Heading to Dominica on Friday

We finally pulled up the anchor yesterday afternoon in Saint Anne and headed around the island to Grand Anse D'Arlet. We had put that anchor down just after Christmas, so it was definitely time to move on. As it was, Laurie had to dive on the rope portions of the bridle and rode and scrub the dirt and growth off it to save the deck from serious mess and smell. It would be pretty easy to stay in Saint Anne for an entire season and some people do. We hiked up and down mountains, did beach walks, enjoyed huge amounts of wine and cheeses and ate out almost every day. Today we'll have dinner onboard and I'll see if I can remember how to put something together!

This morning, Laurie got into the engine room and topped up all the batteries. He reports that they needed little water and all is well in that department. He also changed out an alternator for a more powerful one. The one he left in the box is the weakest of the 3 so it will become our spare. The alternators were all inspected and tweeked back in Grenada, so they're all working really well. (Better knock on wood!) While he was doing these chores, I did up some laundry using rain water we had collected awhile back. When the laundry was finished and hanging to dry, I took the laundry water and washed down the cockpit. Under the cushions really needed some attention. I also worked on some rusty marks left here there and everywhere after Laurie manufactured some replacement screws for the rudders back in Trinidad before we left in December. After he finished grinding all those bolts to a point, there were shards of metal everywhere just like they had been in a salt shaker and shaken liberally everywhere. Every speck is a mark of rust. There are still some to attend to, but enough is enough for one day! A product called 'Ospho' is what we use for rust, and believe it or not, it will even remove rust from fabric without interfering with the pattern or colour!

After looking at the calendar and also the weather, we think it would be a great time to head up to Dominica for a few days. We'll head up to the northern part of Dominica to Portsmouth where the boat boys are well organized and have a wonderful BBQ every Sunday, so we plan on getting going and attending it. Last season, we were there for 4 or 5 Sunday BBQ's so I'm sure they're looking for us!! We plan to spend less than a week and come back to Martinique. Lorna and Brian from s/v Peace and Plenty should be around by then, so we can meet up with them again.

We said 'farewell for now' to our friends Terry and Kristin from the boat Silk Pajamas. We have had a great time with them over the past month. They'll head back to Rodney Bay for awhile, we'll head to Dominica and we'll all meet up again somewhere before the season ends.

So, in the morning, we'll go to the local beach bar/customs station and check out of Martinique. This can be done on a computer provided to us and we just hit the print button and the gal at the bar will stamp our papers! (The British islands have a lot to learn from the French with regards to customs and immigration paperwork!) We'll sail to St. Pierre tomorrow (Thursday) and then will sail on to Dominica on Friday. The weather reports suggest low winds from favourable directions starting Friday and continuing for near a week.