenada before I start at the diving centre. We've already planned a few stops with our friends on the way. But all in good time 😉 The next stop is St Lucia - nice to see you again. If we meet the man with the machete again?
That would be a somewhat headless endeavour......