Sailing to Martinique Wed April 8,09

Friday, April 10th, 2009

This morning after breakfast and domestics we began the process of heaving up our anchor and the three
shots of chain hanging almost straight down from the hawse pipe. Pulling this up with the windlass was a lot harder than normal because we had to lift the whole kit ‘n kaboodle. Normally the chain is laying on
the bottom and we drag it along only lifting the part that goes up to the ship.

Once the anchor was up we motored away from the shore and set all sails as we got out of the lee of
Dominica. We were under sail by 11:20am.

We are now sailing along at about 5 knots headed south towards the French island of Martinique. I mostly
know this island for the destruction of the city of St Pierre by the volcanoe there. Many of the crew are
looking forward to this stop because they want to get a tattoo. I may do so as well but haven’t decided for
sure yet :-)

We will be in Martinique for at least 3 days probably 4.
More later…

Just finished cleaning up from dinner.

I had first helm on our afternoon watch. We were motorsailing towards Martinique and ran into a
rainstorm with gusty winds. I had my foulie jacket on but hadn’t done it up yet. I ended up standing my
trick at the helm with my jacket open. Luckily the rain was fairly warm :-)

We took in all sails around 5:30 and motored into the anchorage at St Pierre and dropped the starboard
hook. The Captain says the holding is not great here but the anchorage is fairly sheltered so we should be
OK.

St Pierre never really recovered after the eruption of 1908. From a population of 40,000 there are now
only 7,000. The current city is built inside the ruins of the old city. There is a good museum here which I
intend to check out.

I have looked at the picture taken the day after the eruption so many times that my mind overlays that
scene of utter desolation over the current lush green countryside. We are anchored near to the point where
the photo appears to have been taken so it’s almost like a temporal shadow. It is a very odd sensation.

Our watch is on tomorrow and I have galley so it will be a long day.

Thanks for reading.
KJ
Posted in Ashore, On Watch | No Comments »