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  An Epic Ocean Sail to the Grenadines We pulled up the anchor in Sainte Anne, Martinique at 2:30 a.m. and headed out into the night under motor with the mainsail raised. Fortunately there was a glorious 3/4 moon which bathed the Caribbean Sea in a beautiful blue hue and sparkled like diamonds on the waves.  As we came around the lee of the island, the winds began to build and we were able to pull out the jib in 14 knots of winds.  We had a fabulous sail, moving along at 7+ knots.  We reached the top of St Lucia at twilight, with the lights of the island suggesting that islanders were getting up and ready for their day.  St Lucia is clearly a popular cruise ship destination.   We sailed by 3 massive cruise ships all headed into port that morning. Even though they passed quite close, our timing was perfect.   We did not have to alter course to avoid them or hail them on the VHF radio to make sure they saw us.   Under the lee of St Lucia, we were ab...
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  Martinique is a Fantastic Island to Meet your Guests We made our way down to Le Marin, Martinique where we stayed at a large marina for a few days in order to prep the boat for the arrival of Roger's sister Pamela and her husband Ross.  With some boat cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping, we were ready for our guests.   A slow leak in our inflatable dinghy had been bothering us since we picked up the boat in Antigua.  We had to inflate the dinghy every few days, so we took the opportunity while at the dock, to find the source of our problem.  We put soapy water over the entire surface of the leaking hull, while it was overinflated, and looked for the spot that started bubbling with the escaping air.  After 30 minutes or so we were about to give up, when voila, tiny bubbles.  Fortunately, a local repair shop was able to put a patch over the leak and we were good to go again!  Roger and I were lucky to be there during a Carnival parade and had t...
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  New Moon, Rainbows, Dolphins and the Virgin Mary Our 70 mile journey from Les Saintes, Guadeloupe to St. Pierre, Martinique would take us about 10 hours.   In order to arrive in daylight, we needed to set out before sunrise.  Our wake-up alarm went off at 3:50 am, but I was not sleeping that well anyway.  The plastic mooring ball had been bouncing against the hull throughout the night and the hatches were closed due to the intermittent rain, leaving it a little too warm for comfort in our cabin.   Roger got up and put the kettle on and we both got dressed in the clothes we had laid out the night before.   We had a quick breakfast, secured the cabin and headed up on deck with our life jackets and headsets on.  We had secured the dinghy the night before as well, so Pirate was not going to be able to relieve herself until we reached our destination.   Roger went forward to start releasing the lines.  I hear over the headset, ‘Tam, we’ve g...
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