I thought that it was important to write something about our passage-making these days. Moving up the islands in the East Caribbean has been quite a varied experience. First of all because each island itself is a distinct, individual country of it’s own (referring to “going to the Caribbean” is the same as an American talking about visiting Europe) and second of all that it’s easy to forget that there still is a big old amount of Atlantic ocean that separates one from another!

Unlike our country to country voyages prior to the Atlantic crossing, all these hops are relatively short: St Lucia to Martinique was only 25 miles, Martinique to Dominica was 38. On a clear day you can see the next island you’re heading to before you start which helps with judging your heading, leeway and weather conditions. We also have to always leave from and enter into a ‘Port of Entry’, as we need to clear customs in all these different countries.

You may have noticed that we’ve been progressing always northwards and always kept to the western side of each island. This is because it’s the leeward side, the side protected from those same strong, regular trade winds that helped blow us across the ocean. This means that in our travels up and down the west coast of each island we are relatively sheltered but can encounter fairly strong winds, swell and current when travelling from one to another. It’s quite easy to forget sometimes that your homely, comfortable boat which nestles nicely at anchor in a pretty bay will once again lurch around violently on Atlantic rollers as you get out into the open water once more.

The crossings from one to another are generally a lovely sail, you feel as though you’re blowing off the cobwebs and getting back out to sea. Having said that, although we all enjoyed the St Lucia to Martinique passage, both Lis and I had an awful time on the Martinique to Dominica crossing with the motion and strong winds that day making us feel really ropey and leaving all the sailing work to the lads, who actually had a lovely day of it. But, Dominica to the Saintes was a glorious trip.

Now, the thing about those trade winds is that it’s hard to make progress on any passage going east as that is where the wind is coming from. The one time that we needed to do this was when James and I sailed from the Saintes to Pointe à Pitre, Guadeloupe. So, to tackle this, we chose a perfect day for it, made the best course to windward that we could (which means sailing as close to the wind as possible) and, when this no longer got us far enough away from the lee shore of Basse Terre, we motored into wind for about an hour so that we could sail again. This is the first time we’ve needed to motor for propulsion since leaving Europe (can you sense the pride with which I typed that?).

But, by far our highlight island-to-island jump so far has been Port Louis, Guadeloupe to English Harbour, Antigua. It was a perfect 7 hour sail, beam reaching, 6 to 6 and a half knots all the way with one reef in and a full genoa. Just the two of us again, clear skies and plain sailing.

So, for those of you who have not brushed up on your Caribbean island topography, Guadeloupe looks like a lopsided butterfly. Its western wing is called Basse Terre and is covered in mountains and volcanoes with clouds hovering at their summits; its eastern side is Grande Terre and is flatter, drier and older. In the middle is a narrow river, actually it’s more of a saltwater channel, bordered by mangroves which bisects the two. It is very shallow, only 6 and a half feet deep at points, has a huge reef at its northern end and is straddled by two bridges. These bridges open at 5 in the morning to any vessel that is ready and willing and just plain crazy enough to sail up the channel. Can you guess who that might include…?

We moved the boat from outside Point à Pitre to the southern end of the Rivière Salée, by the Pont de la Gabarre, and dropped our anchor in the afternoon, just as the sun was starting to dip. It’s a lovely spot, still and quiet save for my initial squawks about just how shallow it is. You see, I should point out at this point that James and I have not confirmed, as yet, what our exact draught is. This is the key measurement that you need from the water line to the bottom of your keel and enables you to know that you have enough water when you anchor. Now, since the famous running aground incident at Alvor in Portugal, we have always over estimated and offset our depth gauge so as to avoid any hairy situations. Our documentation on the boat states that it’s 1.72m but, so many of these statistics have proved to be inaccurate, so we were still somewhat unsure – hence the squawking.

But there is safety to be found in numbers and, to our great relief, two other boats joined us to anchor and lie in wait for the 5am bridge opening: one catamaran – well known for having hardly any keel whatsoever, and one monohull like us – a ketch which probably had a similar draught. When the time came and our little caravan of three started nudging towards the clanking bridge in the early hours, we positioned ourselves in the middle and slowly started joining the dots between the alternating port and starboard markers. The second bridge, the Bridge l’Alliance, opens half an hour later and you can anchor just after this one too. This allows you to take a little rest and have breakfast before continuing along the second half of the channel in good light as you travel between bridges in pitch black.

The shallowest points of the river are just before the southern bridge and at the northern end, where the channel pours out into the Grande cul-de-sac Marin, a 4 mile system of reefs. However, at both these points the bottom is made of soft mud so a quick manoeuvre rescues you from any grounding situation. The journey itself was beautiful and atmospheric: from the start in total darkness, using the buoys as our only guide; to the mangrove-lined morning with herons and butterflies as our company; spilling out into the eerie reef-world at the northern end, where miles of mill-pond still turquoise water borders the navigable route through. Spooky, calm and all without a soul around as our caravan companions had moved on after the northern bridge. So, although we planned on this route to shorten our sail to Antigua, the adventure that we got from the short cut was memorable to say the least.

We sailed from Portsmouth, Dominica, to Terre d’en Haut on the Îles des Saintes on February 6th. This is where we parted ways with Lisanna and Paul, our crewmates since December 1st, who are flying onto Cuba before heading back to real life.

This left James and I to our own devices to potter about the islands. The Saintes are a part of Guadeloupe and are made up of small islands with some pretty beaches, a few bits of reef and some interesting cliff walks. The islands are quite rocky and steep to with small sheltered bays in which to anchor. They make a logical stop off en route to the mainland as they are about 21 miles from Dominica and 22 from Guadeloupe. At first glance there seems to be not a lot here aside from those things clearly aimed at tourists (souvenir stores, overpriced clothes shops, restaurants etc). But we were happily able to find a good little chandlery / hardware store, a great butcher, we poked our noses in at the local church and went on some fantastic walks. My favourite of the latter took us out to a beach covered with a forest of palm trees where we met two adorable kittens that nearly became our new boatmates. While walking back from the beach we passed a fenced-off field where goats and chickens were being fed their dinner and, amongst them, vying for some scraps were lots of wild iguanas. More and more of the big lizards kept joining the crowd, clambering down from the trees. We counted over 30 of them! A couple of days later we pushed on to Pointe à Pitre, Guadeloupe’s capital.

Note to all readers, this means our spare double cabin is now vacant and fully ready for visitors! All are welcome to stay, just get in touch and we can detour to meet you wherever possible :)

Approaching Domenica we understood instantly why we were given a warning about tricky anchoring there. It looks like something prehistoric. The island is so mountainous and steep-to that the coastal waters are mostly too deep to drop the hook anywhere. This is not a land of beaches but is a place to explore the natural wonders both inland and underwater.

We moored up at the capital, Roseau, on the day that kicks off carnival season. Carnival proper happens on February 20th this year but there is a whole series of parties that lead up to this. The carnival opening that happened when we arrived consisted of a parade of stilt-walkers, traditional carib dancers, little girl flag throwers, beauty queens and all kinds of other costume-wearing, booty-shaking revellers dancing through the streets or on floats. James and I liked the dancing stilt-walkers best particularly one very expert girl of about 10 years old. Other highlights were the shaggy looking monsters with Viking horns or the float for the pharmacy-sponsored “Miss plus size and elegant”.

We people-watched and drank Kabuli, the local beer, and wandered the grid of streets. The people of Roseau are nothing if not entrepreneurial as every house is also a bar and a bakery and offers a lawyer’s services. My personal favourite is a shop called ‘Robin’s nest’ which sells electrical items (old keyboards, walkie-talkies, fans and mobile phones) as well as ladies’ lingerie.

Roseau’s normal street activity is dominated by whether or not there is a cruise ship present, which there is 6 days of the week. Because of this, a veritable swarm of taxi drivers and tour guides descend upon anyone white offering their services. We wondered if we should make t-shirts stating “no we are not American and no we are not on a cruise ship”. As they are on holiday, Lis and Paul found themselves a nice tour guide and spent several days with him exploring some of Domenica’s natural wonders.

James and I are not so tour guide minded, nor can we afford tour prices, so we hopped onto the local bus (the same big vans as the taxis but full of people and making several stops). Venturing inland was a bit of a novelty for us. Domenica has 7 active volcanoes so there’s a lot of geological interest across the island: the boiling lake, lots of waterfalls, the Titou gorge etc. We decided to go to Trafalgar falls as we’d heard that the bridge on the road to it was currently being mended so a lot of the cruise lot were going elsewhere. Plus we left early in the morning, to avoid the worst crowds. Our bus dropped us just by the broken bridge, still useable if on foot, and we walked up the steep road through the village of Trafalgar to get to the falls.

Alas, there is another road to get here, and some of the tourist crowds were already getting out of their air-conditioned taxis. The trail to the falls consists of a little walk to a viewing platform. After this the trail gets much wilder and a sign warns that from this point you explore at your own risk as the area is prone to flash floods. Much to our joy the current cruise ship was full of the blue-rinse brigade and a lot of rather overweight, unfit looking people, none of whom had the ability, let alone the desire to go any further than the platform.

James and I rejoiced in getting one of Domenica’s prime sights entirely to ourselves and, as the crowds disappeared back into their vehicles and the trail fell silent, we happily scrambled into the rainforest to play. Trafalgar falls is made up of ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ waterfalls dropping down from a great height down to a series of fresh pools, these are also joined by hot pools from sulphurous springs. The hot pools are the first things you come to after parting from the trail and felt like the most luxurious spa treatment for us two salty sea-dogs. We sat and poached for a bit and then climbed over the rocks towards the freshwater pools at the bottom of the falls. Hot pool, cold pool, hot pool, cold pool, all while relaxing within the heart of the rainforest with just the jumping lizards, fleeting hummingbirds, scurrying crabs and the music of the jungle to keep us company.

Martinique, our playground for the last week or so was a strange beast.

Imagine everything that you have pictured in your mind about a tropical Caribbean island; then add the rastas, resplendent with their dreadlocks and spliffs; include the fishermen with their little, colourful wooden boats and weathered faces; put in the big, laughing women, singing over their searing hot plates of barbecued chicken and flatbreads; then attach a whole chunk of mainland France, hit it with a hurricane and see what an active volcano does to it.

Weird, eh?

Its architectural vernacular is similarly a bit of a mongrel: a slightly run down patchwork of corrugated iron, timber and stone with colourful murals, faded colonial grandeur with columns and wrought iron balconies. There are also many abandoned buildings.

The port of Marin, where we cleared in, is attached to a small hilly town. The centre of the community seems to be the local church, which has a roof like a wooden arc, with shuttered windows that open onto views of the sea. Some local buildings are painted in bright colours and new sits right next to old; no more so than at the town hall where a freshly painted bright blue wall adjoins a stone ruin. The people are friendly and chatty and a total melting pot of European and Afro-Caribbean and any mixture in between.

After this we made stops in Petite Anse d’Arlet and Anse a l’Ane before heading for the capital. Both of these were picturesque seaside towns with all the life of the place focussed on the waterfront. The houses are pretty pastels, the beaches are perfect white sand, the palm trees sway gently in the breeze and it is everything that you imagine a postcard from the Caribbean islands to look like. The people here are very much the French on holiday, sipping on chilled white wine or beer in the middle of the day or playing about on their powerboats with the ubiquitous troop of giggling girls in bikinis. We were all left a little dissatisfied: holiday resorts are all well and good but they don’t divulge the genuine character and soul of a place.

We enjoyed a couple of days in this paradise before agreeing that we were itching to uncover something more substantial. So we moved on to Fort de France, the capital of Martinique, dominated by Fort Louis which, frustratingly, you cannot visit as it is actively working as a naval base. The rest of the city consists of shops: stalls of tat for tourists, a shopping centre (which are the same the world over), a food market for locals, an overpriced food market for tourists, discount stores and clothing stores and one lone chandlery. That’s pretty much all that is there. Aside from the Bibliothèque Schoelcher, a beautiful little pavilion of a library, which was built in Paris and shown at the 1889 World exposition, then dismantled and sent to Martinique in bits. With the exception of this little gem the whole town is utilitarian, a bit seedy and downright bleak.

Continuing our quest for a more favourable lasting impression of Martinique’s character we journeyed on northwards to St Pierre. This used to be the country’s capital and was previously known as the ‘little Paris of the West Indies’. However, it’s fortunes were forever changed when Mount Pelée, the active volcano just to the North, erupted in 1902 and killed all but three of the 30,000 inhabitants. This story can be seen all over the city as ruins are scattered about, sometimes incorporated into new buildings. Perhaps the most poignant of these is the theatre, which was built in the 18th century but was destroyed by a hurricane some decades before the eruption and had just started to be restored when the volcano sealed its fate.

But, to our joy, the town of St Pierre is a real working community, without tourist swarms of the beaches and without the cheerlessness of the new capital. St Pierre just gets on with it, leaving you free to wander its cobbled streets, clamber over its historic remains, drink its rum and then leave. Really rather French, n’est pas?

This is a long overdue post all about St Lucia. Overdue largely because we needed a break after crossing our first ocean. We were straining our eyes, scanning the horizon for that first glimpse of land, all over-excited. But, we’re sailing, so, once we’d caught sight of land, it remained our goal, tantalizingly almost within reach for the next four hours. We moored up, were promptly offered a cold beer by our new neighbours, whirled our way through Caribbean customs procedures and promptly bundled into a nearby van and wound up at a nearby street party.

Gros Islet is a small suburb just outside Rodney Bay where they close off the streets on a Friday and open food and booze stalls. Turns out that a cluster of streets full of all types of people wandering about, men offering ‘local viagra’ which means super strong rum drinks, barbecued chicken and local hot-plate breads, impromptu pool games with the local big shot, late night ice cream and then tottering back to the boat is the perfect people-watching antidote to nearly three weeks at sea.

A few days r&r in the marina (by which we mean recharging the boat’s batteries and refilling the water tanks) we pottered down the west coast towards Marigot Bay, the ‘hidden’ anchorage. Not called hidden because it is deserted as we found it full of other boats looking smug at having settled in such a picturesque location. The hidden bit refers to how the bay suddenly opens up out of a deep gouge in the cliff. It was a beautiful spot, clear waters, palm trees and mangroves. Fruit vendors motor up to you on their little boats offering fresh local mangoes, bananas, papayas, love apples and grapefruit. So we gorged ourselves, indulging in the novelty of being able to food shop again.

From here we popped back up North to poke our noses into the capital: Castries. Although it has some souvenir commerce aimed purely with the cruise ship passengers in mind, we were able to skirt past this and get bantering with sellers in the proper fresh food market. St Lucians like tourists in general and always want to talk to you, even when there’s no question of trying to sell you something. Castries was the opposite of Rodney and Marigot in that it wasn’t picturesque; none of our photos would be mistaken for postcards here. But it was our first real example of a working, functioning East Caribbean town.

Next stops were Anse la Raye and Soufriere. We were the only yacht anchored off Anse la Raye, always a bonus. Here we discovered a simple, pretty little town that still bore the deep scars of being hit by hurricane Thomas in 2010. The houses were wooden, colourful glorified sheds and there were chickens, dogs and children playing in the street. The village holds a fish fest every Friday. We arrived on a Thursday which meant that we got to stroll around and chat to locals in a much more relaxed way as the place put on its ‘best behaviour’ for the proper tourist influx of the Friday.

In Soufriere we anchored just off the beach and tied our stern line to a palm tree. Here we all got into some proper snorkelling in the luminous turquoise water at the foot of the Pitons, two great big, rainforest clad mountains that dominate the landscape and the local beer is named after. You walk through some bits of the forest to get from our beach to the town. Here, again everyone wants to talk to us, often reassuring us that we “shouldn’t be afraid.” We’re not afraid and happily chat to anyone but wonder at some of the reactions the locals must have had to their overtures of friendship in order to spout this phrase on so many occasions.

James and I like getting lost in these little towns and villages. Wandering the backstreets, chatting to a man at a lathe repairing his little fishing boat, hearing the nonsense tales of the con-man kid in training – who informs us that pigeons lay eggs which then make small pigeons and can we give him a little something for this tidbit of knowledge – sipping our Pitons in the middle of the afternoon and finally unwinding after a year of purposeful endeavour.

We've been tripping along the Western coast of St Lucia; visiting mangrove bays and palm tree beaches; snorkelling among brightly spotted eels, luminous fish and giant sea urchins; diving off the boat to swim in beautifully clear waters; gorging ourselves on fresh mangoes, grapefruits, coconuts and bananas.

Generally living it up 'island style'. Needless to say, such a lifestyle is not really at one with rushing to wifi spots so apologies that our contact has become properly Caribbean in its relaxedness!

We are now back in Rodney Bay, having heard back from Mylor, to try to sort out our dead domestic batteries. Once this is sorted we'll push off towards Martinique.

Full St Lucian photos to follow but here is my current favourite:

Do good and let them talk.

We are now fifteen weeks into our trip and I thought that it was high time to elaborate on a term that I’ve thrown around rather a lot: nightwatch.

Contrary to what my father may think, when you are on a long passage such as our Morocco to Canaries run (6 days) or our Atlantic crossing (20 days), you cannot just anchor when night falls. One big reason for this is depth as the Atlantic is over 4,000 metres deep and that would be a gigantic weight of chain to carry!

Anyone who sails knows that it is important to keep a proper watch at all times. There are various ways of doing this. Yes, it may mean that someone is at the wheel at all times. However, if you are motoring, you have enough power to be using the autopilot so you may have more ability to move about the deck and check that all is as it should be. Being at the helm when you are under sail doesn’t necessarily glue you to the wheel either as it’s important to keep checking under your sails for other vessels, suspicious looking clouds, lights, etc as well as assessing if you’re happy with the amount of canvas you have up or the course you’re making. You do your watch and then give the next member of crew a brief update on what changes, if any, you’ve experienced and how the boat is handling.

Handing over can be a funny thing as we often found that the weather conditions changed per shift. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I handed over to Lis with a sky full of stars, mild winds and little swell only to hear her 10 minutes later swearing in Estonian at the force 6 gusting a 7 and the mad downpour of rain from the murky black sky that she was now presented with.

So, how do you sail through the night? There are many different kinds of nightwatch that we’ve experienced just in the time we’ve been going so far. There were the ones for the Biscay crossing (3 hours on, 3 hours off) where two people would jointly be on watch and be at the helm for an hour and a half each whilst playing alphabet games or Andy Grant’s “Where am I hiding” game. James and I had nightwatches on our Vigo to Gibraltar leg when it was just the two of us (2 hours on, 2 hours off) so one would helm and the other would doze in the cockpit next to the wheel if they were needed.

The wild weather that we encountered on the start of the Atlantic crossing required us to double up watches but Lis was down with seasickness so James and I would jointly do one 3 hour shift while Paul manned up to a solo shift (being the most experienced of us in rough weather sailing). During these shifts I remember using all my strength at the wheel to keep us on course while James looked at the enormous waves building and breaking at our stern with a mix of awe and horror. We had to congratulate each other a lot for holding our own in those conditions.

But, the real point of this post, was that I wanted to talk about the solo nightwatches. Once we’d got into a rhythm of the conditions in the Atlantic, we were all able to stand watch alone, even when it was pretty wild. We operated a 2 hours on, 6 hours off pattern, whenever possible, as it allowed us all to be well rested. We adapted this to times when people had bad migraines, seasickness or when the sun got so hot that we could only bear one hour at a time in the searing tropical heat.

A solo nightwatch on a boat with 3 other people can be a wondrous thing, as it’s often the only time you get to yourself to reflect and meditate on the day’s events. Sometimes you play music for the whole two hours, perfecting ‘boat dancing’ which is a strange form of it that only works at the wheel (thank god we have no webcam lashed to the mast). Or even our patented ‘spinnacle round the binnacle’ moves. Music in this context becomes strangely poignant as you realise just how many songs have lyrics which reference the sea. Sometimes, the brightness of the moon, the myriad stars which seem to grow in number as you’re looking at them, or the bright green explosions of phosphorescence dancing on the water’s surface is enough to hypnotise you into a state of complete wonder at your good fortune to witness it. Other times the sea is dark and wild and fast and you’re humbled by its power as you use every inch of your wits to keep sailing steady. You might be watching the horizon, waiting for that next flash of lightning, wondering if it will be closer than the last and will be the first real indication of that low pressure system that you never wanted to meet. Or, there are others, where the conditions are just the same as when you get into the ‘zone’ when you’re painting, or writing or any other creative pursuit. I call these my nightwatch epiphanies, where your brain seems to flood with plans, ideas and schemes: for the next leg, the next move, the next place.

Just a random little video taken by Lis to show you what Christmas day on board was like. We had steak for Christmas dinner, with braised red cabbage, mince pies, crackers and a bottle of red wine. We saved our Christmas pudding for New Year's Eve.

In the video below Paul is the one singing and playing guitar, I am washing my hair in salt water at the stern, James is plotting our position at the chart table and Lis is the one with the big grin at the end. Enjoy!