March 1st, and Capt Kerry returns to Antigua.
The longer break back in Canada allowed time for some winter sports activities. First of all, Kerry doing a week of skiing with old buddy Allastair Tweedie, and a shot at some heli-skiing as part of that week. Then, on to bobsleigh.
Helen had been having a stellar season - with 2 World Cup Gold Medals in the 3 pre-Christmas races, she had been sitting ranked #1 in the world. Unfortunately, in the first race of 2009 she disconnects 2 ribs on a bad load into her sled, and she now is left to try to compete against the World's best with that injury.
We head over to Vancouver to watch her compete in the World Cup at the new Olympic track in
Whistler, and she battles bravely to a 4th place finish. Then we move on to Lake Placid to watch the end-of-season World Championships, and again another tough performance and another 4th place finish.
That's enough heartache and enough winter!
MM has been safe and sound on the dock in front of Jim and Sherrill's home on Jolly Harbour waterfront. There is just enough time to get "Manx Mist" out for one sail, and then Kerry parked her again and headed off in "Augustine" for passage over to St Maarten and racing in the
Heineken Regatta.
The week of sailing in the regatta, and the after-sailing entertainment, was a blast! A big part of the "blast" was the wind conditions - it was blowing very hard in this years regatta.
The racing opened with a "Round the Island" race. We started off with too much sail. Changed jibs while pounding to windward in the Anguilla passage. Then Tony did an amazing job steering downwind on an ugly sea, with the spinnaker pulling like crazy. The wind was at least a force6, possibly a force 7 (near gale, about 30kts), and we were hit hard by a squall, which was probably force8 and took our big spinnaker away. We had already lost the smaller spinnaker during an earlier broach - which also dumped 3 of the crew partially in the water!
In this Race1, we finished 4th over the line in our class, and 3rd on corrected handicap.
Next day was 2 shorter races. We led start to finish in Race 2 and placed 1st on corrected time as well.
In Race 3 we were also 1st over the finish line, and arguably 1st on corrected handicap, but the Race Committee had messed up start times, and no-one could agree on the correct finish order, so the Race was thrown out.
Race 4 was a partial round-the-island, and Augustine battled to 2nd across the finish and 2nd on corrected - good enough to give us the overall Class title. Whoopee! And we did a little celebrating - well actually, a lot of celebrating.
After a day of shopping in the duty free haven of St Maarten, the happy but tired race crew took Augustine on the overnight passage back home to Antigua.
Hil now flew in from Canada. We had some choices for cruising the next few weeks. Head north, and hook up with Augustine and more regattas in St Thomas and the BVI, or head south to Martinique or St Lucia.
The southern option won out. Weather forecast looked great, and the reality was even better!
We left Antigua on Mar 21st. A beautiful reach across to Deshaies, Guadeloupe - full sail, sunny skies and a calm sea - Manx Mist was averaging close to 8 kts.
As we enter Deshaies we get a look at the damage done by the relatively light Hurricane Omar, when it passed thru the islands in October. The problem was the swell created, and in Deshaies the short central pier and dinghy dock no longer exists. Dinghies now tieup in the little creek.
We overnighted in Deshaies, and left early the next morning. Sailed south along the Guadeloupe coast, straight past Iles de Saintes, and anchored in Portsmouth, Dominica. Pretty much a repeat of the previous days perfect conditions.
Omar's reminder in Portsmouth is more waterfront damage and more boats piled up - including a large'ish vessel stuck across the Indian River entrance. Our arrival timing was great. We are in Portsmouth for the Sunday evening beach barbeque and jump-up. And its a chance to catch up with our local friends Eddison and Buddha.
We can't just leave Dominica though, so we stay a couple of days and enjoy some hiking and chilling.
On again. Weather is still great. We motor down the coast, through the fickle winds in Dominica's lee, and haul-up sail as we clear Roseau. It's another beautiful reach across to Martinique, but a long day, and we're happy to drop anchor in calm waters off St pierre.
This is our first visit to Martinique, and we're looking forward to a new island and new sights.
But first we have to do the official stuff and clear in. This is a delightfully easy process in the French islands, and particularly so in St pierre, where you make a stop at a local bar/restaurant, fill in an online form on one of their computers, and clear in and out at the same time.
St Pierre is a nice, very pretty spot - situated at the foot of a volcano Mt Pelee, which had essentially wiped the town out when it erupted in 1902, killing 30,000 people.
On our 2nd day there, we hiked inland and up towards the volcano to visit the Depaz rum distillery. An excellent plantation and distillery to tour.
From St Pierre we sailed south along the coast, stopping in Case Pilote briefly - it was too noisy due to construction, and moving on to anchor off Schoelcher.
This was really just an overnight anchorage, although we did try to explore on land a little, but the area has little to offer.
We moved on again and dropped anchor off the capital Fort-de-France, under the imposing walls of Fort St Louis. This is an excellent anchorage, good holding, scenic, well protected, and very close to the town centre.
The only drawback is the ferries shuttling back and forth and the wake they sometimes throw up.
We spent a couple of days wandering around the town, and its markets, enjoying coffee shops and bars, and also a bus ride out to the big supermarkets.
Our excellent weather continued to hold, however the wind started to increase in strength and generally was blowing over 20kts.
After our time in the very cosmopolitan Fort-de-France, we decided we would press on and try to find some quieter and quainter spots.
We first headed across the wide Baie de fort de france to Trois Ilets, but had trouble finding a spot to anchor, so we shifted around to Anse Mitan and anchored amongst the moorings and other boats there. This was another spot where the small marina/fuel dock had been ripped away by Hurricane Omar - the main city/ferry dock still intact though.
We did a little wandering around this area, including a walk back across to the marina in Pointe de Bout.
This is quite the vacation area, although everything was generally quiet during our visit. The whole island was still recovering from the labour disputes and the economic unrest that had been rife for 2 months.
After an overnight at Anse Mitan and a leisurely start to the day with the usual baguette et croissant, we moved on and south again - next stop Grand Anse d'arlet. This is another fine anchorage and a pretty spot, though the wind can funnel down from the surrounding hills - and it was doing just that. We tucked into the south side of the harbour, in good sand and about 10' of water, and missed the worst of the wind.
We swam here, wandered the beach and town, and Kerry also took a run from the town across to Petit Anse d'arlet - a smaller, and quuite scenic, fishing village.
By this time, we had decided that Martinique would be the end point of our cruise south - we would save St Lucia for another trip. We still had a few days before we had to turn back north, and a couple more stops to make.
We headed south a little ways, cleared Diamond Rock and turned east across to Sainte Anne, anchoring off the lovely beach there. This is a popular anchorage, but there's tons of room. You have to anchor some way off the beach as there are a host of buoys marking swimming areas, motor boat areas, ferry channel. The water is clear, great for swimming, and we had a few turtles for company.
Ashore there are hotels, restaurants in the town and the fine beach with a public park area around it. To the south of St Anne there is a large natural park area with some wonderful beaches, including Grande Anse de Saline, and all walkable via a coastal path - Hil and I did a couple of nice hikes along this trail.
St anne also marks the entrance to the very sheltered anchorages and marinas at Le Marin. The channel is well marked, as it winds through a series of shallows and reefs. With our return north getting closer, we headed in to the docks to top up water and fuel tanks, but returned to anchor again at St Anne.
One last night at anchor and then we enjoyed a fine sail back to stop one last time at fort de France.
The wind had eased back to just below 20 kts, and with perfect conditions we enjoyed a broad reach all the way back to Portsmouth Dominica.
We decided to stay to enjoy another Sunday night beach bbq, so spent a couple of days anchored off Big Papas. Hired a car one afternoon, and drove to the north end of the island to take a hike along the coast and inland thru the rain forest. The next morning, we headed out for another drive. First along the coast, where we were fortunate enough to catch a pod of whales fishing and breaching close inshore - we parked and watched this great spectacle for quite a while. Back on the road, and we turned inland, stopping occasionally to pick up and drop off the local folks hitching along the road. Our end destination was the Emerald Pool and waterfall - but we get there to find that the gate is closed. Kerry hops over and walks in to find one sole local salesman, who just tells us to drive in and enjoy the place anyway. Which we do. Another great treat! As we leave the staff are arriving to open it up for tourist buses.
Back to Portsmouth, drop off the car, head back to the boat, stopping on the way to buy some fresh kingfish landed by the local fishermen. That was good on the barbeque that night.
One last day and night to go - we get to do some dancing on the beach and enjoy a few rum punches at the Sunday beach bashand say a sad goodbye to Eddison and the local guys.
Next morning, we head out early. Another lovely 2 days of perfect sailing, with an overnight stop in Deshaies, and we are back "home" in Jolly world.
This was easily the best continuous 2 weeks of sailing we have had in the islands - blessed by perfect breezes and calm seas.
Hil flies in, via Westjet to join me. One of the "must do" things in St maarten is to go for a drink at the Sunset Bar on Maho beach and watch the planes land at Julianna Airport. They barely clear the beach as they come in, and it offers crazy youngsters the opportunity to stand and get blasted into the sea by the jetwash.
The first trip is a little jaunt across to St Barths, to hook up with Keith Bate and "Blue Eyes" and catch the free Jimmy Buffet concert set for dockside Gustavia as part of the birthday celebrations for Le Select restaurant (makers of that "cheeseburger in paradise"). 
