SUNRISE HIKE & UPWIND SAILING

1 March 2024
1747 Ship’s Time
Anchored off Saint-Louis, Marie Galante, FWI

Cruising passages are rare at 59º North—where we stop and start, spend time at anchor and ashore, and have more time than we need to get from A to B—and yet simultaneously both FALKEN and ISBJØRN are in cruising mode in opposite seasons and almost 45º of latitude apart. It’s still decidedly winter in Scandinavia, but that’s not stopping Jon Amtrup, Jojo Pickering, and an intrepid crew of adventurers from sailing the Swedish and Norwegian coasts. Part of me is jealous of them, cozied up with the heaters on and sipping an ‘anchor dram’ of Scotch in each port. The other part isn’t jealous at all—I just got out of the ocean, snorkeling around the boat, looking for starfish and checking FALKEN’s gigantic 55kg Vulcan anchor, and now am drinking a Mt. Gay and pineapple juice as I write this. But damn, it can be HOT in the Caribbean! I don’t like getting sweaty—lived in Sweden too long now, I guess.

So we’re in the French West Indies, but not on the island we’d planned. As we sailed past Guadeloupe the other day, I gave the crew the option to bear away and sail the 40 or so miles down to Ile des Saintes, or continue for another 18 hours to St. Barth’s. No bad choices here in the Caribbean! But I think it was my off-hand comment that the Saintes are my all-time favorite Caribbean anchorage, so perhaps that swayed them. So we turned downwind, set the yankee on the pole, and cruised on in to the most beautiful harbor in all the Caribbean off Terre-de-Haut, at least in my opinion. I first came here in 2007 with Broadreach and, besides a few extra moorings and a few more boats, the place hasn’t changed a bit. Mellow, French chic ashore, beautiful scenery from the boat, and an island you can explore on foot in the better part of an afternoon. Bliss.

After spending that first evening on the hook and eating dinner on the boat, Shyah (our apprentice on this passage) spotted a free mooring closer to town, so we popped over before breakfast and found our spot—the same spot I first discovered back in 2007. Alex dinghied ashore to clear customs above the ice cream shop (true story) and the crew spent the day ashore. Meanwhile, Alex, Shyah, and I repaired the furling extrusion and did a few odd jobs on the boat in between swims and naps.

This morning was a dawn patrol mission—I woke up the boat at 0400 with some music on the big Bluetooth speaker in the salon and eight of us adventured ashore for a hike up to the highest peak in the Saintes overlooking the anchorage at over 1,000 feet to watch the sunrise. Steve set the pace on the way up, both in terms of our walking speed but also in conversation, as we debated the definition of G.O.A.T. in pop culture and sports (one of my favorite topics). Obligatory croissants and café-au-lait followed at the boulangerie on the way down, followed by mandatory naps back on the boat prior to us getting ready to sail the 15-odd miles upwind to Marie Galante.

A fun part of these cruising trips is how the crew get to know the boat so much better during the starting and stopping, from flaking the giant mainsail to rigging and de-rigging the dinghy and helming, trimming, tacking, and gybing. Linda had the privilege of helming us out of Barbados on that first sail, while Autumn took us out to sea today from Les Saintes, and everyone got a turn upwind helming today and sailing to the telltales. We dropped the hook in 18 feet of water and as I write, Shyah is whipping up a curry in the galley while the rest of the gang just finished the Mt. Gay and cracked open the bottle of Captain Morgan that was given to us by the family whose boat we rescued last week in Barbados (see Instagram, it’s a wild story). The sun just set so I’m no longer sweaty and feeling less and less jealous of ISBJØRN by the minute. But man, am I proud of what we’ve built here in 59º North, where it’s even possible to have two boats sailing in these two different parts of the world… pretty cool.

// Andy