16 March 2011; Terre de Haut, Iles de Saintes.

 I always find this a most peculiar stop on a cruise and that is because I have to go to another island first to pick up the pilot. As mentioned yesterday, a pilot is compulsory for arriving in Isles de Saintes. They do seem to trust us to leave on our own, but understandably they like to have a pilot park the ship in a spot that is acceptable to everybody. There is not enough work for a pilot in and around Isles de Saintes to warrant a pilot in residence and thus a pilot from Point-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe has to come over. So he leaves Point-a-Pitre at 04.30 in the morning and then drives to Basse Terre on the SW side of Guadeloupe. Here a work boat, officiating as a pilot boat, takes him to the Prinsendam. Then the ship sails another 10 miles from Basse Terre to the entrance to the bay of Terre de Haut. Here the pilot sails the ship in, that takes about 15 minutes, indicates to us where he wants the two anchors dropped and then he has to get back to Point-a-Pitre again by means of a local ferry. When he comes onboard, the first thing I do is send him for breakfast so that he is a least well nourished before he commences work. We followed this practice again this morning and as a result were happily at anchor by 07.15, for a 08.00 start of the tender service.Well happily at anchor is an overstatement. I was not happy at all with the situation, as strong squalls were coming over the island with wind gusts curving around the North East mountain ridge in which shelter Terre de Haut is situated. For a normal anchorage this might not be much of a problem but the bay in front of Terre de Haut is very limited in size. Half of it is occupied by sailing yachts at anchor and right behind our anchorage there is a shallow reef which means that the ship cannot stretch much behind the anchor chain. This is the reason that we use two anchors which limits the amount of yawning that the ship does behind the anchor, and also as we can now use less length of chain due to the double grip, the ship will not stretch that far behind the chain as would be the case with a single anchor. Still I was not very happy and remained on the bridge to keep a close eye on the situation. By 10.30am the wind started to really pick up and I decided to pick up both anchors and anchor a bit closer under the east side of the bay. That did the trick for the remainder of the day and also by that time, the last rain squall had moved away and the sun shone as it should do.

Terre de Haut is a town where many French expats have a 2nd home or live permanently. Also during the day, many ferries bring day tourists over from the big island and with another 700 guests from the Prinsendam ashore it can get quite busy. By 17.00 hrs everybody returns home again by ferry or back to the cruise ships and then they have the island back to themselves again. The anchorage is very sheltered for small yachts and thus it is a very popular place for yachts to spend some time. Today I counted Two Dutch, One Norwegian, Three American, a Brazilian, 10 or eleven French, A German and a Belgium, all happily lined up next to each other. Plus another 30 or so yachts that only flew their washing from the lanyards but no Nationality flag.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                The red line is the course to open sea. The blue patch behind the ships diagram in the centre is the shallows that makes it dangerous for the ship to stretch too far behind the chain.  

 By 5 pm, we sailed again and you leave through the exit in the North, while you come in through the entrance from the West. The only problem with the North exit is that it is fairly narrow and with the strong Trade Wind blowing from the East, you are set quite quickly towards the rocks. The best way to alleviate that problem is, to “take off” as fast as possible to limit the drift and to sail as close as possible to the shallows on the Windward side. Those you cannot reach, as the wind is pushing you away from them, while at the same time you create a maximum amount of space to drift in. Within 5 minutes we were in deep water again. Tonight we will have another slow run to our next port of call Fort de France, Martinique. Here not so long ago they built a dedicated cruise pier, so we do not have to anchor and tender anymore. Time to wait and see what squalls they have waiting there for us tomorrow.