Martinique Passage

The Martinique Passage is the 25-nautical mile strait that separates Dominica from Martinique. The day we jumped between the two islands the forecast for open waters in the region was 15-20 knots of wind and 8-10ft (2.5-3m) waves. When the wind passes between tall masses of land it gets funneled. And if you add to that a bit of inaccuracy in the forecast, you may end up with the 25-30 knots of winds and the huge 20-25ft (6-7.5m) waves we faced, coming about 60° off our nose.

The word “brutal” comes to mind, but then again, it can get much, much worse during a storm, and I don’t want to run out of adjectives too soon. And, while it was shaky, noisy and wet, it wasn’t unsafe. Of course, if anything goes wrong in those conditions, even something that’s just as a minor inconvenience in calmer waters, things can quickly cascade into something catastrophic. But all that wind at least had us moving fast, and it took us less than three hours to get to the lee of Martinique, unscathed.

Oliver may have a less cheerful perspective of that passage. He was scared an seasick. Yet, nature called, and if you gotta go, you gotta go. The problem was that he was clearly in a hurry, so he left the litter box when he wasn’t really finished (and I’m not talking about emptying the bladder here). I was going to say that he cut the errand short, but if there’s something he didn’t do was to cut anything. The sight wasn’t pretty. The solution, even less.

I think Oliver was so happy to be back at anchor that day that he performed his evening ritual—a tour to the outside world around the cockpit enclosure—twice. He always goes counterclockwise, though; I guess he’s not ready for that much innovation yet.