Friday, 5:40 PM:
We are sort of heading south.
We left Martinique this morning with a fixed Pactor Modem. A local Icom, Pactor dealer was able to find a loose wire in the cable and had me up and running last night at 6. The only problem is I have had terrible propagation and no e-mails are going out or coming in. Could be an antennae problem with the same corrosion I have been having trouble with all year. Anyway it should be working and we will keep trying to send this message out. We have loved the French Islands and hope to spend more time there next year. Not very many of the people speak English though, so ordering anything other than a beer has been sometimes a challenge. The coast of St Lucia looks amazing. We look forward to next season every time we look at those beautiful sandy beaches. We are skipping pretty much everything to make sure we don't have trouble getting to Trinidad. At least the weather looks good to get to Grenada.
Now the sort of heading south issue...
The channel between St Lucia and St Vincent has a HELLISH cross current. Under full sail I could only go 2.2 knots. My boat was pointing 150 degrees and my COG was 197. Didn't really pay much attention to it till Helen (with the setting sun in her eyes) said, "What big island is on the right of St Vincent?",oops. My chart plotters were showing St Vincent on our left and us missing the island by 8 to ten miles on the west side. Surprise to us, we were crabbing across the top of the island. Would have really been a surprise at night--no towns or lights on the north end to our knowledge. We are now going 6.5 knts and almost in the right direction. And the sun hasn't set yet. We should make Grenada some time in the afternoon. We Hope.
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