Category: Polly and Tom

Happy memories of watching Pirates of the Caribbean at family gatherings. We saw Calypso’s hut from the second film. Unfortunately it was flattened by a palm tree in Hurricane Maria in September 2017.

I also thought you’d like this picture of plantains growing. Bananas look pretty similar – they both grow upside down.

The fruit here is so delicious and sweet and in Dominica a guy paddles out on a windsurfer board to the boat and sells you bananas and passion fruit and mangoes. I could definitely get used to this!

Love to all from Aunt Polly

Apologies for long silence. We haven’t been sitting in a rum induced stupor unable to put finger to keyboard I promise! Actually we just seem to have been very busy since our arrival in Martinique. We spent a week safely tied up to a pontoon in Marina du Marin where there is water and electricity on tap and showers, restaurants, supermarkets all handily nearby. 

It is incredibly surreal, having not seen another living soul for three weeks, to arrive in a bustling port where customs must be cleared, laundry laundered and drinks orders placed. By the second day, all those little interactions become the norm once more and the solitary state fades. We’ve been very productive though, fixing a couple of gear failures (hopefully); restocking the boat’s stores for the next 6-7 weeks, trying to make our website function in the bandwidth of the islands (so we don’t have to depend on the wonderful tech mothership in Brighton to keep in touch); giving the boat,her crew and their clothes, a good clean; keeping up with lessons. We’ve also fitted in some lovely outings. Girls and I visited our first palm fringed Caribbean beach, complete with powder soft sand and picture postcard turquoise waters. All impressed! We made a road trip north to St Pierre, the old capital, that was wiped out in the same manner as Pompeii back in 1902. I will let the girls fill you in more on that and also on Martinique Zoo – a great success and incredible setting in a former rum plantation. 

After a week though, we had distinctly itchy feet and so we are on our way now to Dominica. Chugging out of Marin harbour, it was liberating to feel the sea breeze once more, producing a physical dropping of the shoulders. Conditions are very (and unusually) benign with barely enough wind to sail, but to our delight, excitement came from another quarter when Tom and Daisy spotted a whale off Fort de France yesterday afternoon. We anchored overnight under the shadow of beautiful Mont Pelee, see pic below, and up at first light heading for Portsmouth, Dominica some 50 miles to the north. 

Tuesday 19 March at around 6.15am, we took this photo. Land first sighted at around 2am – the lights of a hillside town in fact rather than any iconic lighthouse.

We’ve been having a few technical issues with the blog, hence silence but hoping to restore service soon.

ps. I’m editing this after our return to add some photos of our passage to Martinique. For technical reasons I can’t add to the relevant text.

27 February. Leaving the Canaries

Dolphin watching. Washing up. Reading. Sudoku. School. Colouring. More washing up. More reading! And sailing into the sunset.

Position: 14.25’N 59.18’W
Wind: 15-20 knots, NE
Course: 270T
Day run: 139M

We are all rather relieved that we have only one day left at sea and can’t wait to arrive and explore!
The wind has been better today so we are expecting to arrive tomorrow morning (Tuesday) and we are all looking forward to going to the bakery!
Can’t wait to get in touch tomorrow, but nothing much to report today!

It can be cruel at times. We motored for seven hours yesterday with pretty much no wind until sunset when a zephyr appeared from the East. Last night we crept along under sail as the wind strengthened from less than eight knots (really very little when it’s dead behind you) to 10-12 knots as the sun came up this morning.

However, just as we were looking forward to getting going, a foul swell came winging in from the North (there’s a big storm off the Carolinas) crossing the standing trade wind wave train at right angles and leaving the sea in a most confused and difficult state.

Poor Cherubino and her crew were left for three hours being flung about in the most distressing manner. Pols and I shared our thoughts, which I regret to say were not fit to air in a family blogpost. The thing, of course, is that when you haven’t had more than three hours consecutive sleep for three weeks one’s sense of perspective can suffer.

Happily, the North swell has now moderated and the wind is up to 15-20 knots so we’re making good progress again. Fingers crossed still for arrival on Tuesday.

Tom

Position: 14.48N 054.16W

Wind: 5-6kts E

Course: 265T

Day’s Run: 125M

After a week of very light trades, the wind finally conked out this morning and we’re motoring West on a gently undulating sea under a blazing sun. The decks are hot enough to fry an egg on, so I’m dousing them with sea water every hour or two to keep the temperature down.

The way the boat’s winches, sheets and backstays are arranged means we can’t use a Bimini (a kind of sunshade for the cockpit) so I’ve rigged up a sonnensail to give some protection to the passengers.

Under the shade of this sun blocker Dora is sitting reading yet another thick volume of her cat (or is it rabbit?) saga with both feet plunged in a pail of freshly scooped up Atlantic.

We’ve less than 400M to go now and with the promise of wind setting back in from this evening we hope to reach Martinique sometime on Tuesday. Then it’ll be time for a cooling lager beer followed by a long sleep.

Position: 14.30N 050.10W
Wind: 12-15kts, ENE
Course: 285T
Day’s Run: 126M

The wind remains light and so we’re still making pretty slow progress, 126M in the 24h to noon. Later on this afternoon we’ll reach 052.30W and enter our fourth (and final) time zone of the trip, when we move ship time to GMT-4. In the meantime our supplies of fresh food have now been pretty much exhausted – Polly was found to have reserved the last half of the last apple for her own extraordinary breakfast – rye bread with peanut butter and apple!?! Such delicacies are long gone from the steerage menu, where my offer to the girls of baked beans and sausage for lunch led to a mini mutiny. Fortunately the Ginger Nut situation remains healthy so there’s no real crisis on the horizon yet.

For those curious about the technology we use to keep in touch, have a look in the FAQs section….

Tom

Position: 14.32N 047.20W
Wind: 15knts, ENE
Course: 270T
Day’s Run: 133M

We’ve been out here for two weeks now. Last night was petty trying with the wind very light and the ever present swell rolling the boat about and making the sails slap in a most disagreeable manner.

Daisy took her first solo night watch and was rewarded with a giant supertanker passing three miles astern during her stand. When I came up to relieve her the two of us gybed to take account of the wind suddenly backing 30 degrees to ENE. The breeze then firmed up to 15-18knots and we’ve had a really decent run since then. Fingers crossed that uncharacteristic vagueness in the trades is now over.

To celebrate the two week milestone a ration of F&M fruit cake was issued with afternoon tea in place of the usual ginger nut – thank you Sarah!

Polly

Position: 14.40N 045.02W
Wind: 10knts ESE
Course: 265T
Day’s Run: 132M

Wind remains very light and pretty much dead behind us. As running isn’t a strong point for ketches (the mizzen has to come off as it blankets the main) progress is frustratingly slow. That said, we’re heading in the right direction, we’ve got plenty of food and water and fifteen more books full of Sudokus to solve.

When we’re not snoring, guzzling or frowning at number grids we are probably reading. Dora is working though a multi volume epic about the life and times of various cat clans living in an enchanted forest (good grief), Daisy is deep into Ruby Redfort, the schoolgirl spy, while Pols tackles ‘Transcription’ a novel about a grown up spy.  

I’m about half way through Robert Macfarlane’s walking book ‘The Old Ways’ – but if we don’t get some puff from somewhere I could be on the enchanted rabbits before we get in…

Tom