Cruising the Baie de Fort de France

Anse Mitan has very good holding. The downside is the wash from the ferries. At one point a boat nearby had a rail on the water after a ferry had passed. OK, commercial traffic has to get from place to place but this was positively dangerous.

So, on Wednesday 26^th February, the mate and I prepared Stargazer early (for us) and left Anse Mitan. The only destination in mind was to cruise most of the baie and check out all the other anchorages and do some sail trim exercises (I think we’ve mentioned before that Stargazer is a very fast boat – I call her an Ocean Greyhound – but sometimes it feels as if she almost needs a crew of five to get the best out of her). After tacking, reaching, running and all the rest we got ourselves into a very good routine and it was great to feel Stargazer flying through the baie (even though she is pretty fouled at the moment). We thought to ourselves that without the fouling we’d take off and would need the nearby Lemantin airport to land on… J

The anchorage at Trois Ilets looked absolutely gorgous, possibly the best I’ve seen over here. It wasn’t cowded and just seemed idyllic. Malheuresement, the mate said ‘non’. The reason: no easy access to the carnival in the city. ‘Oh well’, I said, we’ll come here after the carnival then. Next up was a sail over the city anchorage at FdF where we had initially planned to be for the carnival. We took one look at it and both said ‘non, non, non quatre non’. If we thought Anse Mitan was rolly then this was something else. Not only that, but it was so crowded (French anchorages can be like that) that we could have shaken hands with many boats if we had anchored there. Not to worry, we decided that if we anchored in another spot in Anse Mitan we’d be away from the ferries. So we sailed back over and found quite a nice spot. Life was made even easier when the mate discovered that extra ferries were running throughout the carnival (at a popular price, I’m pleased to add) and it seemed that, due to recent excesses the ferry captains had been told to calm down making life in their wash much easier.

View of Anse Mitan from where we are anchored

View astern from Stargazer

Once back at anchor, the mate decided we needed to replenish stocks and I knew we needed some water. Off we went ashore and we found – nothing! Not only nothing, but ‘a very well past its heyday’ French seaside ‘resort’. OK, I said, the anchorage is nice, the ferries are cheap and frequent and there is a supermarket three miles away on a bus route. We got the bus there, stocked up and returned by taxi. This only left the issue of water. For a long time, we’ve wanted a rain catcher but until now we were unsure of how to do it. After reading an article in our club’s publications (The Ocean Cruising Club) we have solved our problem, all we need now is someone to cut one to size for us etc – this won’t be found in Anse Mitan! So I did a quick check over of the water maker and got it going. It’s not a big one, but it doesn’t use much power and can make six litres per hour. We’ve been using it for up to four hours or so per day and thus far we seem to be keeping our heads above water in the sense that it is making slightly more water than the mate can consume (which is a lot).

So all is well as I write (Saturday 1^st March). The mate has been showing me pictures of what to expect at the carnival; I’ve been dreaming of the peace and calm over at Trois Ilet - which also happens to be near the supermarket and has a gorgeous centre ville right by the dinghy pontoon.

Having a short rest during the carnival – the mate will have plenty of pictures of that later