Arriving at the Saintes

We left St Lucia on Friday morning. On Thursday it was raining most of the day, captain had a hard time getting to land dry to clear out, and by the time we were ready, it was too late to start. So we spent another nice evening with our neighbors, Dana and Wayne.

The weather on Friday was perfect, wind at around 18 knots, not a drop of rain the whole day. Even the waves were not big, maybe 1,5m, which is not often seen here. Passage to Martinique was really nice and fast. For about an hour there was a booby (strmoglavec po slovensko) accompanying us, he tried to catch the flying fish that were jumping out of the water around the boat. There were plenty of fish and he was doing a good job catching them, and also entertaining us.

Captain is having a good time...

 We were quite quick, we reached Martinique in good time. On second-reefed main and a small flock... and a clean bottom, it really makes a difference....

 Last hour before we reached St Pierre on the north of Martinique, the high mountains took away the wind and we had to motor. We reached St Pierre at around 4 in the afternoon and had enough time to swim, had dinner, played sudoku and read books and went to bed early.

Next morning we wanted to start early, we had more than 70 miles to go. But it was not so early as planned, we sailed from St Pierre at 7.30. The weather was even nicer than the day before, a bit less wind - around 14 knots, but even less waves. Heron was making good speed again. We only needed to run engine in lee of Dominica (v zavetrju), but it gave us good opportunity to have lunch. North-west off Dominica we caught a small tuna - so not only was the sailing season started, but also the fishing season.

Late at afternoon we reached Les Saintes.

 The sun was just going down.

 This was probably the longest passage that we made in Caribbean in one day.

 We dropped the anchor in the bay at Paine de Sucre and have a quick swim before it got dark. Next morning the bay looked pretty as ever, I almost forgot how much. We took advantage of lots of hot water and had a laundry day. Captain got us some fresh baguettes from the town and I went snorkeling in the afternoon. Yes, this is the way life should be in France...

 This morning captain again dinghied to town to clear us in (and to get fresh baguettes again - French might be bad at anchoring their boats, but they sure know how to make bread!). And this is a new method how to get dinghy to the boat if one turns off the engine too soon....