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Since we would encourage everybody cruising the Caribbean to visit this delightful place at least once, here are some practical tips that are current as of the beginning of 2023.

The red outlined areas on the charts are places with moorings, and anchoring is not allowed. The green area is where anchoring is permitted. More of the deep water in the harbor is also available for anchoring, if you are good with anchoring in 40 to 60 feet (12 to 20m).

The largest mooring field is the most convenient to town, but none of them are too far to ride in a dinghy. During busy holiday weeks with lots of charter boat activity, the main mooring field fills up rather quickly. It can be rolly, both with waves wrapping in and with the frequent ferries, the more remote fields are quieter.

The moorings are of a type we have seen around several of the islands, and they cause a lot of trouble for people who don’t know how to use them.

This is the mooring ball, and the way a lot of people tie to it. Do NOT do it this way.

First Problem: This skipper has put a line from one cleat on the boat straight through the steel ring, and back to the boat. This is a disaster ready to happen. As the boat swings back and forth in the wind and waves, the line will rub on the ring, chafing through and setting the boat adrift, much more quickly that you might expect. Solution: Tie a separate line to each side of the boat, and attach to the ring using a round turn, and a bowline. Yes, a bit harder to execute, and more of a pain when you leave, but infinitely more secure.

Second Problem: When the wind dies, as it does most nights after midnight, the buoy will drift along the boat’s hull. That big steel ring will scratch up the boat’s hull. Not a disaster, but aggravating for sure. Solution: Pull TIGHT on the ring. The ring is actually not attached to the float, but passes through it straight down to the anchor. If you pull the lines very tight, the ring will pull up, and now the boat can not drift into it in light and shifty winds. Almost nobody seems to understand that this is how these are supposed to work.

On a boat with freeboard too high for crew to reach the ring, there are two approaches that work. First, do not put the bow of the boat along side the ball, and hope your crew can get the line through–somehow. Instead, put the crew on the swim platform on the stern and BACK to the buoy. Now the ring is an easy reach. Pull the lines around to the bow, and all those people who were watching your approach in the anchorage and wondering what the heck you were doing, will see what a brilliant sailor you are! Second approach: Have a small line of about 2 fathoms in length with a monkey’s fist in the end. Throw the monkey’s fist through the ring, snag it with the boat hook, and use the light line to pull your main mooring line on through. Very salty.

If you are coming from somewhere other than Guadeloupe, you’ll need to clear customs here. Like on all the French islands, you find the customs computer, and “do-it-yourself.” Here the computer is located at Les Saintes Multiservices, located on the 2nd floor in the building just south of the ferry landing. There is no sign, you just have to know.

Of course you could also come over from Guadeloupe by ferry. There are at least two boats each making three round tips a day.

Finally, for my pilot friends, there is an airport, but no scheduled service. I am not knowledgable enough to understand for sure how complex the approach is. Here is a picture looking straight downwind. Obviously, a straight on approach isn’t possible. In the week we have been here, I have seen one plane come in, and he obviously had several turns to make during his final approach to make his way between the hills.

One of the fun things I get to do is work with people who are new to Amels. Sometimes it is their first “big” boat. I have been there, and I know the complexities can seem overwhelming. I try hard to break it down into digestible pieces. Watching new owners fully realize the robust, safe nature of these boats, that frequently sail way better than they might expect, is a pleasure. Frequently, my introduction to new Amel owners comes when they need a Delivery Captain to help them move their boat.

When you are contracted to do a delivery, it is always a crapshoot. You are taking a boat you have no personal knowledge of on a long trip, maybe over a thousand miles. Sometimes things go very well, sometimes they can go very badly. Every delivery skipper has horror stories about the boat that wasn’t ready, and/or the owner who was a jerk. This delivery was neither of these. The owners were delightful people. The boat wasn’t perfect (none ever are) but well within the range of control of the people involved. It was as good as can be expected.

With “typical” weather, a trip from Panama to Corpus Christi, Texas should take about 14 days. We finished this one in 10. If I was to sit down and write a weather forecast that was as perfect for this trip as possible, what we experienced was quite close to that. The only drama was around the charging of the batteries.

Everything was nominal–until we were about 30 hours away from Corpus Christi. At that point the belt that drives the 24 Volt alternator on the main drive engine had a “spontaneous disassembly event”. Not a big deal, we have spare belts. The owner digs them up from his parts bin, and says, “It’s one of these.” Except it is not. A bit of checking, and it turns out he did a very reasonable thing: He asked a parts supplier for all of the belts used on this model of Volvo engine. He didn’t realize that the 24 Volt alternator was an add-on by Amel, and doesn’t show up on any of the Volvo parts lists. Oh well, this isn’t a huge problem, we can still charge the batteries with the generator–as we have for the past 9 days.

HA! King Neptune decided to have a bit of fun at our expense, and sent his boat gremlins our way. The next morning, we started the generator (which is brand new, and has less than 10 hours on it) starts, and runs for a few seconds, and then shuts down.  Another try, and the same thing. A bit of diagnosis, and the issue is clear. The brand new generator has a problem with its speed control. If the speed is not within fairly narrow parameters, the controller shuts the engine down. This is a problem with a solution beyond the means of a boat out on the ocean, so we switch to “low power mode” for the boat, shutting down everything not essential for navigation. With only a day’s sailing left, it doesn’t really matter if the food in the freezer thaws. The instrumentation suggests that we have enough residual energy in the batteries to get to our destination, and we do. We even have enough battery juice to use the bow thruster to get into the slip.

In some ways, we were lucky. If this had happened at the halfway point of the trip, we would have had a much more complicated situation. As it is, the owner has a warrantee claim with the generator manufacturer.

I am now back on Harmonie in Martinique. In a few days, we will be untying dock lines here, and sailing north. Our exact itinerary is still being worked on. Stay tuned.

If fast is fun, we are having a ball! With 17 to 20 knots of wind on the beam, we are barreling through the water at 9 to over 10 knots.

Skies are clear, with a bright moon. The sea is quite flat. Our only visible company is a large cruise ship heading back to Houston after her visit to Cancun. We are off the tip of the Yucatan peninsula and have just crossed that imaginary line from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico. From here it’s about 680 miles to our destination in Corpus Christi.

A few minor issues have come up typical of a boat sailing after too long idle, but they have all been handled. Our weather forecast continues to look promising, so life is good!

The delivery of this Amel Super Maramu continues to go well. A few teething problems, but a lot less than you might expect from a boat that has been docked for five years. The new owners did a great job in the last year fixing things that needed to be fixed.

Our trip so far has been just about perfect. A few rain squalls, but mostly we have been on a calm sea, on a close or beam reach sailing fast. Right now we are in 11 knots of true wind, on a close reach, covering ground at about 7 knots. Smooth and easy sailing. We have about a week before we expect to arrive at Corpus Christi, and the weather forecast continues to look pretty darn nice.

Today we had to do a fair bit of dodging boats hauling lobster pots on the banks off of Honduras. We are now in deeper water, so are not likely to come across any more. We were also entertained by shearwaters who followed the boat all day feasting off the many flying fish the boat flushes into the air.

The delivery process so far has been smooth. Travel to the Islands of Panama went smoothly, and without a hitch. We got underway pretty much right on schedule after filling the tanks with water and fuel.

As is normally expected, winds are uncooperative getting away from the coast of Panama, so we motored for the first 30 hours. But now, the wind has filled in as expected, then boat has kicked up her heels under sail, and we are making good time at almost 8 knots. The forecast is for more of this, almost all the way to Texas. It is fun watching the boat’s new owner’s excitement as they finally get to experience their first real opportunity to sail her as she was meant to.

The boat is doing well. A few minor glitches, but considering the time she spent as a dock queen, she’s doing great.

It’s still avian migration season as birds move from North American south. We had at least three small land bird circle us this afternoon trying to decide if we would make a good place for a break. One warbler has tucked itself snuggly under the dodger for the night.

We are now navigating the shoals off of eastern Nicaragua, our next waypoint is between Yucatan and the western most point of Cuba, and then pretty much a straight shot to Corpus Christi, Texas. Another 10 or 12 days, and we’ll be there.

I (Bill) am off on a long delivery of an Amel Super Maramu. The boat is currently in Bocas del Toro, Panama and it will end up in Corpus Christi, Texas, about a fortnight’s sail.

Of course, I am not in Panama, so the trip starts with a flight from Martinique to Bridgetown, Barbados, from Bridgetown a flight to Panama City, and finally from Panama City to Bocas del Toro on Panama’s northeast coast. Arriving about 30 hours after I start.

Today is Friday: If all is in order I should be on my way with the boat’s new owners out of Panama today, or tomorrow.

The weather looks good, at least for the length of forecast I can count on, although the Gulf of Mexico can be a fickle place. Sometimes not enough wind, sometimes too much. We are past the season for tropical storms to be a likely threat, and hopefully just a bit early to need to deal with a strong cold front barreling down from the north.

I will have our Iridium GO with us, so Harmonie’s normal tracking page will be updated with the progress of the delivery.

In the meantime, Karen will be holding down the fort in Martinique. Once I get done with this trip and get back to Harmonie, hopefully we’ll be out cruising on our own schedule away from marinas for a while. It is definitely past time for us to be in places that are less “people-y” for a while.