We by-passed Dominica once again and did the trip to St Pierre in one hop. On the way, we saw a pod of whales spouting in between us and the island which was nice to see, and we were rewarded with two deep dive exhibitions of tail flukes which was a real bonus.
Arriving at St Pierre we managed to get an anchoring spot and settled down for the night under the shadow of the volcano. Apart from the noisy charter boat next to us that turned into a disco at 1am, we had a reasonable night, if a little bit rolly (Debra decamped once again to an aft cabin which is more stable) and by morning the wind had dropped opped to nothing. It didn't appear that we would be sailing much.
We set off and as we rounded the coast heading south, the winds picked up and we switched off the engine and sailed sedately down the island. On the way there were a couple of rain showers and a double rainbow which stayed visible for a good half hour.
After that, things got a bit livelier. We crossed the bay by Fort we France and were hit by a 50 knot squall that came out of nowhere and almost put us on our beam. We managed to round up and face into the wind and hold the boat there until the worst of the storm passed, then continue on. We were both drenched in the storm, not having had any time to think about wet weather gear, but we soon dried out again. Fortunately, we were well reefed down with small sails, otherwise we would have been in a much worse situation. Once again, the forecasters got the weather at by, both in terms of the strength and direction of the wind. Why we bother looking at these websites is beyond me.
We continued on to St Anne to the anchorage here. Hundreds of boats all around us, but the anchorage is huge so we have plenty of space around us. We will be re-provisioning here with French wines, cheeses and meats to cater for our next guests, although we might enjoy some of these delicacies ourselves. Other than that, we will ride out the high winds here, knowing we are secured to the seabed.