If it wasn’t so warm, I’d say I am back on the Baltic Sea where, as a teenager, I fell in love with sailing. The sky is gray and scary-looking, with low clouds and the line between dark sky and dark sea almost indistinguishable. Wind is howling and blowing spray off the tops of waves. Is this really the Caribbean?

The weather has been a bit off for a few days now. Much more rain than I have experienced at any point during my trip so far and the wind has steadily been building. Since our arrival in Dominica we’ve had quite some precipitation and the forecasts are mixed and hard to make sense of.

This morning as we clear the boat for making the passage back down to Martinique, I check the current weather and find a large field of squalls moving toward us and our intended path.

The predicted wind is 20-22kn with gusts up to 25-28kn. Fresh but doable. But squalls can pack a good extra punch of wind. Shall we still go? We decide yes. Anika has turned into quite the intrepid sailor and says “I just hope I won’t be disappointed: I want wind and rain out there!” She has clearly been living in the Netherlands for too long.

By 9a we are on our way and initially in benign conditions in lee of Dominica’s southern extremities. But as soon as we poke our nose out beyond, the wind builds; from 15 to 20 and quickly to 25kn. We start reefing the main, first a bit and then some more. The squalls on the doppler radar picture above hit us in quick succession. First fresh but dry conditions with a dark wall forming to the east. Then the rain starts and with it the wind picks up. 25, 30, 35kn and in gusts we see 40-45kn routinely. We reef more, even the small staysail (the genoa is taking a rest day today) is partially furled. Then the sky to the east lightens up a bit and after 20-30 minutes the rain dissipates and wind drops back down to 20-25kn. We unfurl the staysail and increase the size of the main a bit. For a little while until the next dark wall forms in the east and the process repeats itself. We reef and un-reef at least 4-5 times.

And we get really wet. For the first time we both wear rain jackets under our life vests. With rain and wind it is actually a bit chilly after a while. But thankfully the big 2-3m waves crashing into JACE’s side send plenty of spray across the boat and shower us in the cockpit. Why thankfully? Why, the spray is warm!

We take turns helming her, in these conditions the autopilot is not the best method. Plus it is outright fun steering and trying to “take the waves” as best as possible. We have a lot of fun with it and keep laughing uncontrollably at the situation. Wet to the bones, pelted by rain and showered by spray, holding on to rocking and rolling JACE. Not the image of the Caribbean pleasure cruide one might have.

Anika loves it and I love that she does. My sailor girl!

After five hours of this we finally slip into the lee of Martinique and are immediately rewarded by calming sea and wind.

And even the rain finally stops more permanently and for a welcome we are presented with the shallowest rainbow we’ve seen so far. And we had plenty of rainbows this week.

We drop anchor in St. Pierre and take a swim and try to dry our stuff while we air out the boat. What a day; not for everyone but we strangely enjoyed it. Call us crazy!