It was time to start working North. We left Bequia in the early morning in light breeze and motor sailed past St Vincent, on up to Marigot Bay in St Lucia. Jeremy cleared us in and we enjoyed a beautiful sunset from Chateau Mygo.

Next day we took a taxi tour to the Pitons area. We hiked at Tet Paul, where we’d been about a month earlier, and were stunned by the changes – the whole area looks much drier than it did, and the lovely anchorage was rather scummy. Nevertheless the Pitons are still beautiful. We also visited Fond Doux Estate. This is an eco-resort where chocolate is grown, dried and processed. We were able to make our own chocolate bars, which turned out to be delicious! Then back to the boat and on up to Rodney Bay for the night. We had trouble getting our anchor to set properly, as the bottom is very hard sand. However it didn’t matter, as the wind was so light that by morning the anchor was visible directly under the swim platform! We upped anchor and left for Martinique.

A few observations about the changes we’ve seen since last passing through: Sargassum is clearly a big problem – we are starting to see it on west-facing beaches as well as Atlantic beaches now, and many places we enjoyed earlier are now rather scummy. Things are much drier, although the higher islands which have rainforest still have green expanses. The sea is definitely warmer! It’s not as crowded, as we near the end of high season. And finally, it is very hot – the trade winds have been shut down for the last week or so and we’ve been having light westerlies if anything. We are all longing for stronger winds and a bit of relief.

April 24 was a day of milestones. Our log finally went through 10,000 miles, after 7 years of sailing Persephone. We left Marblehead on September 24, with the log reading 6279, so this was exactly 7 months of cruising, in which time we’ve done over 3700 miles. And it was my 60th birthday. I had hoped to celebrate in Bequia, but our timetable meant that we needed to be further north. We had a long, uneventful motor up to St Pierre at the north end of Martinique and cleared in, then went out to dinner at an Alsace restaurant of all things! St Pierre was very quiet, with few people around in the evening. Next morning we left early and moved on to Dominica.

Dominica was one of our favorite places as we worked south, and we were looking forward to visiting it again for a couple of days. The PAYS guides were helpful as always, guiding us to a mooring, taking our papers over to immigration, and arranging several tours for us. We packed in a lot: We did a boat trip up the Indian River early in the morning when the birds are most active. We also did a terrific snorkel trip in Cabrits marine park, where I finally saw a Spotted Drum – an elusive but striking fish! We finished off our day by joining the PAYS cookout, where we were delighted to run into Octavius (aka SeaCat), our guide from the southern part of the island. We arrived back at the boat and were surprised to find a gecko in the cockpit. We have no idea when he might have come aboard and we’ve only seen him once since then. However, geckos eat insects and spiders, so we have named him Edward and signed him on as crew. If we ever get a photo of him I’ll post it!

To mark our appreciation of Dominica and the great work the guides at Portsmouth Area Yacht Services do, I gave them one of our old club burgees for their barn. We will always have a soft spot for this area and strongly urge fellow sailors to visit.