I was surprised at the early exodus from the anchorage, I was still drinking my first cup of coffee and 7AM hadn’t yet been reached, yet several boats had weighed their anchors and were hoisting their sails in the anchorage in order to head either north or south along the coast. I didn’t join this first gaggle of boats; mainly because I had no firm plans as to what I wanted to do. I got going at about 09:30 and decided to visit Pigeon Island and perhaps spend the night there. The guide book dissuaded me from the overnight plans, as it stated that the anchorage is known for being rolly with shifting winds and recommended using a stern anchor – which sounded like too much work for me as I had other options. I did check out the little island, which is part of a Jacques Cousteau park and he once stated that this dive site ranks in the top 10 of the world. The moorings were full and I decided to explore this site as part of a dive instead of on my own and then continued motorsailing southwards along the coastline of Guadeloupe. The waves were settled in the lee of the island, but the wind at sea level was going in a different direction from that above, so despite being in the lee of the island the wind was heading to shore and was quite light, with occasional funneled gusts and even more infrequent wind direction changes.
I decided to stop for the rest of the day and evening in a very small anchorage called “Anse à la Barque”, located just 6 miles past Pigeon Island. There inner, protected, portion of the anchorage was full of small powerboats on moorings and I had to anchor rather far outside in 35 feet of water. My first attempt put me too close to a catamaran and when I pulled the anchor up I could see that the holding would be good as the anchor came up with a good amount of what looked like heavy clay and no sea grass. The second anchor attempt, started 50 feet further out, was a good one and I settled in for the stay.
I did a bit of work on the blog below until I realized that the wind had almost died down and that it was very hot below, so I went to the cockpit and took a nap, got woken up by the sun coming out and making my favorite spot underneath the dodger very hot as well, so I took the hint and got out cleaning materials… First a big bucket of fresh water and washcloths to wash the caked salt off of the stainless steel deck fixtures, then I cleaned the oxidation off the wheels and winches and did another run-around of the decks with fresh water to remove the remaining salt encrustations.
All day the wind had been blowing ashore, at times very strongly and the boats were all pointed west, a unnatural condition in the Caribbean. Late in the afternoon a big catamaran for day-cruising came into the anchorage and they anchored in the opposite direction to everyone else and as I was thinking “What is this idiot doing?” the wind stopped and shifted; within 5 minutes all of the boats were pointed in the newcomer’s direction. Local knowledge indeed, to the minute!
Soon after I got rid of the salt the boat got a good dousing from a quickly passing shower, so I ran around the decks with a cloth to make sure as much of the remaining salt got washed away. I haven’t had any rain in a couple of weeks, so this washing-down was long overdue.
Dinner was a simple affair, with two baked potatoes and hot-dogs grilled on the BBQ eaten on deck under the lights of the LEDs in windless conditions in this very calm anchorage.
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