Nothing more was heard until Friday morning when the young girl that had been with him came to the boat to talk to us about what she should do. Her boss Tom had told her not to check into customs in St Lucia but to go straight to Martinique where the boat lived. We told her that if she did what he had suggested, she would have to explain where Tom got off the boat. She could after all have thrown him overboard for all anyone knew and she would surely be sent back to St Lucia to sort it out. The charter guests were angry, as would anyone be, that they had been left in this position. They knew that Sheila had no experience in sailing the boat and that they would not under any circumstances sail with her. They were looking at getting a ferry from St Lucia to Martinique to get back in time for their flight on Saturday evening.
In the end we agreed, in order to help them out, that Glyn would sail on the charter boat named Allegria and two of the charter guests would come onto Helen Mary Gee to even the load. He checked the boat over and made sure that it was seaworthy and on Friday morning Allegria left before us, as we had to get fuel and water.
It started as a nice sail but very close to the wind. However our lady passenger had hurt her back and the motion of the boat was making it uncomfortable for her. We then decided that as we had to catch up with Allegria and in order to reduce the journey time as much as possible we would motor sail.
We arrived in Martinique at about 14.00 but then had to find our travel companion as we had not seen them on the water. Marin was such a big marina/anchorage. Facility to berth 600 boats. It was a needle in a haystack job finding a white Beneteau amongst the many charter boats which had their home in Marin. We found a temporary berth which allowed the guests to get ashore. We still had not found Allegria. We had to take a berth in the marina as we thought that if we went to anchor we would never find Glyn again. Eventually we had a radio message from Glyn to say that they had arrived and were at the Marina Office using their VHF radio as that on Allegria was not working on high power.
Adventure over but can you believe that a charter skipper would leave his boat like that to go to a football match. I would expect a summons to be winging it’s way to his door. Sheila, who was Israeli is apparently seeking alternative employment on another boat.
Martinique is of course a French Caribbean island, where you can find wonderful food. Paul’s first task was to find the Pate for lunch which we did.
It is so expensive out here. The pound is falling against both the US dollar and the euro and it hurts. Our money is not going anywhere near as far as it did earlier in the year but the prices just seem to be rising out of all proportion so we are paying twice. A large glass of beer, probably half a litre glass cost 5.30€ and we thought the Springhead was expensive.
We will now take a little time cruising Martinique before heading off to Dominica. We have to find somewhere nice to spend Christmas and we are still considering our options.
Love to you all and be safe so you can read the next instalment.
- No update is complete without a sunset – Marin anchorage
Helen and Paul
Helen Mary Gee
