June 2011

Wednesday 29th June 2011

We flew into Vieux Fort St. Lucia, all our bags arrived, we cleared customs

quickly and met Chris Joseph, our driver for the day.

Our next job was to collect out cargo, all 23 bags. we spent the next two hours

travelling between cargo and customs. $80 to receive cargo then a further

$250 to Mr Harris the broker who spent ten minutes arranging a transit

document to allow us to take our household goods to Martinique.

Finally we are on the road north to the Coco Palm hotel where we agreed to

leave the cargo in the van overnight.

Thursday 30th June

The next day we set off for Rodney Bay marina where need to check our

cargo out and load it onto our catamaran, "Manureva", waiting on the pontoon. Chris Joseph wants $350 plus a tip that he does not get!

We meet Patrich and Francois who have brought the yacht from Martinique

to meet us. We all go to Customs, Patrich and Francois check in to St Lucia

then we all check out for Martinique.

$12 dash for the loaders and finally we are off.

We have a pretty exciting sail for about four hours with 3 to 4 metre waves

and 32 knots showing on the windex (needs recalibrating upwards). We have since done the trip north from St Lucia to Martinique several times and each time it has been rough.

We arrive in Le Marin marina in clouds of black smoke from the Starboard engine, moor up and open the Champaign (thanks Linda) one glass (small) pored into the sea for Neptune and four of us

enjoy the rest.

We do a bit of food shopping, get back to the boat have a local Pizza and

crash out.