Randy and Aleitha's First Day of Sailing

Friday April 18, 2008
Today we headed out from Fort de France headed to Anse d’Arlet on the SE coast of Martinique. We decided on this trip because it was only 1o miles and we figured that would break Randy and Aleitha in gently. The wind was out of the east at 20 knots and the seas were generally from that direction too and less than 0.5 m high. The trip took 1 ½ hours and we were able to sail most of the time – only motored at the beginning and end when the sails were down. Aleitha took the helm for part of the way and Randy assisted with unfurling and furling the foresail.

They were able to experience sailing with the foresail raised and we did some tacking at the end of the trip to enable us to approach the harbour from a good angle. We anchored and then watched 4 -5 day charter catamarans pull in, anchor, disembark their passengers and then reverse the process in approximately 3 hours. For awhile we were the only yacht in the harbour, but by sundown there were four other yachts anchored.

Griff spent the afternoon clearing out a clogged pipe in one of the heads while the rest of us took the dinghy into town, wandered around for a bit and then had a short swim. The town is quite small, very few businesses open after the charter boats left. We were able to buy a few veggies and a pineapple from a fellow who had just packed up his truck. We had the pineapple for supper and it was delicious. When we got back to the boat Griff was finished and ready to go in for a swim which he did.

Aleitha here; being at the helm today was a bit of a rush. My unskilled observation was that the weather was perfect. It was funny to watch Randy pointing me this way and that as I gained sensitivity to the steering. We’ll see how he does tomorrow. After arriving this morning, we sat and watched a sea turtle bob up and down on the surface of the water near the boat. While we were in town this afternoon, we had pizza for lunch in a small open air restaurant/pub. It was delicious, ham, mushroom, olives and emmanthal cheese on thin crust; Randy and I had to try a Caribe beer, not bad!

We later went back to town to access the internet and catch up on our blog. Randy and I watched while Cheryl worked on entering the last two blog updates at the internet cafe. And Randy thought these amazing tales just magically appear on our monitor at home! Cheryl obviously knows what she is doing with these entries, but there is much more to it than meets the eye! All who get to enjoy the read should be impressed.

We have begun to plot our course for the next few days, leaving some time to flex our plans as we go. The swells in the bay tonight are more intense, Randy had to finish eating supper up on deck, breathe some fresh air and watch the horizon, but he made it through! It seems to have calmed some now. As the sun went down and boats were silhouetted against a pink sky we felt hopeful for more good sailing conditions tomorrow when we head to St. Lucia.