Because I know I have to get up early, I don’t get to sleep easily and wake up frequently during the night. Eventually at 4.30am and half an hour before the alarms are due to go off, my wriggling disturbs Mike enough for him to get up and make the tea. Result!
We set off about an hour later. The sun is just rising and the town is already moving as we hear the dustbins being emptied. The sea is still flat calm as we head out although Mike puts the main sail up in the hope that as we leave the protected waters of Martinique, the wind will increase to the predicted 15 or so knots per hour.
Just at the north end of Martinique, Mike decides to put the gennaker up as the wind is almost behind us. Within ten minutes a squall develops just offshore under the mountains, gusting winds of 25 knots, and although it looks it will pass behind us, we can still get some nastier winds from it. I start winging to Mike about how I don’t like or trust the gennaker or the rustling, flapping noise it makes if the wind isn’t in it just right and there is a huge bang. Christ, here we go again. A quick look determines that the block holding the gennaker furling on the port stern has broken and the gennaker is now flapping furiously and extremely noisily and the sheets whip around madly looking for skin to rip off a body. Luckily I still have my gloves on and Mike goes down to the pulpit to wind it in while I attempt to control the sheet. Unfortunately the tension is so uneven that if furls badly and starts to rip, and the bloody thing has only just been fixed. Rather than risk further damage, Mike decides to take it down completely. With his lifejacket on and safety harness securely fastened around something solid, he lowers it using the winch and I pull it in over the side before it hits the water and lay it down on the foredeck before scrabbling back to the safety of the cockpit.
Once everything is safe, Mike takes a look at the broken block, which, on closer inspection, turn not to be broken at all. He examines the rope which ties the gennaker block and that isn’t broken either as he can see that both ends still have signs of being melted. A few weeks ago he attempted to undo the knot in this rope and was unable to as it was too tight. The weird thing is that any tension on the rope should have made it tighter, not come undone. Very strange indeed.
The squall passes and we cross the passage between Martinique and Dominica. Once in the protection of Dominica, the sea, which has become lurchy and uncomfortable, calms down, as does the wind, so I go below for a sleep because I had such a bad night. An hour an a half later I emerge, a little refreshed.
After lunch we are coming to the north tip of Dominica and the winds are picking up again. By this time both the genoa and the main are up and Mike decides to take a reef in the main just in case the winds pick up as we leave the shelter of land. In the event, he needn’t have bothered.
We arrive in Isles des Saintes, a group of small French islands, around 4.30pm and run the usual gauntlet of invisible fishing pots. We head to Terre d’en Haut, the largest of the islands and the only one with a town - Bourg de Saintes - and anchor in the fishing port area to try to find some free internet connection but we fail dismally. I admire Mike’s persistence – I would have thrown the bloody PC and all its gubbings out of the window but he just says he’ll try in the morning from somewhere else.
Photo: Arriving at Isles des Saintes, with Pain au Sucre in the foreground
Photo: The fishing port area
We were going to get up early tomorrow morning and head north but with no internet, there is no weather forecast so we can’t go. I try not to hide the fact that I will look forward to a lie in!
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