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Per the request of a couple of friends, here is another tour of S/V Rascal. March 18. Next day after arriving in Roseau, Dominica from Martinique, we set off to explore the island. I'd say it turned out to be the most beautiful island we've visited so far.                      Brigette, Gerald, our guide Gordon, and Linda After a month In a slip at Le Marin Marina in Martinique, we left yesterday for our next sailing adventure. We anchored out near Ste Anne in 20 feet and 20-30 knot winds. We set the anchor (or thought we did!), let out a lot of scope (7:1), and set the anchor alarm. We had dinner and went to bed. I was awakened at 2am when the anchor alarm went off. Our anchor was dragging along the bottom. But we were in a huge anchorage with no deep water and no boats in our path so I didn't wake Linda. At daybreak, we pulled up the anchor and what a surprise to find the anchor tangled up in an old lobster cage. We had either anchored on top of it--or grabbed it as we dragged across the bottom.  Below is what you want to see when you check the anchor alarm after say, a few hours. It shows the place where the anchor is located and it shows a track of where the boat is and has been. In this case, the boat is drifting along a line restricted by the anchor from moving any further back (to the left) and away from where we originally dropped the anchor. This screenshot was taken several hours after we re-anchored this morning. The anchor is holding.  Below is what you DON'T want to see. This screenshot shows that the anchor is dragging. The boat has moved from right to left in this case over about 200 meters over several hours. The alarm went off about 2am when the boat got outside the circle. We later learned the anchor couldn't hold because we had picked up the old lobster cage--and the wind was howling at 20-30 all night pushing our 17 ton boat out to sea. The anchor alarm is an app we downloaded from the Apple App Store. This is called Anchor. Another popular app is called Drag Queen. 😎  Tomorrow we head north. We'll stay overnight in St Pierre, Martinique, and then cross the channel to Dominica. We'll stay there a few days. It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful islands with mountains, waterfalls, and lush tropical forests. Stay tuned.
"Good fences make good neighbors..." Robert Frost, 1914 "Good fenders make good neighbors... Rick Grimes, 2017   "Fenders" are used to protect your boat from banging into another boat, dock or piling. We are sitting in a marina right now (Le Marin, Martinique) with our puny (but adequate) fenders out on both sides of Rascal. Our neighbors on both sides also have their fenders out. The neighbor on our port (left) side came in yesterday from an 8-day ocean voyage from Cape Verde) with these giant fenders reminding me of the Robert Frost proverb. He's a good neighbor. I have no worries about any damage to our boat if he is blown into Rascal whether sitting, coming or going! Mostly you'll see fenders this big on the mega-yachts and ocean-liners.
In the French tradition, Carnival is Saturday through Wednesday with Fat Tuesday in between. And modified here on Martinique with a Caribbean flavor. Every town and village has a parade--a little Easter, Halloween, and Fourth of July. Imagine ear-splitting Island music in every photo taken below. Martinique is pretty much closed down over these four days--except for restaurants. Lots of fun!    |
AuthorRick and Linda Grimes bought a sailboat and left the U S of A for the Caribbean in 2015. Archives
April 2018
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