Thursday, January 30, 2014

DOMINICA THE SAINTES AND GUADELOUPE

On the ride into Terre Haute we had dolphins around the dinghy at least three were close enough to touch if we had stretched out.

It was rough and rolly so we decided to press on to Deshaies.

I remember this from a song sung by Tom Paxton

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.

It describes perfectly this development
spotted on the west coast of Guadeloupe before Pigeon island. We were romping along and I had only needed to turn the engine on for a few minutes to power through dead spots as we sailed up from the Saintes to Deshaies in Guadeloupe.

We were greeted in the morning
by the early day antics of the well gunned and booted but incredibly young looking French sailors who checked out the anchorage for suspicious characters not flying the courtesy flag correctly.

Sunset was pretty good
and as the last rays were fading away the Stade Amsterdam arrived furling its square sails for all the world like an eighteenth century wooden warship arriving from Europe with news and fresh supplies of men for the garrisons.

Dizzy is getting more confident on the boom and bimini
often catching us out as we brush


the underside with a well timed pounce.

But he is also practicing his sleeping skills sometimes in the oddest of poses.


I mean can this be comfortable.

We left Dominica with this elegant greyhound at anchor alongside this boat that had been tapped with an ugly stick.


Not hard mind but definitely tapped.



A couple of reminders of how harsh
the salt water environment is for anything electrical. My anchor foot switch failed. I guess this is number 7 or 8 in 4 years. Some parts turned to blue crumble as usual.

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