Anse D'Arlet

Our last night in St Pierre was slightly disturbed. A Northly swell had got up and we were rolling a lot and swinging in big arcs. Anchoring at St Pierre is an interesting and at times difficult task, the sea bed is littered with wrecks and the currents and tides are strange. We were lucky with where we had managed to get in, but did end up in some strange positions during the few days we were there. This did make timing our swims ashore interesting as they could easily go from thirty metres to shore or jetty to a hundred metres as the boat swung on anchor and chain. But it was the same with all the boats and there was often boats having to up anchor because everyone had moved and they were suddenly very close neighbours. As the sun set another boat  anchored between us and the jetty, which would have been ok except for the fact everyone was swinging in the swell. At 2am Sarah was doing usual night owl routine and was up in the cockpit, when she awoke Darrell to see if he felt she was over reacting by putting fenders out. By the time Darrell got up the interloper was virtually alongside. Thankfully, they had got up to check and up anchored and moved to a more suitable position.

We had a good sail down to the South of Martinique and managed to get a mooring buoy in Anse D'Arlet close to the beach. This was a requirement as the borrowed dinghy was no longer useable, as much as pumped air in, the air leaked out quicker, so swimming ashore with a dry bag of stuff takes it toll, the nearer the better. It also added to the confusion of the French holiday makers, as we came ashore and got changed and went off for a hike. Or those who saw us at the end of the day putting on our snorkelling gear and swim off from the beach towing our bags.
The swell made the bay very rolly and with no dinghy we couldn't put out a stern anchor, so we had to endure the slightly uncomfortable movement of the boat. It is a very pretty bay, with good snorkelling a very popular beach, lots of bars and restaurants and a number of turtles to watch. Once ashore we could walk to Petit Anse D'Arlet to check out and walk back around the headland.