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| Bluff on one end of the Pain de Sucre anchorage |
Les Saintes (“The Saints”) is a small archipelago off the South end of Guadeloupe. Also a part of the French territories it is considered to be a part of Guadeloupe. Clearing customs into Guadeloupe also clears you into the Saints, and you can clear out of France from the Saints. Of course, customs here is in an internet cafe rather than a cute gift shop, but it is all typically French in it’s casual approach. No one even looks at your paper work. Which is slightly unfortunate, when we got new passports before we left we ordered the optional extra thick book to accommodate all the places we’d be sailing. But the French never stamp anything, so we’ve got no visa stamps to commemorate some of our favorite places!
Our visit to Les Saintes quickly became a visit about friends. As we approached the harbor we were hailed by our friends from Daydreamer, another American family boat that we’d met up with in St. Martin. They have three girls, the oldest being a little older than Danielle, and in St. Martin trips to the beach with Daydreamer became regular occurrences. Daydreamer also tipped us off that our sister ship Infinity was in port.
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| Evenstar and sister ship Infinity |
We first met Infinity in Tortola, where we sail them heading in to Road Town when we were sailing there. There were only eighty-eight of the Hallberg-Rassy 53 built, so when we see a sister ship you rarely let it pass without at least saying hello. Infinity is a British family boat, with three girls on board as well, though a bit younger than our children. They were coming to Road Town to sort some things out with their boat, and we were headed in to provision and pick some things up. We’ve shared harbors with them a few times since (Virgin Gorda, St. Martin) , but every time we crossed paths with Infinity since then one or the other of us was headed someplace else or trying to get some work done so we’ve not been able to connect.
Daydreamer was anchored behind a point called Pain de Sucre, a protected but deep cove a mile or so from the main town of Terre-de-Haut. We decided we’d try to anchor near town, shorter dinghy rides are always nicer if you are planning to go to town. We saw Infinity anchored and dropped our hook up next to her, the anchor caught firmly on the first try and we started settling in. Easy. Too easy. Within a few minutes of anchoring we heard a knock on the hull, it was the local gendarmes telling us we were anchored in a prohibited area and needed to be behind some yellow buoys. Since it was getting late we decided to go join Daydreamer over in Pain de Sucre – our friends from Infinity weren’t on the boat to get the boot, but we figured they’d follow us eventually when the gendarmes (or more accurately the Douanes, which is more like French marine police) caught up with them.
We’ve been anchored almost every day since last June, we’ve anchored in a lot of different places. Suffice it to say that we’re getting better and better at it. It took us about four tries to find a spot and stick to it which is unusual. Several problems – the water was deep and the bottom profile steep, and in one place we dropped and stuck we were concerned that we were so close to land that if the wind swung around 180 degrees we’d be resting almost on the shore. Suffice it to say, we found even with a large modern anchor design it was a tricky spot to anchor…this is important to know for later. Foreshadowing extra: a lot of charter boats come in and out of this harbor every day.
So we finally got ourselves settled in behind a charter boat full of of middle aged Speedo wielding Frenchmen and were shortly joined by Infinity. The next few days were a blend of socializing, school, and checking out the islands.
Terre-de-Haut is a charming little town, with a few markets and a number of nice looking restaurants. And the all important Boulangerie (French Bakery!) for baguettes and the occasional pastry. Les Saintes gets much of its tourist custom via ferries from Guadeloupe so the center of town, while not as garish and built up as a cruise ship port, did have a number of charming shops and eateries at the center near the ferry piers.
Excitement
One afternoon while we were on the boat and Will was off exploring with the Pudgy, Kathy and I were preparing to head in to town to pick a few things up at one of the markets. As we were getting ready to leave our friend Neil from Infinity pulled up in his dinghy and told us “You’d better have a look at this, this boat has been dragging through the whole anchorage trying to set the anchor and I think they might have pulled up someone’s chain.”
Turns out, it was our chain they’d trawled up.
Most serious cruisers use only chain for their anchor rode ( the line/chain to connect their anchor to the boats). The reasons for this become clear the first time you spend time anchoring with an all chain rode instead of a rope/chain mix. The extra weight holds much better and you can put less of it out for the same holding power, and there’s no risk of chafe from sharp things on the bottom like rock and coral. And of course the all chain rode is much better to have when some idiot in a charter boat runs over your freakin’ rode with both of his propellers running on high RPMs.
Somehow this French couple in a 47’ charter catamaran named Good Times had caught our anchor rode with their anchor. As Neil noted they had set their anchor WAY upwind of us and had dragged it through a large part of the anchorage trying to get it to catch on the bottom. Not the recommended approach when there are a lot of other boats with anchor rodes spread out on the bottom. Instead of the bottom, they caught on our rode. When I came up to look they had hauled their anchor up and had somehow managed to pull it taught from our bow right across the surface to under their boat where the chain was caught – probably on one of their underwater protrusions.
Now, if I have something like a taught length of 7/16” chain caught under my boat my first reaction is NOT to slam down the throttles. In spite of my yells of “ARRETEZ! ARRETEZ!” this guy figured that was the best thing to do – push the boat forward and over my chain, running over it with both of his propellers. It made a trully impressive noise and both boats did a bit of jerking around. It was clear this fellow did not speak English, whether he was deaf, stupid, or just incompetent remained to be determined but never once throughout this process did he or his partner acknowledge anything I said in French or English, though think some of my arm waving might have sunk in eventually.
At the start of this he was hooked onto my chain to the starboard side of my bow. Then he proceeded to run over it, heading across my bow from right to left. For some reason, he decided that he needed to circle around my stern. Common sense might tell one that wrapping the anchor around under another boat might be a completely idiotic thing to do, but clearly common sense had departed Good Times some time ago. The risks to my boat doing this were pretty large: he could further entangle and foul the anchors and cause me to drag which would be a horror show with two boats tangle together, he could run his chain across the bottom of my boat damaging my propeller, rudder, and so on – it’s not a smart thing to do. This did not stop Capitaine Sans-a-clue, around the stern he went dragging us into shallow water and closer to shore. We got lucky though, his chain wasn’t pulled taught so it was deep enough not to touch my boat.
Experience with my ground tackle has taught me that it is tough, it can hold a lot of weight. We had four boats rafted to us the first time we used the new anchor, and rode out the night with twenty knots of wind and more than 200,000 lbs of weight on our hook. So when this guy was dragging us around what he was really doing was dragging our slack chain, I hoped he had not dislodged our anchor. So long as our anchor was still buried in the bottom we should be able to hold him, but if he’d hooked our anchor and pulled it out of the bottom we could drag. But it is tough to tell when you are being dragged around the anchorage which is really happening, and our anchor drag alarm was shrieking at us since we’d been moved quite a bit. By this time also we had three of us up on deck with fenders, because with all of his maneuvering the other boat had made some scary-close passes to our hull and we did not want to get damaged. For him it’s a charter boat – if he breaks it he flies home with a short vacation and a bill for the deductable. For me it’s my home, if I need to get major repairs done it’s a major problem!
Some time after had moved around to my aft starboard quarter, her captain decided that he should unwind his trip around my boat. It was then that I noticed that he’d been pulling so hard on my chain that he’d managed to slide his anchor up to the point where I could clearly see it under water – and he was NOT tangled with me, just hooked over the chain. I looked back though and saw him revving his engines up for a pass back around my stern to drag his now-taught rode under my boat for another pass. I could see his partner pointing down in the water below their boat, as if she thought she could see the anchor, I couldn’t tell. But I could and knew where it was – off my bow about ten feet under water. Again I tried communicating, yelling in my best French (which I admit is not terribly good, especially when bellowed with adrenaline enhancement) “Je peut voir votre anchor! C’est ici! (pointing) ICI! (pointing more expressively) Non! Arretez! Arretez!” (I can see your anchor! It is here! HERE! No! Stop! STOP!) and so on. Finally, eventually, and just before he went roaring off back around my boat again I think the message got through to one of them and he slowed down and started taking up chain. Coming closer and close to us, of course.
Fortunately another French sailor (apparently WITH a clue) came over to help. He didn’t say much to me but starting talking to Good Times, getting them to slow down, calm down, and try to tie up their anchor at the water level where it now could be reached. Of course it is still heavy, and hooked over my very taught chain and hard to budge. But taking the tension off the anchor would allow it to slide back down my chain. With a gradual process of pulling in their chain and again moving scary-close to us the anchor could finally be positioned close enough to the surface, right under my bow, for someone to reach it. From our deck I tried to knock it off with the boat hook, but fortunately the helpful fellow in the dinghy came up and wrestled it off. End of adventure.
If it were me tangling up another boat with my anchor and generally making a mess of it I would have eaten some crow and dropped by with a bottle of wine and an apology for almost causing thousands of dollars of damage through my mistakes. Fortunately, I think the abundance of caution I tend to use when close to other boats has paid off to date – I’ve not had to swallow my pride like that yet. Of course, neither did Captain Clueless – when clear of us they motored off to another part of the anchorage and set again and we never saw them after that. Our thought was to be thankful that this hadn’t happened 5 or 10 minutes later, when we would have been off shopping with only Danielle on board by herself to deal with this trauma! Or worse, with no one on board to witness had there been any damage.
Friends
As nice as we found Les Saintes to be, I think the best part was still connection with some other great cruisers. We shared some cocktails and swapped Hallberg-Rassy stories with Infinity – always and educational and amusing experience to talk to a sister ship owner and bond how they deal with the same things that sometimes give us fits. Our last night in Les Saintes we met for a nice evening with all three boats, and bid a fond farewell to each other with hopes that we could all cross paths and share an anchorage again some time in the future.
