After my belated attempt at some omelettes which were nutritious and tasty but certainly not appealing to the eye, we got Zanshin ship-shape and ready for the approximately 20 mile passage from our anchorage in the Îles des Saintes to Portsmouth, Dominica. I lowered our French flag and put up the “Q” flag and this time it was Sascha’s turn to helm the boat for the trip. The waves were under 1 meter as predicted and the winds were in the typical lower trade wind range of 15 knots, so with 2 reefs in both sail we set out to sea. The winds were just good enough for us to point somewhat offshore of our destination at Portsmouth and at 5-8 knots it was a pleasant and quick passage with only the occasional fish-trap to avoid.
We were met by one of the boat boys as we entered the Portsmouth anchorage but as I’d already worked with “Alexis” in the past I stuck with his services and we weren’t bothered anymore by anyone demanded that we use their services. Our first anchoring attempt was broken off as the wind had shifted and I felt too close to a neighbouring boat, and our second attempt put us in 40 feet of water and I think that we’ll re-anchor somewhat closer tomorrow. The dinghy ride to customs & immigration was a long one, but with the outboard out of it’s pampered break-in phase we could plane the dinghy and that made the trip a lot faster. Clearing in (and out at the same time) was a matter of filling in 2 forms with carbon paper for copies (I wonder if everyone who reads this blog page actually knows what that is) and paying US$10 for clearance. We then walked to the supermarket which also has a cash machine so that we could get some local EC$ currency and then purchased a few items before returning to Zanshin.
The sunset was beautiful and after dark I thawed out some of my slow-cooked chili sauce and we made some pasta to go along with it for dinner. By 09:30 we were tired enough to call it a night and I read a little bit before turning out my light. The music ashore was relatively loud and I knew it would go on for much of the night, but the little ventilator next to my bed produces sufficient white noise to cover those remote sounds.
