Location: 14° 33.4 N, 61° 03.5 W
Tuesday 21:00, 05.16.2006

The Schooner Maggie B is currently at anchor in Martinique, off of a beach called Anse Miton, across the bay from Fort de France. Position 14° 33.4 N, 61° 03.5 W . We had a nice reach down from Isle des Saintes today, needing just 12 hours to do the 90 miles. The wind was finally a proper stable Easterly Trade, blowing 10-20 and pushing us along at speeds up to 9 1/2 knots. We sailed under main with one reef and the jib.

A look at the Google map will show that we slid past Dominica on the way. That island country has very impressive mountains, going up to 4000 feet. Even though we were well offshore, we did get some interesting wind shifts. It felt bad to go past without stopping. Next time….

Coming into a new port at night was a bit of a challenge, especially a complicated one like Fort de France. Needless to say, the wind piped up a lot when it was time to take in the sail, but the crew (Bori, Nadia, Mounira and myself) got everything stowed efficiently, and anchored in a nice protected spot without any particular fuss. One piece of equipment was very useful — the “overlay” function on the Furuno radar/GPS. It made sorting out the buoys and boat traffic easy because it overlays the radar picture on top of the electronic chart, so you can compare chart to “reality.”

Last night at Isle des Saintes, we got introduced to “boat visiting.” A nice couple from an 80 year old, steel, Belgian former tug, now schooner (really!) named Orion, from California, invited us over together with another boat. Hors d’oeuvres, a nice bottle of wine and great conversation, without too much sailing/technical. There had been lots of boats around in Antigua, but it was so crazy, there really wasn’t a chance to make friends. We are going to do more “see a nice boat, row over and say ‘hi’ and ask them over.”

So another lovely day’s run, but Bori and I, off the top of our heads, came up with a list of 15 things that we should do to/for Maggie B while we are here in Martinique, before our next leg, to Barbados. Work, work, work.

All is well.