May 1st to June 26th
Almost 2 months of adventures follows, so treat yourself with a cup of tea or coffee and prepare for a long reading 😉.
South of Guadeloupe we got more wind than reported (as usual) on Predictwind, so it was a bit rough sailing between Les Saintes and Dominica. Wind of 21-24 knots, with gusts of over 30 and a lot of headwind, on large parts of the stretch.
We also had big belts with "seaweed" between the islands - big belts !!, so we had to do a bit of zigzag "driving".
Just before we arrived in Dominica we entered a belt with a lot of "garbage" and trees and roots, so we had to take a 180 degree turn to not hit anything.
When we had passed we started to take in the fishing line and Yes !, there it was! 👍 (we had lost two already).
After half an hour of "fighting", Kai got a 9 kilo Wahoo 😃. It is a very good fish - on par with tuna. We gave away a lot, so it was dinner to "the bouy guys" in the bay, and to both our Finnish and English friends and many dinners for us.
After 3 attempts at anchoring it got fixed. The next morning we had drifted a bit, so we decided to try again.
So I, Monica, started the anchor winch and… what !, what happens? !!, it does not stop… .😮
Kai had to cut all power on the boat to stop the anchor and we eventually managed to tie up to a buoy. After a lot of research, Kai found out that the solenoid did not disconnect - "welded" firmly - not good 😟. It's temporarily fixed and ok now.
After finishing check-in we took a trip ashore to look around a bit, Portsmouth looks quite "poor", but at the same time there are many large, beautiful villas.
Much is new or restored after the hurricane in 2017, while many have not started building again😥.
The "Indian River Tour" was a calm, nice experience. We were 6 people (us, Sheryl & Heikki from "Zelda" and Caron & Martin from "Escapade") and had a guide who rowed us up the river.
We saw "Calypso's hut" from the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" - several scenes for the film were shot in Dominica.
One day we rented a car and took the trip to Titou Gorge and Trafalger Falls - wow !! 🤩
Titou Gorge was amazing 😜. We swam into a gorge, in cold water. It was probably 8-10 m steep walls up where the sun shone in, and we swam further in to a waterfall.
Afterwards we drove to Trafalgar Falls, two waterfalls called "mama & papa". Here we climbed up over large rocks, up to 3 pools, where one of them was a "hot pool" - we bathed in all the pools, so eventually we were quite wrinkled from "lying in water" so much.
So then we decided to end the day with a short snorkeling on Champagne Beach 😂.
We rented a local taxi / bus guide together with Caron and Martin and had a full day sightseeing on the northside of the island. Our guide, Martin, was a knowledgeable guy who told and showed us lots of different fruits and herbs - mango, avocado, guava, papaya, passion fruit, pineapple, orange, banana, cinnamon, bay leaf, vanilla, lemongrass.
We drove to Chaudiere Pool, which is one of the Caribbean's most "perfect" tropical pools. After a 1/2 hour walk we arrived at the pool. We jumped in (I, Monica, thought at first it was a bit high, but I took the leap… .😜). Very cool !!
Chaudiere Pool is close to Elma's holiday home.
Elma Napier and her husband, Lennox, were two bohemian Scottish aristocrats who fell in love with Dominica and who in the 1930s built a house on a 25-acre property in Pointe Baptiste, overlooking the Red Rocks. Red Rocks are compact mud that over time have transformed into strange formations and it is quite fascinating to walk there 😊.
Elma was an iconic person, the first woman ever to be elected to the British West Indies Legislative Assembly, where she also got through the construction of the first road connecting Rousau, Dominica's capital, to the northern part of Dominica.
Then it was also quite natural to stop by Alan Napier, Elma's grand child, who runs Pointe Baptiste Chocolate Factory, the only chocolate factory on the island. Alan started as a 16-year-old by planting cocoa trees, as there was no good cocoa / chocolate on the island to make good chocolate milk. Furthermore, he has "educated" himself via the internet to become a "Chocolatier".
He does most things himself, i.a. He "smells" when the fermentation of the beans is finished.
He has 3 employees, and they even make the boxes that are used for fermentation.
We were given a tour of the basic, but so practical premises, with several self-produced "machines". With so many clever features, both Kai and Martin suddenly became very interested in chocolate making - from picking cocoa beans via fermentation and drying, crushing the beans and separating the peel and chocolate, to melting the chocolate and adding flavor and distribution in forms and cooling.
Eventually, Caron and I (Monica), a little laughable, wanted to finish the tour and rather get some tastings 😉.
There were tastings for all of us and also purchase of various chocolate bars.
We ended the day with a trip to "The cold springs" where there was a instinct smell of sulfur (rotten eggs) and there were bubbling puddles.
All in all a great day 👍
We were up early on Saturday for a trip to "Extreme Dominica" - canyoning, a waterfall / cave climbing and rappelling trip. It was canceled due to rain, so we will try again another day.
We dived one day with a diving center, it is not allowed to dive "alone" in Dominica. So we and Caron and Martin, from "Escapade", went with Carib Divecenter. Two dives, but there was quite a lot of current in the water so it was more drifting. The first went a bit "fast", but we got to see a lot, i.a. 2 seahorses, one was pregnant too 😊.
Dive no. 2 gradually went from depth and upwards to shallower water and then we swam in between large rocks - it was really cool 😃.
Then we tried again at "Canyoning" - there were only the four of us today as well and 3 instructors / guides.
We first drove for 10-15 minutes and then it was straight to rappelling (I, Monica, had never tried that before), down in the first puddle and further down the gorge with jumping, wading, swimming and more rappelling in a mix. Exciting and very cool 😃.
Several of the islands, but especially Dominica are beautifully cleared and decorated. Most roads have beautiful plants and flowers along the way.
May 10th, after 10 days with lots of impressions and many new activities, we sailed from Dominica towards Martinique.
We got more wind than forecasted and in addition large waves and messy sea. No pleasure that leg 😟.
When we were going to anchor in St.Pierre, Martinique, it happened again - the anchor did not stop, but this time on the way down! - again Kai had to cut off the power.
We tried twice, but finally decided to sail on, so that we could moor in a buoy.
Along the way, Kai figured out how we (he) could manually release the anchor - the control works to lift the anchor. So after a long day, 15 hours, we anchored in the dark in Les Anse D’Arlet 😏.
So now the anchor winch needs to be repaired - there is something "all the time" 🙄.
The next morning we sailed on to Le Marin, still with a lot of wind and waves, but we got a berth in the marina. Along the way we saw that the windex was gone - taken by a bird?
The day in Le Marin was busy - first we rented a car, shopped at the Volvo Penta - dealer, drove to Decathlon to buy various sports equipment (wetsuit, diving knife, o-rings, fish lures ++), further on to Leaderprice for grocery shopping and then deliver the car. Back in the marina, Kai had to go up the mast to mount the Windex, we had to check out from Martinique and also register SailClear for St. Lucia. When finished it was evening and dinner before going to bed 😏.
We sailed to St. Lucia, where they were suppose to have the part to get the anchor fixed 🤞, and after another leg with a little messy sea, but not as earlier, and in fact less wind than reported 😉, we arrived at Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, and got anchored up with Kai's manual solution of anchor drop.
The "original" Gregory was ready to sell fruit and vegetables from his special boat as soon as we were ready.
The next morning we got in touch with the marina and got a berth. Check-in went well and we spent the evening with Lori & Barney (Favorita), Traci & Andrew (Walkabout) and Leticia & Derek (Mary Doll) - a very nice evening, but due to cloudy weather we unfortunately did not see the lunar eclipse 😏.
Monday was used to "run" back and forth between shops, the boat and the workshop, to make a connection kit for the new solenoid.
The solenoid got "ready", after Kai ended up making the metal connections himself based on a drawing from the manufacturer🙄 - okay now👍
On Wednesday we checked out from St. Lucia and sailed south to Soufriere / Pitons for a one overnight stay. It was a night with a lot of "rolling" - tiring to lie still in bed 😏
We started early in the morning heading south towards Bequia - Lori and Barney ("Favorita") were about 1/2 hour (2-2 1/2 nm) ahead of us all the way. It was a nice sailing with «downwind» (tailwind) almost all the way 👍.
Upon arrival in Bequia, we had the Q-flag hoisted (meaning we did not check in) until we left the next morning.
We had a nice evening with "sundowners" at Traci & Andrew ("Walkabout") with Lori & Barney ("Favorita") and Sheryl & Heikki ("Zelda") - it will probably be a long time until we meet again 😟.
Now we go to different places for the hurricane season, but hopefully we will see each other again in October-November somewhere 🤞😃.
Our voyage continued further south towards Carriacou where we took the Advanced Open Water Diver course. We learned more about navigation, deep dives (29 m), buoyancy (correct weighting so that you lie correctly in the water), wreck dives and night dives.
Informative and very fun, but not all of it simple 😃.
After completing the course, we got ready to sail to Bonaire, a 3-day voyage. It has been many months since we have had round-the-clock voyages, but when the weather is good it is nice to be out "all alone". There are not many boats we see on such a voyage, and due to the proximity to Venezuela we sailed partly incognito - without sending out our own AIS signal (ais shows other boats where we are) and without the lantern at night. We have radar on, so we see the others.
It is so nice when dolphins come and swim and play around the boat, and along the way we experienced that several times.
During the voyage we fished, as usual, and suddenly we had fish on 2 lines, at the same time 😃. It was a bit hectic since Kai took care of the fishing rod where there was a BIG fish and the line just kept going out, out, out and I (Monica) had to haul in and get a tuna up in the boat. After a bit of fiddling, I managed to spear the fish with a large hook and get the rope around the tail to secure it, but I then managed to lose the hook !!! But the 5.2 kg tuna was "rescued".
Kai worked with the fishing rod and the Big fish !! - unfortunately after 1 hour the fish managed to get loose 😥.
After "informing / bragging" about the catch on the WhatsApp group we have among the sailors here, we received an "invitation" from Petra (on "Pippin", one of the Dutch boats) that our 5.2 kg tuna could become tuna -tartar tonight. 😜.
We were 11 people together for tartar, salad and rosé wine. Most of the tuna was turned in to tartar, but we kept enough for a tuna dinner to ourselves😋. We have found so many friends in the sailing community over here, and we have a lot of fun together👍😃.
Photos below borrowed from "Morgane of Sark" - another Dutch boat.
In Bonaire we dived together with Ross and Louise (from "Blue Mist") - Louise snorkeled. We were also lucky to get a buoy on the outside of the harbor so we could move out the marina and to more wind and crystal clear water - there we could both swim and also dive straight from the boat.
Although we could dive right behind the boat, we took the dinghies to various dive sites and had several nice dives with Ross.
We had a great night dive (right behind the boats) with Ross (Louise "watch out" from the dinghy or boat).
Ps Ross has dived to 145 meters and has been an instructor for 25 years - a nice diving buddy 😃.
"Wednesday Cruiser bbq" is "a must" for sailors every Wednesday at Kanti Awa Snack at Bonaire (bring what you want to grill and buy drinks at the bar).
We also found the showing of Top Gun Maverick at an outdoor cinema here on Bonaire - of course we had to go there - cool 👍😃
After a week of diving and cinema, we checked out and sailed to Curaçao where the boat will be on the hard for 3.5 months.
We had a nice sailing to Curaçao and were visited by many dolphins who played and surfed around the boat along the way - it never gets boring to see these beautiful animals 😍.
It was a special experience to sail into Willemstad, Curaçao, it has a "pontoon bridge" - a floating pier, which must be opened for boats to pass. The bridge "Queen Emma Pontoon Bridge", locally called "Swinging Old Lady" as it turns towards the Otrabanda side of Willemstad, was built in 1888 and has been renovated several times later. It had a period of car traffic, but since 1974 it has only been for pedestrians.
We got into Curaçao Marine and moored. The next day we had a long and hot scooter trip (kicking scooters) to "Customs and immigration", these are located on each side of the harbor entrance inside Willemstad and in addition we also had to take a long detour since the harbor "road" was closed due to military boats and large sailboats (tall ships).
It is hot to stay in a berth and there's a lot of mosquitoes. In addition, work is being done to prepare the boat for hauling out and storage on the hard.
Most of everything is at a distance from the marina, and since it is so hot, we rented a car to explore the island a bit. But first we did some shopping! - materials to cover hatches, winches, steering wheel ++, and we went to a large supermarket, Mangusa Hypermarket, which had everything !!
There was a rows of meat, fish, chicken, cakes and of course a large selection of fruits and vegetables 😃.
Out to explore, we drove northeast and found that there is very little hiking"friendly". It is «overgrown» with cactus and thorn bushes «everywhere» 😟.
We saw a sign with Sheta Boka National park, so we took the road there. It was quite wild how the sea was hitting towards land, and a great contrast to how it was on the west side when we got there.
The next day we drove to Spanish Waters, it's special how there is a narrow canal from the ocean and into a large "lake", where many boats anchor.
Otherwise, there also , outside the built-up and planted area, most of it was covered with cactuses and thorn bushes.
We visited Fort Beekenburg, a fort built in 1703 to defend the Spanish Waters and also to keep the British and the pirates out of Curaçao.
On Monday June 20th , the boat was hauled out and we got a good overview of how much growth that's been building up underneath during these months. This even though Kai has washed the waterline several times, and also dived under the boat. It got a little better after high pressure flushing, but new antifouling and polishing will do well.
For several days it was washed and polished, inside everywhere with water and vinegar, also in drawers and cabinets, and everything was placed so that it's airy, which makes it look very messy 😏.
Outside the boat deck were washed and polished, and all metal was polished, Kai even used a toothbrush! in places that were difficult to get to - the propeller got significantly better, right? 😜
Now the boat is ribbed down and wrapped so that it is protected from the sun.
We travel home to Norway for 3 months and visit family before we return to Curacao and new adventures.
Monica og Kai Robert
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