Yacht charter Caribbean between Les Saints and Santa Lucia - Martinique

Highlights: Les Saints, Martinique, Guadaloupe, St. Lucia

When to go: December to May

Suggested tour: Martinique - Sait Lucia - Martinique - Les Saints - Guadaloupe

Mileage (approx) : 220

Cruise length:  1 or 2 weeks

Difficulty : medium

General and weather
All these islands share an unpleasant feature: swell loves to turn around them, and in many anchorages some rolling must be expected, especially under the Pitons and on the E side of St. Vincent and Grenada. Funnily enough, wind is less keen to follow, and you might well find yourself rolling with no wind to speak of once you enter the lee waters. Stay a little farther out before making for your harbour. The trades blow incessantly between the islands, especially around Christmas (Chistmas Winds), when gales are to be accounted for, and nasty seas can increase the ocean 4-ft swell. The crossings between the islands are always lively, never calm and seldom boring. The average trade wind speed is around 20 knots, less at night, more during the day. It's a place where you seldon sail without a reef.
A nice feature of these waters are the frequent squalls where you can measure your speed in taking a reef or two under a downpour, just to discover that you have to turn your engine on in 5 minutes. There is a good point in the fact that, unless you are blind, you can see them easily. There might be sailors who sail the E windward sides of these islands, certainly beautiful, but never calm. These chaps must be respected and addressed to in French. If you are on holiday, stay on the west side. Westerlies are rare (to say the least)
Hurricane season: between July and November. When, by the way, the weather is stinky hot.
Temperatures in winter are warm to hot, with fresh nights, hammering sun and daily squalls. Beer weather. Local brews are no cheap but not bad.

Restaurant and food. If you are used to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean is a desert with few oasis, being these mostly French. These will be mentioned while we sail along. But we can at least start blaming the yanks who, having practically colonized the area, banned, for some strange reason, the meat from Venezuela, among the best on the planet. So you might find yourself in Trinidad, where you can see the Venezuelan grazing cows with a good pair of binoculars, but all you can find is frozen and third choice Iowa tasteless stuff. Good tuna and bonitos. Wonderful, when available, the dolphin fish.

Paperwork
The Caribbean authorities like their paperwork in substantial quantities, especially because most nations find it convenient to pester sailors with taxes. You MUST clear in and out every time and very often custom and immigration are far apart, and their officials not altogether friendly.

Anchors
Many places in the area have a poor holding ground for CQRs, probably Danforths behave better.

St.Lucia
Although blessed by the two Pitons, the most striking mountains in the Caribbean, two very high and steep pyramids rising straight up from the blue waters, St.Lucia is not worth more than two days and one night of sailing in a weekly cruise. Unless, of course, you happen to be in Rodney Bay in the first half of December, when the caravan of the Arc arrives from the Canaries. We are talking about a couple of hundred crews arriving after a 3,000 miles crossing and very eager to party and drink beer. That's a place to be, believe me. The locals add their contribute every Friday, when the village of Gros Islet, a couple of clicks N of Rodney Bay marina, becomes a huge street ballroom/bar/opium smoking room. The English wild crew adds up to the local and rivers of rum flow freely. The darker corners around the village host every kind of commerce and you might hear gunshots when some dealer finds his area occupied by others. Leave your daughters aboard. Rodney Bay marina is excellent, it's possible to anchor for free in front of it and make a good use of the bar-cum-pool. Which is, needless to say,exceedingly lively until early in the morning. Most boat services. A good shipchandler. Rodney Bay is a very calm and wide bay, always busy and with a sandy bottom with good holding, both inside and outside.

It's another 12 miles or so south, with nothing to mention in between, unless you like refineries, until the other great St.Lucia spot, Marigot Bay. The inner bay has been criminally invaded by a Sunsail base, and it's hopelessly busy, being the only hurricane hole of the Island (even if I would not like to be there in a hurricane anyway...). The beaches are nice and very busy by hotels and clubs. Still the atmosphere is unique and it's definitely worth a stop. The outer bay is less busy but slightly more rolly. Holding ground is good only to very optimistic sailors.

The Pitons lie near the SE end of St.Lucia. The view is certainly stunning, but there is no anchorage, only expensive and rolling mooring. A place better appreciated from land where, they say, there are plenty of nice hotels steady verandas with a better view, a fresher air and a better cuisine.