DON`T RUSH THE BRUSH MAN!!
I HAD PLANNED on spending the last two weeks of March giving Elsie & John Oliver a Yachtmaster Preparation course in Antigua on ‘Ichi Feet’ their new Oyster 56. I first met Elsie and John in July 1999 when they came to do a ‘Competent Crew’ sailing course with me; in 2001 they did ‘Day Skipper’ with a sailing school in the Solent and three years ago they did ‘Coastal Skipper’ with me in the Algarve. Early in January of this year I received an email from them to say that their full time skipper was not returning from his Christmas holiday & could I find them a new skipper, this I proceeded to do, but in my reply said that if they could wait a month I could do it myself for the five weeks leading up to their course.
A month later, on February 6th, following a twelve hour flight Sao & I landed at St Lucia. The airport is in the south of the island and ‘Ichi Feet’ was in the north at Rodney Bay. Whilst there is an excellent bus service, as it was now almost 6 pm, we decide to go by taxi, the fare for this 90 minute journey was just 45 euros. Although the last hour of this journey was in the dark it was a fascinating drive. The vegetation on either side of the road was very similar to West Africa with coconut and banana trees, the road itself winding and full of potholes. Most of the houses were simple wooden colonial style with a corrugated iron roof, most were bungalows but some had a second floor, those with a second floor had a veranda on that floor too.
We spent the first four days on board ‘Ichi Feet’ at Rodney Bay Marina, the weather we were told was not usual for the time of year, it rained everyday! There is a photograph above of 'Ichi Feet' sailing off St Lucia above.
St Lucia was discovered by Columbus in 1502, the original inhabitants, the Arawaks, had been killed by the warlike Caribs who had invaded from South America 300 years before. The Caribs successfully prevented anyone from colonising the island until 1660 when they finally made a treaty with the French. Since then the island has changed hands fourteen times but has been British since 1814, gaining its independence in 1979. The locals all of African origin (the Caribs seem to have either died out or been absorbed into the African population) are extremely friendly and have the sort of manners that one would have expected in Britain in the 1950`s. The bus service, which goes all over the island, involves an enormous fleet of 12 seater mini buses, people can get on and off whenever they like and pay the driver when they get off, when getting into the bus each newcomer wishes all those on board a very cheerful ‘good morning’ or ‘good afternoon’. We visited the capital ‘Castries’ by bus one day, and despite the town having been damaged by fire on several occasions there is still much of the original French colonial architecture.
On the fifth day we left St Lucia, John had previously established that if you planned to leave at about 9 am you could ‘check out’ with the customs the afternoon before, so he went up there in the late afternoon to do exactly that and was told ‘don’t rush the brush man, come back in the morning!’ So at 10 am we left Rodney Bay and sailed 25 miles north to Marin on the southern end of Martinique, Marin is at the end of a long inlet called Cul de Sac du Marin, as we followed our pilotage plan up the well marked channel to Marin the beautiful hilly country on either side of us consisted of small areas of grass and the majority of the land covered with mangroves and palm trees.
We were told by the marina that they were full and so anchored with many other yachts about a mile from the marina and small town. We then went up to Marin in the RIB, taking a short cut which involved our not using the marked channel and successfully found one of the shallower parts of the bay that are well shown on the chart and pilot book! As soon as we had established that we hadn’t damaged our propeller, we continued more carefully and soon arrived at Marin and John took our passports & the boats papers to the customs office while Sao, Elsie and I had a coffee at ‘Delifrance’. There was a very different atmosphere here as a result of the place being packed with very well off French ‘Yachties’. Sao and I paid a visit to the cyber café, some shops, a beach restaurant for coffee and then we all returned to ‘Ichi Feet’ for dinner on board.
Martinique was discovered by Columbus in 1502, who gave it the name ‘Madinina, the island of flowers’. A capital was built at St Pierre, which remained the capital until 1902 when Mont Pelée erupted and the entire population of 6000 were killed, with the exception of one man who owed his life to the thickness of the walls of his prison cell!
The next morning we sailed west along the coast to the south west corner of Martinique, passing within a few hundred metres of ´Diamond Rock`. Had we been French in 1804 this would proved disastrous for us owing to the English having installed twenty men and four cannons on the rock! For seventeen months they resisted all attempts by the French to defeat them, while they made life very uncomfortable for French ships rounding Pte du Diamant on their way in and out of Fort de France. The French finally got the better of the English when they arranged for several small boats filled with rum to be wrecked on the island, it was not long before the French were able to land without any resistance from the English who were hopelessly drunk!
WELCOME TO PARADISE! MY NAME IS CHRISTIAN!
We had spent the night anchored in Cul-de-Sac du Marin and the following morning passed Diamond Rock and sailed on up the west coast of Martinique. We anchored for the night at Les Anses d`Arlets, a very attractive village, consisting almost entirely of French colonial style wooden houses. One of the few stone buildings being the church from where, as we approached, we heard the sound of beautiful singing. Closer investigation showed us that we had arrived during choir practise. There were three restaurants in the village, two appeared to specialise in Pizza, so we chose the third and had an excellent dinner sitting outside. As with most restaurants in St Lucia, all the tables were in use as we arrived, filled with locals, but as soon as our intentions to eat became clear they were hurriedly moved elsewhere to make room for us. The service and food were excellent, we had a most enjoyable evening and it gave us an opportunity to practise our French.
The following day we had a very leisurely sail just 15 miles to a very well protected anchorage in the enormous inlet of Baie de Fort de France and the next morning made an early start and sailed along the west coast of Martinique then just 25 miles across ‘Martinique Channel’ to the British island of Dominica.
Dominica was first seen by Columbus in 1493. Many attempts by both the British and the French were made to colonise the island and neither were able to gain a secure foothold until the latter half of the 18th century. Until then the Caribs courageously defended their autonomy, the islands thick jungle and mountainous interior gave them excellent cover to attack the colonists in their coastal settlements and then just vanish back into the jungle. There are still a few hundred pure blooded Caribs living on the island, making a living out of their small farms in the interior and selling baskets to tourists. Dominica became English in 1783 and became independent in 1978, a year later the island was devastated by Hurricane David.
As we approached ´Roseau` the capital of the island a local came out in a small boat with an outboard and reassured us that his moorings were suitable for a boat of ‘Ichi Feet’s’ size, so we agreed to rent a mooring from him for the night for a fee of 40 EC dollars (about 14 euros). John and Elsie went up to the town centre to check in and Sao and I went to a hotel on the beach where we had a drink and were able to check our email on the hotels computer and then returned on board for dinner.
The next morning we sailed and sometimes motored with a light easterly wind up the west coast of the island. About an hour after leaving we spotted something moving in the water about half a mile away on our port bow, altering course to get a closer look it turned out to be a whale about 40 to 50 feet long slowly making its way south. We stopped for a while to watch this enormous creature slowly glide past us about 100 yards off, seemingly unaware of or possibly not concerned by our presence.
By early afternoon we had reached Portsmouth on the north west corner of the island and just 18 miles north of Rousseau. The pilot book had warned that ‘boat boys’ would come out to us and as we approached the anchorage two small boats set out from the beach, the first to arrive was a young man with dread-locks on a very battered surf board who greeted us with ‘Welcome to Paradise! My name is Christian’, he then went on to explain that he could supply us with any fruit and vegetables that we would like. Elsie explained to him that as soon as we had finished anchoring we would discuss our requirements with him. By the time we had anchored the second boat which had come from the far end of the bay had arrived, this one was a brand new inflatable with an outboard engine, the beaming young man explained that he was also in a position to supply us with fruit and veg. Christian explained to us that this second purveyor of fruit and veg was called Henderson and whilst he thought he was very cool in his new inflatable, it wasn’t in fact his, it was just ´borrowed`! Elsie sensibly decided to split our requirements between the two of them giving Henderson our veg order and Christian our requirements for fruit.
Sao and I went ashore to see the town, John and Elsie remained on board as the pilot book had warned of the dangers involved in leaving a yacht unattended. We walked the length of the ‘main street’ which, whilst attractive with its colonial style houses, was extremely run down. Towards the end of our walk we found a restaurant which boasted the name ´Big Papas`, we had a perfectly acceptable dinner there but the general state of cleanliness of the facilities dissuaded us from any ideas of a second visit.
The next morning we sailed on just 18 miles across the Dominic Channel to Les Saintes, a group of five islands. The biggest naval battle ever in the Caribbean between the French and the English was fought here in April 1782. The English won but the Islands have remained French ever since being colonised by people from Brittany in 1643. The population of just 3000 mostly claim their descent from these original colonists.
We anchored off Bourg des Saints on the island of Terre-de-Haut and went ashore to a restaurant overlooking the anchorage where we had an excellent dinner. The following morning we went ashore to explore the small town. The houses are mostly wooden with corrugated iron roofs as we have seen everywhere else so far, but here in very good condition. There are several good restaurants, for our lunch we selected a creperié where we had a very good lunch. Also there are a number of shops most of which seemed to be selling ladies clothing, which Elsie and Sao were unable to resist.
Following a day and night at Bourg des Saintes our cruise continued on to Guadaloupe and Antigua which I will describe in the next issue of On Board.
A WINDWARD EDGE & A FISHING NET!!
In last months On Board Martin told us about his visits to St Lucia, Martinique, Dominica and Les Saintes. In this issue he continues with the story of his cruise from Les Saintes to Guadaloupe and Antigua.
After a day ashore at Bourg des Saintes we returned on board, Elsie cooked us a delicious dinner of steak, and we spent a comfortable night at anchor. In the morning we weighed anchor at about ten and sailed across the 6 mile channel between Les Saintes & Guadaloupe. Following the west coast of Guadaloupe north we sailed on a close reach about two miles off the coast 35 miles up to a well protected anchorage off the village of Deshaies.
Our passage up the Guadaloupe coast gave us an excellent view of the island; the countryside was much less rugged than the other islands that we had seen so far and with far less rain forest. Some of the land was being farmed, many of the houses were quiet large and in excellent condition with a variety of colourful roofs in red, blue or green. The French islands that we had seen so far were clearly much better off than St Lucia or Dominica which were formerly British. This is because the French islands have not become independent and in fact are actually part of France, who subsidises her islands to keep up their standard of living. In addition, being part of France the islands qualify for EC grants. For example we saw at Bourg des Saintes a new concrete pier being built which will be large enough to accommodate cruise liners; this is being paid for entirely with EC money.
Having anchored with about ten other yachts in the bay of Deshaies, John and Elsie went ashore in the RIB to ‘check out’ with customs so that we could make an early start in the morning. When they eventually returned, the long delay being because the customs officer was also running another customs office ten miles down the coast, we had an excellent dinner of chicken curry cooked by Sao.
We left for Antigua just 45 miles to the north the next morning at 7.30 am; the forecast was for the wind to increase to NE F5 by the end of the day, so we were anxious to get there as quickly as possible. John calculated our course and allowing for .6 of a knot of west going current, plus as we were going to be close hauled, about 10 degrees of leeway he realised that we were not going to make it without putting in a tack about 12 miles west of English Harbour which was our destination. He therefore decided to motor on a course 25 degrees higher for about three hours in order to get a ‘windward edge’. Two and a half hours later we felt a strong vibration from under our stern and the engines revs were reduced to idling speed. We realised that we must have got something round our propeller and so turned off our engine. The wind was now about 20 knots and the waves about a metre in height, so it was too rough to dive on the propeller and so we continued close-hauled for English Harbour. We made our landfall about three miles west of our destination, put in a tack and at 6.30 pm just as the sun was setting behind us we sailed into English Harbour. The anchorage was very crowded and so we anchored for the night just inside the entrance. It was my turn to cook dinner and we had hamburgers, onions and salad, which John, Elsie and Sao were nice enough to say that they enjoyed.
We had a good night at anchor and in the morning after breakfast John assembled his diving equipment and went under the stern to see what had caused our problem. As we had guessed it was a fishing net and when John had finished cutting it off half an hour later it was enough to ¾ fill a large dustbin bag.
Our surroundings in English Harbour were probably even more beautiful than anywhere we have been so far, with the possible exception of Les Saintes. The country surrounding the anchorage consisting of rain forest with just a few houses all of colonial style architecture. On the port side of the entrance we could see Fort Berkeley, whose cannons 200 years ago would have done serious damage to any French vessel foolish enough to try to enter the harbour.
John booked a berth by VHF at Nelsons Dockyard and we motored round to the dockyard where John berthed ‘Ichi Feet’ stern-to the quay having dropped our anchor about 70 yards off. We walked ashore to a restaurant for lunch, and felt almost as though we had gone through a time warp to the time of Lord Nelson, as little has changed in the last 200 years. The officers’ quarters are now a very nice hotel and restaurant, the Admirals house now a very interesting museum, the timber and copper store now a bar / restaurant and the saw pit now a modern sail loft. However their outward appearances are completely unchanged.
Antigua like so many of the other islands was discovered by Colombus in 1493, the Spanish did not make a settlement here because of the lack of water. The English settled here in 1632 and it has remained British ever since, with the exception of one year 1666 to 1667 when the French took control. Thanks to its several natural harbours it was an obvious choice for the English to base its West Indies Squadron, which in the mid 18th century was commanded by a son of an ancestor of mine, George Anson.
We plan to be here for about another 10 days. John and Elsie are doing the Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster theory with me here for a week, then we will do some sailing exercises in this area and then we plan to visit Nevis and St Kitts, which I plan to write about for the next issue of On Board.
NEVIS AND ST KITTS!!
AT THE END of my last article I promised to continue my story of cruising in the Caribbean with John and Elsie Oliver on their nine month old Oyster 56 called ‘Ichi Feet’. Soon after our arrival in Antigua we spent a few days exploring the island by bus and hired car, visiting the capital St Johns, Jolly Harbour and ‘Betty’s Hope’ a sugar cane windmill and very interesting museum. There are said to be 365 sandy beaches around the coast of Antigua, we spent a relaxing day at one of them called ‘Half Moon Bay’, where we enjoyed wonderful crystal clear water at not much less than blood temperature!
‘Ichi Feet’ then became a classroom for a week while John and Elsie completed the ‘Coastal Skipper / Yachtmaster theory course, on which they did very well. We were then ready to set off for a two week cruise to the Islands of Nevis and St Kitts, but first we experienced a problem with our washing machine and then a more serious problem with the boats batteries and battery charging system. As the boat and all her equipment were still within the manufacturers one year guarantee and as there were representatives for both Oyster and the manufacturers of the battery charger in Antigua we felt it sensible to base ourselves at Nelson’s Dockyard and not do our two week cruise to Nevis and St Kitts. This meant that we could start John and Elsie’s practical yachtmaster training early rather than leaving it until the last week immediately prior to their taking the exam. This transpired to be a good decision because 7 days before the exam whilst doing exercises out at sea, there was a very loud ‘bang’ and ball bearings rained down on us from the top of the mast. We could see immediately that the mainsail had lost all its luff tension and it was clear that the swivel at the top of the in-mast roller reefing had disintegrated. A VHF call (everybody in Antigua uses marine VHF ashore, from the laundry lady to most of the restaurants!) to Hamish of ‘Antigua Rigging’ who is also the Oyster representative ensured that he was on board inspecting the damaged swivel within half an hour of our return to Nelson’s Dockyard. Three days later a new swivel arrived from England via Fed-ex, which was fitted by Hamish and his assistant and we were able to begin our training again that afternoon.
With just three days to go before their exam, we spent one day practising ‘man overboard’ with a coiled rope and a fender which using ‘the crash stop system’ worked very well on all points of sail. We also needed to practise picking up moorings under sail and as there are no moorings at English harbour we sailed round to Falmouth Harbour just twenty minutes sail away for this exercise. To avoid the problems associated with one of us on the fore-deck with a boat hook being flailed with flapping head-sails and sheets, we practised picking up moorings with just the mainsail. Whilst ‘Ichi Feet’ did make quite a lot of leeway under just the main, providing we started our approach to a mooring from about 200 metres away on a beam reach, thereby giving ourselves a ‘windward edge’, we found that we reached the mooring buoy whilst still on a ‘close reach’.
The second day we sailed round to ‘Jolly Harbour’ on the west coast, about three hours sail to practise both the navigation round to that side of the island, avoiding with clearing bearings a long coral reef off the south coast, and also the pilotage into ‘Jolly Harbour’ which involved avoiding some shallow areas of coral with the use of several more clearing bearings. I didn’t know where the examiner was going to ask us to sail to and it was important to practise going to all the places that he might decide to go to.
The only other place that he might choose to go to was ‘Nonsuch Bay’, a beautiful anchorage on the east side of the Island which we had been to twice during the week prior to our breaking the mainsail roller reefing swivel. With one day to go before the exam we spent the day practising more ‘man overboard’, picking up of moorings under sail and anchoring / weighing anchor under sail.
The RYA examiner, Peter Hart, arrived at Nelson’s Dockyard, having flown from Gatwick, early on Saturday evening. The plan was to begin the exam the next morning and Elsie made a start by giving Peter a very good safety briefing followed by an excellent lunch. We motored away from the Dockyard after lunch, John had been asked by Peter to act as skipper and to take us round to ‘Jolly Harbour’ where we anchored for the night. My role as an Instructor was now over and my new role for the next 24 hours was as crew. As soon as we were clear of the harbour entrance we put up our sails and broad-reached along the south coast with a steady easterly force 4 to 5. John did a brilliant job of avoiding ‘Cade Reef’ with the use of clearing bearings and we turned on to a NNE course and sailed on a beam reach up the west coast. Peter had asked me earlier to tie a coiled rope to a fender and he now asked me to throw it over the side, which I did, with a shout of ‘man overboard’! John turned ‘Ichi Feet’ in little more than her own length and ‘hove to’ we drifted down to the fender and rope which I managed to very easily pluck out of the water with the boat hook.
Peter had decided that we would anchor for the night at ‘Five Island Harbour’, just north of ‘Jolly Harbour’ and so at 5 pm we anchored in a beautiful bay surrounded by islands and wonderful sandy beaches. The candidates were then given an imaginary ‘passage plan’ to do in the English Channel using charts that Peter had brought with him, to demonstrate their ability to navigate in an area of strong tidal currents and big tidal ranges. This was followed by an excellent dinner cooked by Elsie.
The following morning it was Elsie’s turn to act as skipper, it was another beautiful sunny day and after breakfast we weighed anchor under engine and Elsie piloted us out through the coral making very good use of several clearing bearings. Turning south we had an exciting sail down the west coast on a beam reach and after an hour turned on to a south westerly course and began to tack along the south coast towards Falmouth. The fender and rope were thrown overboard, with a shout of ‘man overboard!’ soon after turning onto this new course, Elsie shouted ‘crash stop!’ as she spun ‘Ichi Feet’ round through the wind and not much more than about 60 seconds later John had retrieved the fender and rope with the boathook.
We picked up a mooring at Falmouth for lunch, after which we sailed round to Nelson’s Harbour where Elsie backed ‘Ichi Feet’ stern-to in her berth at the Dockyard. John and Elsie were then questioned separately on ‘collision regulations’, at the end of which they both came to my cabin to tell me that they had passed. Returning to the saloon we celebrated with a bottle of champagne that I had put in the fridge earlier!
Their success did not come as a surprise to me; they had both worked hard in the weeks leading up to their exams and had performed very well on the day. I was nevertheless extremely pleased.
Elsie and John will now sail on over the next two months north through the Caribbean, to the Bahamas and to Newport – Rhode Island where Oyster have a boatyard where ‘Ichi Feet’ will receive attention to a list of defects that will be put right under her one year guarantee.
For me, I have thoroughly enjoyed the last seven weeks, I’m coming home to Portugal today. I wish John and Elsie fair winds and enjoyable sailing for many years to come.
To read more about Elsie and John's cruising with Ichi Feet go to my 'Yachtmaster Training - Sail' page and scroll down, you will also find more about them and their cruising on my 'Sail Cruising with ex students' page AND they also have their own excellent web site which you can see by clicking here.
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