Sailing Jeannius: St Vincent to Marigot Bay, St Lucia

We leave a little later than we mean to but that is partly due to the wind and our mooring ball – let me explain. By Young Island the wind is all over the place. We just can’t get the sail up – it keeps getting caught in the lazy jacks – up, down, up, down, like a wh…. , well you get the picture! In the end we just leave it half up and decide to head out and get some more consistent wind. So I go to release us from the mooring ball and find that the lines are completely twisted around each other under the mooring ball and pull as we might, we cannot get the lines released. In the end Mike puts Jeannius into reverse which works a treat. Her pulling power is much greater that Mike’s and mine!

We fart around in the bay for ages before we manage to get the sail through the dammed lazy jacks (those things need a complete re-design!) but eventually we head out into seas and wind that are nothing like the forecast Mike has looked at this morning. The seas are big and the wind is gusting madly. We had hoped to head up the island on the east coast which would give us a better sail to St Lucia but in these conditions it will be horrible so we turn Jeannius around a full 180 degrees and go up the west coast instead, going past where we started just half an hour earlier. What a difference! Now we are going with the waves and it is really comfortable, so comfortable that I go down and prepare the vegetables for lunch just in case the weather changes later. Good job I do!!

Again there are lots of yachts about, and hundreds of flying fish, some of them quite large. The morning passes comfortably; we are averaging 7.5 knots in no more than 18 knots of wind with both reefs in the main and the genoa reefed as well, then gradually the seas get lumpy (only way to describe them), with waves hitting us in front and side on, and the wind comes in gusts. One wave comes crashing over the front, through the open windscreens and soaks us both and the whole of the cockpit. After drying myself off I decide to lie down inside for a while.

About an hour later Mike comes in licking his lips. He either wants me or food but when I offer him lunch, he seems pleased so I guess it wasn’t me he was after! In heaving seas, legs firmly planted and almost tied to the stove, I make Indian scrambled eggs again. It can be quite difficult eating in gusts of wind that scream sideways through the cockpit – they can whip the food off your spoon quicker than you can shovel it into your mouth, so we eat quickly and thwart Mother Nature.

Photo: Approaching St Lucia, Pitons in sight!

The sail to St Lucia is a real rollercoaster of a ride. At times we are flying, at other times it feels like we are just being flung around in the sea, but we manage to hold our course and stay on our feet, although some of our possessions are flung around inside the boat as we find out later. How our flat screen flew off the shelf and landed right side up on the sofa is beyond me!

Photo: Mike attempts to sort the lines out ……

Photo: …… then settles down for a read

Photos: Posing with the Pitons

Photo: Club Med II sailing past the Pitons

At one point we have dolphins swimming alongside us but I rush to get my camera too late. Having said that, there is so much spray and with the boat lurching so dramatically, I doubt I would have got any decent photos even if I had been in time. As we arrive at Marigot Bay the sun is starting to set. There are yachts coming in all directions into the bay as the light starts to fail and all the anchoring spots are gone so Mike has to get his wallet out and pay for a mooring for the second night on the trot – not what a cruiser wants to do! As we sail in, flag flying, we note the number of boats that are sailing their ARC flags so Mike puts our 2002 one up too - it’s so tatty but he likes it. I think our red ensign looks much better.

Photo: Flying the flag