Week 52: Dominica to Martinique (73nm)

A year aboard Serenity – leaving Dominica proved more of a challenge than expected, but we eventually made it down to Martinique and revisited some of our favourite haunts with S/V Arcturus. We’ve managed our first video-led Story of the Week, so offline readers will miss out on a lot this week (we’re looking at you Barry).

Captain’s log

28th Apr: A slow day during which we aligned plans with Arcturus to head down to Martinique, got the boat ready to sail again and finished off some odd jobs. We then met up with Andy and Joanna on Bamba Maru (see Parting Thoughts last week) and they took us to a local BBQ spot before we all joined the weekly Sunday cruiser party at PAYS, which was so sparsely attended that we were relieved we hadn’t paid for the whole meal.

29th Apr: Our plans for an early departure were immediately curtailed when we discovered that our anchor had become tangled (see Story of the Week) and we were forced to call upon help from Daniel to get us free. The longer sail to St. Pierre at this point had become unrealistic and so we settled for the shorter hop down to Roseau instead – winds were a bit fickle but the only sure fire way of getting them to come back when they died was to put the sails away and turn the engine on. With the Q flag up in Roseau we invited Daniel and Camille over for a game of Settlers, which Laura won through her usual strategy of tact and appearing friendly 🙂

30th Apr: Take-two for our sail to Martinique was far more successful, helped in part by the fact that we’d spent the night on a buoy and therefore nullified the risk of the anchor getting tangled. We found ourselves in an informal race with a smaller but fancier French boat, who pulled ahead initially as we opted for a more conservative sail plan. As the wind filled in, they were forced to reef and Serenity surged ahead to win comfortably by the end (averaging 6.5 knots over a couple of hours). St. Pierre hadn’t changed much since our last visit, and we got ourselves settled in for a quiet night with some podcasts thanks to the high speed town WiFi.

1st May: Labour Day is a big deal in France and therefore also in Martinique it turns out, so even fresh bread was off the cards! It seemed the goal of the day in town was to start drinking as early as possible, and apparently things started getting a bit rowdy after lunch. Since the life out on the water was proving pretty idyllic, we elected to stay aboard and enjoy the snorkelling, paddleboarding and company of Arcturus (including new game Phase 10).

2nd May: Motored round to Fort-de-France to get some supplies and found that, despite the proximity of high speed ferries and warnings of our pilot book, it wasn’t too unpleasant a spot. Had a nice wander around the town before the heavens opened (seems to be happening more frequently now?), and then met up with neighbours Sam, Georgie and Olivier off S/V North Star – a British flagged boat with American registration plates that had just crossed Atlantic after engine troubles near Spain delayed them by 3 months.

3rd May: Ran a couple more errands in the morning, ably assisted by some of the friendliest people we’ve met on our journey thus far (even in the baguette shop). Then decided to seek some peace and quiet across the other side of the bay in Anse Noir, which unsurprisingly is famous for it’s black volcanic sand. Initially we thought we may have made a mistake as a number of ‘lads-on-tour’ boats piled in behind us and set about trying to make as much noise and disturbance as possible – thankfully they left around 4pm and the natural beauty of the bay was restored.

4th May: Our second day in this bay was a bit less hectic, and we were joined by Arcturus at lunchtime who were very excited about all the underwater life. Decided to try and use up the last of the kingfish from St. Kitts, and so had Daniel and Camille over for a Thai Curry / book swap evening. Laura then won the evening game for the second time running (Phase 10 this time) and mutters were heard around the table that sometimes it was okay to let other people succeed…

Story of the Week

In celebration of a year of posts (and therefore also time sailing on Serenity!), I decided to make our first attempt at a video story (vs. a montage reel). Helpfully, we had an anchor retrieval crisis at the start of the week that provided the perfect opportunity for a budding director to cut his teeth. Unhelpfully the director ended up deprioritising getting footage below solving the issue, so I’ve had to go a bit Blue Peter in post production.

I was feeling pretty pleased with my efforts – maybe not Sundance material yet, but certainly up there with the great Indie documentary film makers of our time. Feedback from my limited test audience of Laura suggests I may have just missed the gritty action realism I was searching for and ended up with something more in the humour category? Either way, I hope you enjoy it!

Parting thoughts

In contrast to my Mum (who ends up in conversations with all kinds of people she doesn’t intend to), I have always found introducing myself to new people to be oddly intimidating. The years I spent in London certainly exacerbated this issue, where the default reaction between strangers is averted eyes and smiles are downright creepy. Thankfully, I’m now in an environment where I can begin to undo these isolationist tendencies, as cruisers are far more welcoming to people that put themselves out there.

Daniel and Camille on S/V Arcturus are a case in point, and by reaching out to them when we arrived in Portsmouth we were able to organise an amazing day trip, secure some help when our anchor got snagged, and cruise down to Martinique with some friendly faces alongside. I’m hopeful that the confidence engendered by these positive interactions will give me a springboard when we return to the less forgiving ‘real world’, but either way am committed to making the most of our time amongst our more accessible cruiser neighbours.