Sailing to Prince Rupert Bay Dominica

Leaving St Pierre Bay, Martinique

Yes, despite the look, I am enjoying the brisk sail north

We left St Pierre Bay at 0615hrs on Wednesday 14 March, almost as soon as the sun was up, and Martinique slipped away behind us mostly hidden by some fairly dark rain clouds. The prompt start was to try to get the early part of the 57nm passage to Dominica completed before the wind strengthened, as it generally did in the middle of the day. It would also give us time to beat back towards Dominica if the wind angle and currents pushed us a long way west of the island.

Dominica ahead

As it turned out, the wind between Martinique and Dominica varied between 19 and 23 knots and came from the ESE, so we could make a direct track to our destination. Sadly, the large clumps of sargasso weed meant that my fishing status was demoted to ‘Vegetarian Fisherman’ (only weed caught) and the DuoGen spent most of the passage getting clogged up rather than recharging the batteries.

Joined photos showing the whole of the western side of Dominica

With the potential trouble area of the acceleration zone between the two islands behind us, the wind eased off as we worked our way up the sheltered western side of Dominica. It is another mountainous island with lush green foliage and active volcanoes scattered over it. It is definitely one of the more beautiful and islands and we had read about more than enough natural, diving and hiking attractions to keep us busy here for months. However, that was all before the natural disaster of the recent hurricanes.

Signs of damage from Hurricane Maria

Dominica was the first island that we visited that had been directly hit by one of the 2017 hurricanes; in this case, Hurricane Maria. From a distance the island seemed very green and we thought that the damage might not be as bad as we had been led to believe. However, as we sailed closer to the shoreline we noticed that large areas of the rainforest had tall trees that were missing their leaves, houses had no roofs, and we saw several yachts and trawlers washed ashore. We wondered what damage lay ahead as we approached the more populated area of Portsmouth in Prince Rupert Bay.

Approaching Prince Rupert Bay

As we approached the bay the wind died and so we switched to motoring. But, no sooner had we rolled away the genoa the wind came back. It was frustrating but we concluded that motoring the last 4½ miles was probably a good thing for the batteries with the clogged DuoGen and it would also mean that we had a tank of hot water when we arrived.

Situated at the northwestern tip of the island, the large and well-protected Prince Rupert Bay offers a safe place from which to explore the island. The bay provides excellent shelter from the swell and based in the town of Portsmouth is PAYS, the Portsmouth Association of Yacht Services. Several years ago, after a number of yachts had been subject to robberies, at least one of which was violent, the local ‘boat boys’ got together to form an organisation (PAYS) to improve the security situation in the bay. The boat boys all provide services to visiting yachtsmen, such as rubbish collection, bread deliveries and island tours but they added into this regular security patrols in the anchorage by day and night to ensure that there is no trouble in the area. Nicky rang ahead and spoke to Eddison, who is head of security for PAYS, and let him know that we would be anchoring rather than picking up one of their mooring buoys but that we wanted to book some of his guided tours of the island.

Yachts, including BV, anchored under the peaks of East and West Cabrit

We dropped our anchor in the northern corner of the bay, almost underneath the peaks of East and West Cabrit in the Cabrits National Park and close to where Lars and Susanne were anchored in Sea Wind. It was lovely to see them but we also had a very nice surprise when we were intercepted by Jackline and Peter from Ellen, another Swedish couple that we had met at Augustin’s OCC lunch in Pasito Blanc in mid-November 2017. Peter saved us a lot of time by zipping Nicky across to the Portsmouth Immigration and Customs offices in his very nippy RIB, whilst I put covers on BV and set her up for time at anchor. The 6 of us then all assembled on Ellenfor sundowners. It was a great opportunity for us to compare notes on good places to visit. Lars and Susanne had already been in Portsmouth for a couple of days and Jackline and Peter had visited the previous month and done a couple of tours then. The ‘all-seeing’ Eddison had clocked this and knew exactly where to find us. Joining us for a beer on Ellen, we discussed options and arranged that Lars, Susanne and the 2 of us would be picked up at 0830 the following morning for a boat trip up the Indian River. We also found out about the great weekly barbeque that PAYS run on Sundays…… but that came with a serious health warning from Peter about the unlimited supply of rum cocktails that were served! Looks like we’ll be staying at least until Monday then!

Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica