S/V L'ORIENT

Goodbye Origo! Next stop Panama So we're anchored here in one of our favorite places, St. Pierre in Guadeloupe. The town has natural beauty, an interesting history, and most importantly patisseries (french bakeries). Since we suffered from so many near misses from boats anchored too closely in both Iles Des Saintes and Dominica (our last two stops), we needed some peace from amateur boaters who inexplicably do not seem to be able to anchor a boat safely. Solution- we've chosen to anchor about a mile away from the town in fairly deep water. Normally, people who rent boats or are inexperienced try to get in close to the town. Because St. Pierre is dwarfed by the [hopefully] still dormant volcano and other hills, the wind swirls causing boats to spin in all directions at night. Result- if you anchored near another boat you might hit him. We wanted nothing to do with this after our recent experiences so we believed that being this far out was safe. Scene of the crime - so...

Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses - oh, they are already here. Welcome to Dominica  So we enjoyed a rollicking sail from IDS (Iles Des Saintes) to Dominica.......that most Caribbean of Caribbean islands. Dominica is a stunningly beautiful island and there is a 99% chance that neither you or anyone you know (besides us) has been here. The island has been hammered by a series of natural disasters over the years including a couple of hurricanes in 2017; the word "natural" somehow making it seem more polite. The island is positively trashed. Very few houses seem to have roofs (five months after the fact). A couple of restaurants are open but needless to say we are eating largely on our own. Rastas are filling dirty jugs with water from spigots on the street......the water trickling out slowly and of dubious quality anyway. Across the bay is a hotel which was financed for Dominica by the kingdom of Morocco (of all places). It had walls and a roof before the...

Cabrit's Anchorage We are anchored in Iles Des Saintes, Guadeloupe (IDS)..........islands of the saints, right ? Must be peaceful, even idyllic. Wrong. We are experiencing rain, wind, roll, and gusts of well over 40 knots (tropical storm level). Boats all around us are actually dragging their anchor, creating hazardous tangles all over. Being the experienced wastrels that we are as far as IDS goes, we know the ONE and ONLY place you can anchor here where is isn't so rolly.........although it's windy, which we don't mind because we have a big anchor and lots of chain. It's called Cabrit, a small island outside of the main anchorage. The problem is that other boats in IDS look around, see that we aren't rolling that much, and immediately head over to join us. Sounds great, right? Meet new people, have a few drinks........could be fun? At least he didn't anchor in front of us No, No, No. You see, here in Cabrit, the boats swing unpredictably in bi...