A few days anchored behind the reefs at Green Isle was the perfect place for Nic to ease his aching muscles from his stint on High Tension‘s winches during Race Week. On weighing the anchor in Falmouth, I realised we had picked up a large black plastic cable of some kind. For a heart-stopping moment I watched as it pulled the anchor into Irony‘s bow. Thankfully it had a loose end and released us before causing any damage. With the imminent completion of our sale, we are trying to avoid any mishaps!

From Green Isle we sailed overnight to Petite Terre on the advice of Lost Horizon – 2 small islands, rimmed by reefs and glimmering with palm-fringed, white sand beaches. The approach over a shallow bar necessitates calm weather but the anchorage, in swimming-pool clear waters, is not to be missed. Uninhabited, apart from a lighthouse, it can be busy during the day with catamarans from Guadaloupe. On arrival we picked up one of the 35 ton mooring balls only to be asked to move off it shortly after by one of the commercial boats. It seems they each have their specific mooring but none of them are marked “reserved”. After a series of very French confrontations punctuated by a lot of gesticulations, the park boat moved a smaller catamaran to free up another 35 ton buoy for us. Dramas over, we spend 2 lovely nights there. Sadly the coral is pretty dead but there are still quite a few fish to see. We had an enormous barracuda greet us as we snorkelled back to Irony after a swim. There are some lovely walks along the beaches or up around the lighthouse where dozens of iguanas can be seen precariously perched in the bushes.
Saturday morning we reluctantly departed and sailed 3 hours down to Marie Gallant, another new stop for us. It is usually too far upwind to visit. On our way, we spotted what we thought was large dead turtle but on closer inspection we realised it was actually 2 turtles very much alive and mating! We had a delicious lunch on shore and then set off just before sunset for Martinique arriving in Le Marin on Sunday afternoon. From here we are heading back down to Grenada to meet up with Irony’s new owner.
From Facebook:
Tina Cutler, Nicolas Mesdag and 2 others like this.
Angela Raymonde-Cutler Loved looking at your blog Mitch. Lets try and Skype tomorrow. Barracuda sounds a bit frightening! Hope you are both ok. Love
Sally Courtney in Mustique on Saturday 25th will you still be around? xx
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