Ile Fourchue 3-28

We had a very pleasant night at Tintamarre, with little rocking from the swells. The girl doing yoga on the next boat inspires us to exercise, so we do our laps around the boat.  By 10am we are off the ball and start sailing the roughly 12 miles to our first stop of Ile Fourchue. The wind is, of course, right on the nose, but the waves are down and with full sail we are doing 7.5-8 knots, making 3 tacks to reach the island. We put out lucky louie and also rig a second line to double our chances. We don’t have a second snubber, so I just hold this one. It had only been out for a couple of minutes when I felt a strike, and saw a flash of white back at the bait. But it didn’t take the hook. This stretch is known as the ‘Marlin Hi-way’. Commercial fishing is not allowed, and the water is full of swordfish for sport fishing. We don’t really want to catch anything that big, but it would be fun to see. unfortunately, a second day with no fish. We read about a fishing store in St. Barts where the brothers that run the place are happy to give advice and sell the prefered bait for the area. That place is on our list of to-do’s!
Ile Fourchue is horseshoe shaped with a very protected bay, and steep peaks all around. We enter just before 1:00 and grab a mooring ball to cook lunch.  We are close enough to the edge to just swim over to the reef for a snorkel. Just before getting our gear out I spy a HUGE barracuda lurking behind the boat. Luckily its gone by the time the kids come up to get their fins on. The water is not as clear as we are used to, and its difficult to see the bottom in only 18 feet of water. At first its a bit disappointing, with poor visibility and not much in the way of a reef, be eventually we make it to a nice spot with lots of coral and small fish. We swim back to the boat and put our tenderloin on the grill, and the kids are bugging us to go to shore and hike. There is no way to beach the dinghy on the rocky shore, but we think there’s no harm in dropping them off while we cook our lunch. The waves are breaking on shore, and the dinghy spins around on me, but we manage to kids the kids out (with wet feed). By the time I am back on the boat we look up on shore and to our shock see that the kids are halfway up the steep peak. We never thought they would go beyond the low lying hills. Decide that this could turn out to be one of the worst parenting decisions we’ve made in a while, so I have Tracy drop me off at the beach so I can climb up and ‘rescue’ them. It turns out they are both fine, and the climb, while steep is not that challenging. Both want to continue up to the top, so….. There are some steep sections at the top with slick rock, and it starts raining while we are up there. Noah has already reached to the top, but Delaina and I have to stop just below the final rock because of the rain. The rain only lasts a few minutes, but its time to head back down. Its too bad I forgot the camera, because the view from here is truly amazing. We are able to see all of St. Barts, Saba, Statia, and St. Kitts. The bay that we are heading to for the night – Anse de Columbier – looks extremely crowded and I’m anxious to get there before its too late. Tracy comes in and picks us up from the shore and we quickly head out towards our next stop. Its only 2 1/2 miles away, so we just motor over. This is another ‘U’ shaped bay with lots of moorings and limited room for anchoring. We are about to try anchoring in a tight space, when we luckily spot a boat leaving a ball. We head over and grab it just before another boat approaches. Its good to be us. Finally we get to have our much needed Gin and Tonics, and actually get to eat the tenderloin we started cooking in the last bay. The moon is almost full tonite, and the entire bay is lit up. (of course none of can stay awake much past 9:00)