Dec 7-8

Fortunately the previous days storms and squalls were the last of the bad weather. We made some decent miles over the final days and as we approached Martinique on the 8th decided to slow down to arrive at the island first thing in the morning. Unfortunately the sailing was too good and we were all too excited to slow so we pressed on under parasailor through the evening averaging around 6K. The lights of Martinique were appearing at around 2200 and we decided to continue and anchor outside he harbour so we didn't have to deal with the channel navigation and mooring in the dark. We negotiated our way along about 1M from the shore, dodging the numerous fish pots and shoal areas. It was strange and a little worrying to be back in less than 10m of water after spending 3 weeks in thousands of meters depths, but we slowly moved toward the anchorage, escorted by a lot of trumpet fish jumping across the bows. We dropped anchor at around 0300 on Dec 9 off Saint Anne beach and turned off the nav equipment for the first time in 3 weeks. No champagne on board so it was a small whiskey celebration as we relaxed and congratulated each other on a very successful passage. I had estimated around 22 days for the crossing and we arrived at around 22 1/2. The passage could have been faster had we pushed Sephina and ourselves a little bit harder, but all in all I was happy to have had a relaxed and safe crossing with no injuries or damage to Sephina.