December 29 Passage to Isle de Saintes

The sun is going down.....let's just go!
It is an 80-odd mile to Isle de Saintes, a collection of small islands that are part of Guadaloupe. It might be our new favorite place. This week, anyway. We like to do long passages at night because it is cooler (literally and figuratively) and more importantly, it allows us to arrive and navigate a new anchorage with the attending shoals and floating fish pots during daylight hours. Even though I did not make the requisite night passage brownies, we made it just fine. It was a great sail. The seas were flat and once we passed Dominica, we had 12knot winds 45 degrees off. Plus an almost full moon. Perfect. We both had good naps along the way and Hakuna Matata sailed so well, we actually had to slow down as we approached the coast to wait for full sunrise. We had to come to the main island, Terre de Haut, first to check in with customs. The anchorage was crowded so we went to the back of the pack with the big boats in deep water, 45 feet. This is the first time we have had to put out almost all of our chain and we are glad to have all chain.












Even though the customs office was never open (???), Mairie is a neat little town with lots of quirky people, shops and restaurants. There are a lot of day visitors that arrive by ferry boat from Guadaloupe.

This beastie, M/V Kingfisher, pulled in right behind us. The anchor and chain dropping on this boat sounded like a car wreck. Skip: although they really weren't, I almost thought it would be fun to holler at them that they were too close but I don't think they would care. The tender is almost as big as my whole boat.