Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe to St. Anne, Martinique

St. Anne, Martinique. Just a lovely little anchorage with a great beach.

St. Anne, Martinique. Just a lovely little anchorage with a great beach.

119 nm
18 hours

Captain Crunch finally found a nice selection of octopi in Les Saintes, where we stopped mid voyage for a few lovely nights at Ile Cabrit. We had heard that the place is lousy with them, but they must have all been hiding when we came through earlier in the season. This time, she found 3 on her first swim, and one of them was out in the open!

Yeah... there is an octopus in this photo. I don't know how Captain Crunch spotted it.

Yeah… there is an octopus in this photo. I don’t know how Captain Crunch spotted it.

 

Look. Everything else out here thinks I'm part of this rock. So piss off.

“Look. Everything else out here thinks I’m part of this rock. So piss off,” said Mr. Octopus right before inking Captain Crunch.

Fortunately, the new bracket for the fuel filter, the patch for the mainsail, and the first attempt at fixing the autopilot did not turn out to be overly expensive. We made terrific time getting to Martinique with the newly patched mainsail flying the whole way. We sometimes saw speeds of up to 9 knots with a little bit of a following sea. Our average was more like 7 as we had to motor in the lee of Dominica and there was a bit of a current slowing us down on the west side of Martinique. The autopilot failed again just as we got to Martinique, but we’re close enough to Grenada now that we’re just going to wait until we get into a marina to try fixing it more permanently.

 

It is much more common to find Mr. Octopus peaking out of a hole surrounded by clam shells and crab bits.

It is much more common to find Mr. Octopus peaking out of a hole surrounded by clam shells and crab bits.

We’d originally planned to grab a ball at Anse d’artlet again, but all of the good ones were taken, so we pressed on to St. Anne where we stayed for about a week. The kids had a blast at the beach as usual.