Moving north up the west coast of Martinique we pull into St Pierre to anchor under the dominant Mount Pelee. As we manoeuvre into a spot south of the town we spot our friends Jamie and Lucy Bamboozle. They're heading south, arrived half an hour ago. We're heading north and a happy chance puts us in the same bay. We go over for sundowners and a catch up.
St Pierre bay isn't a great anchorage. at least not for the days we were there. To the south of the town there's a 6 to 10m plateau to hook into with depths falling off rapidly. There are mooring balls in front of the town – not sure how strong they look – one sad boat's mooring broke and we watched helplessly as it was stranded on the beach, bashed by the waves which brought down the mast.
The wind and tides work at odds, the mountains cause back winding meaning we drift and pivot around our anchor chains at odds with our neighbouring boats. You need to leave much bigger gaps between boats. And then there is the rolling! While we there the swell was wrapping around the island and coming in from the north west while we sat to a deflected north east wind. It was uncomfortable and we had to wait for the wind to shift from NE to E to allow us to make the angle north to Dominica. We checked out as soon as possible.
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