Winter is here again

So winter is here again and our boat is out of the water for another season.

Sweet Tango in the snow.

If you can't sail your boat then the next best thing is to sail with our friends.  So we book a plane ticket to join our friends Andy and Judy on SV Jacobs Ladder.  We agreed that we should meet them in Saint Lucia.

But first we had to go visit RaeAnn's grandmother in Winnipeg, MB for her 90th birthday.  We had a great time visiting her family.  One of the things I did while in Winnipeg was to practice flying my new drone which is a DJI Phantom 3.  I decided that I would bring it with me for this trip.  I was not sure how the airlines and security would take to me bring the drone on the plane as a carry on.  But I had not troubles, questions or not even had to open my bag when I went through airport security.

We left Winnipeg, MB on Jan 31st at 2 am for the airport.  As we entered the airport   I took note that the temperature was -30c since I was in sandals and shorts.  The whole way to the airport I was praying that we wouldn't have a flat tire.  After 10 hours of flying with a stop in Toronto with arrived at Hewanorra International Airport, near Vieux Fort Quarter, Saint Lucia.  As we step of the plane we were hit with a wave of warm air.  The temperature as we got off of the aircraft was +30c.  It was a great change for us.We had to take a taxi from the airport to meet Andy and Judy in Capella Marigot Bay which was $70.00 USD and about an hours drive around the island.  The drive as really nice and the driver was full of useful information.

Capella Bay Marina was amazing.  The marina is one of the nicest marina that I have ever been at.  There is laundry, store, electric, water, cable TV, wireless and can take boat over 230 feet in size.  If you rent a dock you get to use all these services, plus all the items at the resort.  We had some great meals and enjoyed drinks around the pools.The fee for the docks were not even bad in price at $.65 USD per foot per night.  If you stay a week or more the rates are even cheaper.  We spend three days here exploring the area, swimming, listening to live music each night.

After we spent a few days in Capella Bay Marina we head up to Rodney Bay which was only a few hours of sailing.
Rodney Bay has is a small town with all the things a person would need.  There is a very large marina here.  One of the cool things that I enjoyed was on channel 68 each morning they would do a cruisers broadcast on channel 68. The broadcast include things like security announcements, boats leaving or coming into the area, weather, current events in the new and planned activities.  While at the anchorage we would visited by a person who would come out each morning in a very small boat and would sell fresh fruit and vegetables right off of his boat. It is a very big anchorage and when we where there about 100 boats were at anchor and there was room for even more.

Next on the agenda was to travel to the island of Martinique. It was about a five hour crossing from Rodney Bay to Ste-Anne on the most southerly part of the island.
 

We anchorage in the bay off of the town Ste-Anne in another big anchorage.  The town itself is a wonderful little town with a few stores and restaurants set in a France village setting.  There is a nice white sand beach on the west end of the anchorage where  not to may people go.

Anchorage

Fish Market

Main Square

 If you want more resources then you can dingy or motor your boat to the top of the bay to Anse Mitan  This town has several large food stores, sail-makers and pretty much everything else you would want or not want depending on what you are looking for.

The last place we visited on our trip was the town of Fort-De-France. I don't have much to say about this town since it was you typical tourist town with big cruise ships.  We only spend a day there the rest of the time we were in this area we spend in a bay across from Fort-de-Frane called Anse Mitan.  This little resort town was great.  Lots of places to get awesome coffee, snorkel and to fly my drone.  The anchorage itself was small with only a few boats there.

Fort-De-France

The fort in Fort-De-France

My over all impressions of these two islands is they are nice with lots to do and to see in tourist .  But if you are looking for smaller anchorages with empty beaches this is not the place for you.  The costs of staying here was high was well once you took in account the exchange rates on the CDN dollar.  Both RaeAnn and I would agree that if we ever live on a boat we would skip these islands.