Skipper's brief — Lesser Antilles, 27 March

01 · Constraints

The six handover dates do not move, and the arrival day is not a passage day

Six people hold flights into and out of each handover airport, on 27 March, 3, 7, 13, 16 and 25 April and 1 May. Weather can reorder a leg internally; it cannot push into the next one. The reserve days that would absorb a north-swell delay on a continuous five-week charter do not exist in the same form here: each leg has to absorb its own weather and still arrive.

Two rules follow from that. First, be within a comfortable day of the handover port the evening before the handover, and treat that day as the one the boat arrives, clears in, fuels and waters — not the handover day itself. Second, take the fragile stops early in their leg, so that a closed anchorage costs a stop rather than a flight.

The legs are not equal, and the slack is not spread evenly. Leg 5 has nine days for 184 nm and is where the reserve lives. Leg 2 has four days for 157 nm to windward and leg 4 has three days for 80 nm across the Montserrat gap: neither has a spare day in it, and on both the boat should be alongside at the handover port the night before. Leg 6 carries 269 nm in six days that also have to hold Saint-Martin and Anguilla.

Easter is the first weekend. Easter Sunday 2027 falls on 28 March, day two. Good Friday 26 March is the day most of the crew fly in and Easter Monday 29 March closes customs, chandleries and supermarkets across the French islands, the OECS and the Dutch islands alike. Provision in Le Marin on Saturday 27 March, before boarding, or on Thursday 25th; nothing worth buying is open on the Friday or the Monday. The Grenadines are also at their fullest of the year that week: the Tobago Cays park moorings will be gone by early afternoon and Bequia and Mustique will be busy.

Fragile stops, and when to take them

Stop	Leg	Why it is fragile	Sequencing rule
Saba	5	No anchoring except on clear sand in two designated zones; eight yacht buoys on the west side, untenable in any north swell; no landing anywhere but Fort Bay. The most weather-dependent stop of the trip.	Around Tuesday 20 April, mid-leg. Have a live fallback (straight to St Barth or Sint Maarten) and decide on the forecast, not on arrival. Call the harbour office the day before. Leg 5 has the days to wait a swell out; nothing else does.
Sint Eustatius	5	Open roadstead at Oranjestad, rolly in north swell; mooring buoys only.	Pair with Saba on 19–20 April. Either can be dropped without touching the 25 April handover.
Barbuda	5	Low-lying, unlit, reef-strewn approaches that need sun overhead and settled conditions. Low Bay is open to the west and north.	17–18 April, the first two days of leg 5, in good light, or not at all. Never an end-of-leg improvisation.
Montserrat	4	Exposed western anchorage at Little Bay; a passenger visa dependency for some passports; the exclusion-zone tour must be pre-booked.	Wednesday 14 April. Leg 4 is three days long, so there is exactly one day for Montserrat and one for the run to Antigua. If the swell is up at Little Bay, see the exclusion zone from the water and carry on.
Tobago Cays	1	Reef anchorage that needs light to enter; the park's moorings are for boats up to about 60 ft but fill by early afternoon.	Thursday 1 April, daylight arrival by 14:00 — and the moorings will already be taken in Easter week, so arrive earlier or plan to anchor outside on sand.
Anguilla	6	Not fragile at sea, but expensive and permit-bound; and it is the last stop before a 258-mile passage that itself needs a weather window.	Monday 26 April, Tuesday 27th at the latest. Leave Anguilla on the forecast with a Friday 30 April arrival at Le Marin in mind: 1 May is a French public holiday and the clearance has to be done on the Friday.

Clearance is a scheduling constraint, not a formality. The vessel must be cleared into the handover country before departing crew can legally fly out, and arriving crew must be on the crew list before the boat sails. Grenada and Antigua are the two desks that bite: both keep office hours, both charge overtime outside them, and Antigua's is slow on a good day. Clearance on the day before the handover is a hard requirement at every changeover.

02 · The boat

Lagoon 43, in numbers

Builder's figures for the 2024 model (VPLP, Le Quément, Nauta), four-cabin, four-head charter layout with four equal double berths. Check the actual hull's water tankage, watermaker, generator, davits and safety inventory at handover; the reviews disagree with the builder on more than one number and a charter spec differs from a test boat.

LengthLOA 13.85 m (45 ft 5 in); hull 12.82 m (42 ft 1 in). Marinas price by LOA and most add 50–100% for a multihull: a 46 ft cat pays like a 70-footer.
Beam7.69 m (25 ft 3 in). The number that decides berths; the reserve buoys are decided by weight, and the loaded boat exceeds Saint-Martin's 15 t buoys (Saba's yellow buoys take 50 t).
Draft1.31 m. Nothing on the route is depth-limited for us except the Rivière Salée (not used) and reef anchorages by eye.
Air draftBuilder 21.31 m; three magazine tests 19.94 m. Both bridges on the route (Simpson Bay, Sandy Ground) are bascule, so height is not a constraint; use 21.3 m if it ever is.
Displacement13.9 t light; loaded with ten people, full tanks and five weeks of stores, expect 16–17 t. CE category A: 12 persons.
Engines2 × 57 hp Yanmar 4JH57 on saildrives, the only package offered. 7.1 kn at 2,200 rpm, 8.7 kn flat out. No official consumption figure; one test measured about 10 l/h for the pair at 6 knots and 2,100 rpm. Plan on 9–10 l/h and read the gauge on the first motoring leg before treating 570 l as a passage reserve.
Fuel570 l in two tanks: about 60 hours or 400 nm under power with no reserve. Fill at every changeover, and at the French ports regardless of level, where diesel is cheapest.
WaterBuilder 630 l; one test boat carried 300 l. With ten aboard 630 l is two days without a watermaker. Confirm the watermaker and its output at handover; it decides how often the boat goes alongside for water.
Holding tanksAbout 80 l per head. With ten aboard a tank fills in a day: valves to tank in every park and enclosed bay, discharge only more than 3 nm offshore.
RigMainsail 60 m² (square-top 68), overlapping furling genoa 37 m², Code 0 option 71–73 m². Tacks through about 100° in a breeze. Realistic passage averages: 6.5–7.5 kn reaching, 5–6 kn VMG to windward.
PowerStandard batteries 3 × 95 Ah plus 2 × 50 Ah; lithium, twin alternators and 400–640 W solar are the optional package; a generator is an option, not standard. Starlink and ten phones make this worth knowing before the first night at anchor.

03 · Calendar

Thirty-five days at a glance

Handover days are shaded — and only the first and the last are Saturdays, so the grid below runs by calendar week, not by leg. Public holidays that close customs desks are marked. Easter takes the first three days: Good Friday 26 March, Easter Sunday the 28th, Easter Monday the 29th, when nothing official opens anywhere on the route. Moon and daylight figures are in section 7.

Week	Sat	Sun	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri
1 Le Marin, the Grenadines, Grenada	Sat 27 Mar · board Le Marin 17:00 · Easter Saturday	Sun 28 Mar · Martinique west coast · Easter Sunday	Mon 29 Mar · night passage to Bequia, leave after 19:00 · Easter Monday (all)	Tue 30 Mar · Bequia, clear in SVG	Wed 31 Mar · Mustique / Canouan	Thu 1 Apr · Tobago Cays	Fri 2 Apr · Union → Carriacou → St George’s, clear in Grenada
2→3 Grenada back to Martinique, then north	Sat 3 Apr · changeover Port Louis (GND) · Molinière, then north to Carriacou	Sun 4 Apr · Carriacou → Union, clear out GD and in SVG, on to Bequia	Mon 5 Apr · Bequia → St Vincent → Soufrière, clear in St Lucia	Tue 6 Apr · Pitons → Rodney Bay → Le Marin, clear in France, alongside by evening	Wed 7 Apr · changeover Le Marin (FDF) · Saint-Pierre	Thu 8 Apr · Dominica Channel, Roseau, clear in Dominica	Fri 9 Apr · Roseau, whale reserve, north to Portsmouth
3→4 Dominica, Guadeloupe, the volcano gap	Sat 10 Apr · Portsmouth, Indian River, Cabrits	Sun 11 Apr · Les Saintes	Mon 12 Apr · Bas-du-Fort, clear in France, alongside	Tue 13 Apr · changeover Bas-du-Fort (PTP) · Deshaies	Wed 14 Apr · Deshaies → Montserrat, Little Bay	Thu 15 Apr · Montserrat → Antigua, clear in	Fri 16 Apr · changeover Antigua (ANU) · Antigua Classics, English Harbour full
5 The northern Leewards	Sat 17 Apr · Barbuda (light and settled only)	Sun 18 Apr · Barbuda → Nevis, clear in SKN	Mon 19 Apr · St Kitts → Statia, clear in	Tue 20 Apr · Saba (forecast-dependent)	Wed 21 Apr · Saba → St Barth, clear in France	Thu 22 Apr · St Barth, Île Fourchue	Fri 23 Apr · St Barth → Simpson Bay, clear in Sint Maarten, bridge
5→6 Saint-Martin, Anguilla, the passage	Sat 24 Apr · Simpson Bay alongside, fuel, water, laundry	Sun 25 Apr · changeover Simpson Bay (SXM) · Marigot, clear in Saint-Martin	Mon 26 Apr · Anguilla, Road Bay, clear in and buy the permit	Tue 27 Apr · depart on the forecast · King’s Day (SX, Statia, Saba)	Wed 28 Apr · at sea	Thu 29 Apr · at sea, Sainte-Anne by evening if it has run fast	Fri 30 Apr · Le Marin alongside, clear in, hand-back prep
6 Hand-back	Sat 1 May · hand back 11:00, Le Marin · Labour Day (FR): the desk is shut	—	—	—	—	—	—

The day-by-day allocation is a template, not a schedule: the main page tells guests the daily route is set by weather. The shaded handover cells and the arrival day before each of them are the only fixed points. Two of the six handovers fall on the day the boat arrives from the previous leg — Wed 7 April and Fri 16 April — which is why leg 2 and leg 4 have no spare day.

04 · Legs

Legs, hops, courses and distances

Rhumb-line distances and true courses between the anchorages the plan names, computed from chart positions. They are for planning fuel, daylight and watch systems, not for steering: add 10–15% for headlands, and for the hops that sit within 40° of the trade (marked below) either motor-sail or add half again to the distance for tacks. The guest page now carries the same figures.

Leg 1 · 161 nmSat 27 Mar → Sat 3 Apr, 7 days
Le Marin → St George's
One night passage (90 nm)
Hops ↓

Leg 2 · 157 nmSat 3 → Wed 7 Apr, 4 days
St George's → Le Marin
Upwind, current against, no spare day
Hops ↓

Leg 3 · 117 nmWed 7 → Tue 13 Apr, 6 days
Le Marin → Bas-du-Fort
Two 20–35 nm channel crossings
Hops ↓

Leg 4 · 80 nmTue 13 → Fri 16 Apr, 3 days
Bas-du-Fort → English Harbour
Shortest leg; Antigua Classics ashore
Hops ↓

Leg 5 · 184 nmFri 16 → Sun 25 Apr, 9 days
English Harbour → Simpson Bay
Seven stops, two of them fragile; the trip's only slack
Hops ↓

Leg 6 · 269 nmSun 25 Apr → Sat 1 May, 6 days
Simpson Bay → Le Marin
One 258 nm passage, close reach
Hops ↓

Leg 1 · Martinique to Grenada

From	To	nm	Course °T	Note
Le Marin	Petite Anse d'Arlet or Anse Noire	13	279	Shakedown hop round Diamond Rock. Grande Anse d'Arlet and the Bourg are closed to anchoring and their buoys are shut (see Martinique card); Petite Anse or Anse Noire instead, or go on to Saint-Pierre.
Anses d'Arlet	Bequia, Admiralty Bay	90	186	The night passage, beam to broad reach. In 20–25 knots this boat reaches at 8–9 knots, so a 17:00 departure puts you in the Bequia Channel at 03:00–04:00 in the dark with unlit traffic and a west-setting current. Leave 19:00–20:00, or slow down deliberately, so the channel and Admiralty Bay come after 06:30. St Lucia's lee and wind shadow overnight, St Vincent's lee at dawn.
Bequia	Mustique, Britannia Bay	8	159	Compulsory moorings at Mustique.
Mustique	Canouan	14	217	Broad reach.
Canouan	Tobago Cays	5	203	Enter from the north-west with the sun high. Rangers collect fees on the water.
Tobago Cays	Union, Clifton	4	243	Clear out of SVG at Clifton.
Union, Clifton	Carriacou, Tyrrel Bay	9	206	Clear into Grenada at Tyrrel Bay or Hillsborough.
Carriacou	St George's, Port Louis	29	212	Keep outside the Kick 'em Jenny 1.5 km circle, more if the alert is up. Arrive Friday early afternoon.

Leg 2 · Grenada back to Martinique

From	To	nm	Course °T	Note
St George's	Carriacou, Tyrrel Bay	29	032	Close-hauled or motor-sail; a knot of west-going current to allow for.
Carriacou	Union, Chatham Bay	9	016	Clear out of Grenada at Tyrrel Bay/Hillsborough first; clear into SVG at Clifton, then round to Chatham.
Union, Chatham Bay	Bequia	28	027	Via other Grenadines anchorages as the week allows.
Bequia	Wallilabou or Cumberland, St Vincent	15	353	Bequia Channel then St Vincent's lee. Lines ashore in Wallilabou. Read the security note before choosing.
St Vincent	Soufrière, St Lucia	38	018	The St Vincent Channel, close reach. Clear out of SVG at Wallilabou (port of entry) and into St Lucia at Soufrière. Compulsory SMMA moorings.
Soufrière	Rodney Bay	15	025	Lee of St Lucia. Clear out of St Lucia at Rodney Bay.
Rodney Bay	Le Marin	24	012	St Lucia Channel, then the buoyed channel into Cul-de-Sac Marin in daylight only. Clear in on the French terminal.

Leg 3 · Martinique to Guadeloupe by Dominica

From	To	nm	Course °T	Note
Le Marin	Saint-Pierre	24	312	Round Cap Salomon, up the lee. Anchor off the town, not over the 1902 wrecks (protected).
Saint-Pierre	Roseau	36	340	Martinique Channel: lumpy, current setting west. Moorings at Roseau. Clear in at Roseau or go on to Portsmouth.
Roseau	Portsmouth, Prince Rupert Bay	17	346	Dominica's lee, big gusts off the valleys. PAYS moorings and night patrols.
Portsmouth	Les Saintes, Bourg	19	338	Dominica Channel. Compulsory paid moorings at Les Saintes. Clear into France here if possible.
Les Saintes	Bas-du-Fort, Pointe-à-Pitre	21	008	Beat up to the Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin channel; buoyed, well lit, but arrive by day.

Leg 4 · Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Antigua

From	To	nm	Course °T	Note
Bas-du-Fort	Deshaies	16	289	Round Basse-Terre's south tip and up the lee; or stay in Pointe-à-Pitre for Carnival Sunday. Réserve Cousteau on the way: anchor at Malendure, the reserve buoys are for boats under 8 m.
Deshaies	Montserrat, Little Bay	38	321	Guadeloupe Channel. Keep clear of the maritime exclusion zone off Montserrat's south and east; approach from the north-west.
Montserrat	English Harbour	29	065	Nearly dead upwind in a 070–090° trade: motor-sail or a long tack out to sea and back, six to eight hours, not four. Redonda abeam. Clear in at Nelson's Dockyard (SailClear or eSeaClear, whichever is live; paper otherwise).

Leg 5 · Antigua to Sint Maarten

From	To	nm	Course °T	Note
English Harbour	Barbuda, Low Bay	38	351	Leave at first light, arrive before 14:00 with the sun behind you. Eyeball the last miles.
Barbuda	Nevis, Charlestown	53	237	Longest day hop of the trip; broad reach. Compulsory moorings off Pinney's Beach. Clear into St Kitts & Nevis at Charlestown.
Nevis	St Kitts, Basseterre	10	330	The Narrows: shoal, follow the marks. Same country, notify.
Basseterre	Statia, Oranjestad	19	306	Reach. Marine park buoys only.
Statia	Saba, Fort Bay	17	298	Go only on a settled forecast. Moorings at Ladder/Wells Bay, harbour office at Fort Bay.
Saba	Gustavia, St Barth	29	053	Within 20–35° of the trade: a motor-sail, or tacks that add half again to the distance; leave at first light. Port de Gustavia allocates the anchorage.
Gustavia	Simpson Bay	16	299	Downwind. Clear in at Simpson Bay before or after the bridge; fixed bridge times.

Leg 6 · Sint Maarten, Anguilla, home

From	To	nm	Course °T	Note
Simpson Bay	Marigot	≈8	—	Round the west end (2 nm as the pelican flies, about 8 by sea), or through the lagoon and the Sandy Ground bridge. Separate French clearance.
Marigot	Anguilla, Road Bay	8	356	Anguilla Channel, short chop. Clear in at Road Bay and buy the cruising permit before going anywhere else.
Anguilla, Road Bay	Le Marin	258	150	Two nights at sea, 37–45 hours at 6–7 knots. With the trade at 070–090° the true wind is on or just forward of the port beam: a fast, wet beam reach in 2–3 m of Atlantic sea, not a downwind run. Inside the islands you get their lee and wind shadow and a beat out of each one; outside you get the swell and a cleaner wind. No-go: a north swell of 12 s or longer on the beam, or a forecast over 30 knots, with ten aboard and a Saturday 11:00 hand-back is a reason to stay, not to go outside "for cleaner wind". The window is Tuesday 27 to Thursday 29 April, not a reserve: if it closes, the fallback is another night on the Dutch or French side, a marina night at Le Marin lost, and a late hand-back agreed with the base by phone, not a departure into it. The rhumb line itself runs over Montserrat and down the west coast of Dominica, so the real route is waypoints with an offing: outside Montserrat's exclusion zones, then either the lee side of Guadeloupe and Dominica or the Atlantic side, and 258 nm is the lower bound. It crosses French and Antiguan territorial waters; that is innocent passage, but ducking into a lee to rest means clearing in. Arrive at Sainte-Anne by daylight; do not enter Cul-de-Sac Marin at night.

The guest page used to call leg 6 "330 nm downwind"; it now says 269 nm at an average 58° off the wind, with nearly half the days a beat, which is what the ten-year record gives. The rhumb line Road Bay to Le Marin is 258 nm; the 269 is the whole leg including Marigot and Anguilla.

05 · Clearance

Clearing in and out: three systems, one rhythm

Fifteen jurisdictions use three pre-arrival systems. Register the vessel on all three before departure; from then on each arrival is a crew-list amendment, not a new dossier. Filing the notification before sailing from the previous island is the single habit that keeps Friday clearances short.

System	Where	How
French online declaration	Martinique, Guadeloupe and Les Saintes, Saint-Martin, Saint-Barthélemy	Mandatory since 1 September 2024, free, in and out separately: demarches-simplifiees.fr/commencer/declaration-clearance-antilles (cruisers report that a departure within about a week of arrival often needs no separate exit dossier; file it anyway, it takes ten minutes). The attestation carries a digital customs stamp, but the next non-French desk wants it printed and stamped ("visé") at a point agréé; they charge €1–10. After a valid online entry you need not go first to a French port of entry. St Barth also wants its own portal, clairances.portdegustavia.fr, within 24 hours of arrival. No overtime, no Sunday problem: only printing has hours.
SailClear	St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat, St Kitts & Nevis, Saba; Antigua since eSeaClear lapsed. Anguilla is listed but the Road Bay desk does not use it in practice; Sint Maarten and Statia are paper.	sailclear.com, US$25 a year. File the arrival notification before entering territorial waters (St Kitts insists) and present the notification number at the desk. St Kitts & Nevis also wants advance passenger data (the CARICOM eAPIS portal is decommissioned on 30 September 2026 and replaced by CARICOM MDEX) and an eTA per person at knatravelform.kn, US$17. Carry paper crew lists anyway; some desks still want them.
Antigua & Barbuda	eSeaClear, or SailClear, or paper	Antigua ran its own eSeaClear (eseaclear.com) for a decade, but the operator's site says the Government did not renew the licence for the 2025/26 season and the service is suspended. SailClear lists Antigua & Barbuda, and cruisers in 2026 report filing there or on paper. Register on both, file whichever is live in March 2027, and carry five printed crew lists. Clear within 24 hours, captain alone ashore; outward clearance valid 24 hours. Embarkation Sea Port Tax EC$75 per passenger leaving by yacht after more than 24 hours.
Paper at the desk	Sint Maarten, Statia harbour office, Anguilla, and Antigua if neither portal is live	Walk up with the documents below. Sint Maarten's is in the police station by the Simpson Bay bridge; Statia's harbour office works Customs on VHF 14; Anguilla's is at the Road Bay pier, weekdays.

The rhythm, every country

Q flag up on entering territorial waters; straight to a port of entry; usually only the skipper lands, dressed presentably, and everyone else stays aboard until cleared. Some desks want everyone (Montserrat) or the passports in person (St Kitts on a weekend): the island cards say which.
Documents folder: ship's registration, insurance certificate, the charter contract, the skipper's certificates and SRC/CRR, the outward clearance from the last country (every desk asks), passports for everyone, and the crew and passenger list in five printed copies with a black pen. Photograph every receipt the same day.
Clear out the day before an early departure; outward clearance is generally good for 24 hours, in a few places 72. Grenada, Montserrat and Dominica let a short stay clear in and out in one visit.
Overtime in the English-speaking islands runs outside roughly 08:00–16:00 Monday to Friday and all weekend; the French islands have none; the Dutch have limited weekend hours. The desks that bite are Grenada and Antigua, and the Antigua handover is itself a Friday: clear in the day before, and at Antigua allow two hours.
Holidays that close desks in our window, all of them checked against 2027 calendars: Good Friday 26 March and Easter Monday 29 March everywhere on the route, French, Dutch and OECS alike; King's Day Tuesday 27 April on Sint Maarten, Statia and Saba; Carnival Day Friday 30 April on Sint Maarten; Labour Day Saturday 1 May in the French islands and on Sint Maarten — which is the hand-back day, so the outward clearance and the marina paperwork have to be finished on Friday 30 April. Easter Sunday 28 March closes the shops too. Nothing else falls inside the window.

Charter status: settle it with the base before the boat leaves

The ledger has this as a bareboat charter with Ivan as charterer aboard and a skipper engaged by him; the guests are friends who share the cost. Customs desks see two categories, bareboat (guests are crew) and crewed charter (guests are passengers), and several states attach fees to the second: St Lucia sells a SLASPA occasional licence (EC$300 for 41–70 ft), SVG charges a crewed-charter fee by the foot plus EC$35 cruise tax per head, Grenada and Antigua levy per-passenger charges, and every one of them may ask to see the contract. Declaring paying passengers as crew to avoid fees is a customs offence in the OECS and can hold the yacht. The base's paperwork, the contract's sub-chartering clause and the way the skipper answers the question at the counter must match; the skipper should be told the answer before departure, not asked to improvise it in Antigua. What supports the bareboat reading if that is the answer: Ivan holds possession and control, chose and separately contracted the skipper and cook, sets the itinerary, and does not sell cabins to strangers; carry the bareboat agreement, the crew contracts, the insurance endorsement naming the skipper, the crew's certificates and a cost-sharing record. Each country decides for itself; there is no single OECS rule. Also before departure, in writing from the base and the insurer: the permitted cruising area covering all fifteen jurisdictions, night and offshore passages, the named skipper, tender and outboard cover, the excess and the weather exclusions.

Courtesy ensigns

Eleven, in route order: France (for Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and St Barth; the regional flags are not ensigns), St Vincent & the Grenadines, Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, Montserrat (or the Union flag), Antigua & Barbuda, St Kitts & Nevis, the Netherlands (Statia and Saba), Sint Maarten (its own flag, not the Dutch one), Anguilla (or the Union flag). Plus a spare Q. Order the set from the Le Marin chandleries before handover; a full set in stock is not guaranteed.

06 · Islands

Island by island: desks, moorings, marinas, contacts

In route order. Every card carries where to clear, what it costs, where the boat may lie, the marina and its channel, and who to call. Figures are from official pages and 2024–26 cruiser reports, researched in September 2026; where a source could not be confirmed the card says so rather than guessing. Fees change every January: confirm at the first desk of each leg and note the receipt.

🇲🇶

Martinique

Legs 1, 2, 3, 6 · French online clearance · EUR · base and two changeovers

Clear inSince 1 September 2024 every yacht arriving from or leaving for a foreign port must declare online, free, before arrival or departure: demarches-simplifiees.fr/commencer/declaration-clearance-antilles. One dossier in, a separate one out. Print the stamped attestation: the next non-French desk wants paper. No internet aboard: "points agréés" print it for €1–10, at Le Marin the capitainerie (Mon–Sat 08:00–17:00, Sun 08:00–12:30) and the Station CAP fuel dock (daily to 16:30). Douane Le Marin at the marina daily 07:00–12:30, +596 596 74 91 64, if you need a human. Yacht agent for email clearance: Douglas Yacht Services +596 696 20 73 49. Q flag is correct and nobody minds.
Marina du MarinVHF 09, +596 596 74 83 83, WhatsApp +596 696 82 74 58, contact@marina-martinique.fr, online booking at marina-martinique.fr. Call on 09 abeam the Club Med at the latest; without a reservation there may be no berth: book the 26–27 March, 6–7 April and 30 April – 1 May nights now. 2024 grid: €0.72 per foot for the first two nights, €0.60 after, plus 50% for multihulls, about €50 a night for the cat plus water (€9/m³) and electricity; buoys about €18–22. Fuel dock Station CAP, ponton 3, +596 596 76 51 61, daily 07:30–13:00 and 14:00–17:00, two high-capacity pumps, tax-free diesel advertised for yachts clearing out (ask with the outbound attestation). Road diesel ceiling €1.91 a litre in August 2026. Note the hand-back is Labour Day: settle the berth and the fuel on Friday 30 April.
Cul-de-Sac MarinIALA B, red to starboard entering. From the south round Pointe du Marin to MA4 (Fl.G 12s), about 050° to the Pointe Cailloux starboard mark, then the Banc du Major mark (Fl(4)G 15s), then about 000° leaving Banc du Milieu (MA7, red) to port. The squeeze between Banc du Major and Banc du Milieu is the classic grounding. Long, shallow-edged, cluttered with moorings: no first-time night entry; wait off Sainte-Anne. Anchoring and fishing in the marked channels prohibited; unauthorised mooring in the commune of Le Marin prohibited, and the three cyclone holes are for alerts only.
Sainte-AnneThe free alternative: a big open roadstead with 400 boats in season, sheltered by the peninsula, uncomfortable in strong north-easterlies. Stay outside the 300 m yellow swimming buoys. The paid mooring zone has been "planned" for years and is not in force. Clearance printing at Snack Boubou, +596 596 76 28 46.
Anses d'Arlet: closedAnchoring in Anse d'Arlet Bourg and Grande Anse d'Arlet has been prohibited since 2015 for the seagrass, and the mooring buoys are closed too (closure extended to 31 December 2026, so check Espace Sud's January 2027 notice before counting on a reopening). The patrol boat moves anchored yachts on. Use Petite Anse d'Arlet (not named in the closure, check on arrival, and avoid the big-ship circle at 14°29.0'N 61°05.2'W), Anse Noire and Anse Dufour (small, rolly), or go straight to Saint-Pierre. The leg 1 shakedown and the leg 6 arrival should not plan on Grande Anse.
Saint-Pierre130 bookable buoys in the Rade de Saint-Pierre since 2024, run by the Marin marina group: VHF 09, +596 696 61 60 43, st-pierre@marina-martinique.fr, booking on the Navily app, office on Place Bertin daily 08:00–12:00. Anchoring outside the field is free in 8–15 m off the town, but never inside the historic-wreck zone marked by three yellow buoys (1902 wrecks, dive only). The bottom drops steeply. Clearance printing at the tourist office, +596 596 73 84 05.
Fort-de-FrancePort de plaisance de l'Étang Z'Abricot, east side: VHF 09, +596 596 75 11 57, fuel, clearance point. Baie des Flamands anchorage off the fort. Marina Pointe du Bout across the bay is small for a 7.7 m beam; anchor outside. Diamond Rock: the inside passage is fine by day but wind and sea accelerate round it.
ServicesLe Ship / Mécanique Plaisance: chandlery and Yanmar, Volvo and Tohatsu dealer, +596 596 74 68 74, Mon–Fri 08:00–16:45, Sat 08:00–12:30. Caraïbe Marine, the Lagoon dealer, with Caraïbe Gréement for rigging, +596 596 74 80 33. Carenantilles yard next door for anything structural. Carrefour Market (free delivery to the marina via carrefour-on-board.com), Auchan opposite the marina, Leader Price with dinghy access; L'Escale du Terroir butcher vacuum-packs. Self-service laundry in the marina complex.
AirportFDF to Le Marin 35 km, 30–40 minutes. Flat-rate operators quote €40–45; the marina taxi rank +596 596 74 62 78 quotes €60 by day, €85 at night; airport taxis +596 596 42 16 66. Budget two vans for eight guests.
EmergencyCROSS Antilles-Guyane (MRCC Fort-de-France): VHF 16 and DSC 70, 196 from a French network or +596 596 70 92 92, alternate +596 596 73 16 16. CHU de Martinique, Fort-de-France, +596 596 55 20 00, hyperbaric chamber on site (route through SAMU 15). Coastal weather on VHF 79 from Le Marin at 07:20, 10:50, 18:20 and 20:20, announced on 16; gale warnings repeated hourly at H+30.

🇻🇨

St Vincent & the Grenadines

Legs 1–2 · SailClear · XCD

Clear inPorts of entry: Bequia (Port Elizabeth), Union Island (Clifton), Canouan, Mustique, Wallilabou, Kingstown, Blue Lagoon. Q flag, captain only ashore with ship's papers, last-port clearance, passports and three crew lists. Register the arrival on SailClear anyway; carry paper. Bequia customs opens seven days: Mon–Sat 08:30–18:00, Sunday 09:00–12:00 and 15:00–18:00, +1 784 456 1111 ext 6250, so a Sunday morning arrival after the night passage clears normally (overtime about EC$35). Union: customs and immigration now behind the Bougainvilla hotel a few steps from the Clifton dinghy dock, Mon–Fri 08:00–16:00, +1 784 485 8294. Canouan ext 6269, same hours as Bequia. Mustique +1 784 458 3769. Kingstown +1 784 457 2421.
FeesCruise tax EC$35 per person over 12, per month, payable on entry (EC$350 for ten aboard, each entry). Boats with a hired skipper and rotating paying guests are treated as charter: a charter licence bought at clearance for the period in SVG waters (2012 tariff EC$5 per foot per month; the EC$125 figure for 31–50 ft is the yacht licence band, not an exemption), with passengers paying the EC$35 cruise tax. How the boat is declared is settled with the base before departure (see section 5); the desk will decide for you if you have not. Overtime roughly EC$35 after 16:00 and at weekends.
Chatham Bay agentFor the northbound entry in leg 2, Tenuta at the south end of Chatham Bay acts as customs and immigration agent for EC$100, daily 09:00–12:00 and 13:00–16:00, WhatsApp +1 784 433 9685. No roll in Chatham, but strong gusts off the hills: set a snubber.
BequiaAdmiralty Bay: excellent holding in sand, or private moorings about EC$50 a night. Daffodil Marine delivers diesel, drinking water, ice, laundry and takes garbage alongside: WhatsApp +1 784 454 0045. Doris' Fresh Food provisions to the boat from a WhatsApp list (dorisfreshfood.com); Knights Trading is the supermarket. Bequia hospital +1 784 458 3294, no trauma capability. Five reported incidents in 2025, dinghy theft and one assault at the dinghy dock: lift and lock.
MustiqueBritannia Bay only, 35 moorings for yachts to 60 ft, EC$200 flat for up to three nights (up to 70 ft). Harbourmaster on VHF 16/68, +1 784 488 8363 or 533 0216, 08:00–18:00, no advance booking. Basil's Bar at the dinghy dock.
CanouanCharlestown Bay is open to the west and rolls in a north swell; hotel moorings for a fee, or anchor clear of the ferry. Sandy Lane Yacht Club marina at Glossy Bay: VHF 68, +1 784 533 0000, marina@slycr.com, rates on request. Two cash thefts from occupied boats through open doors in 2025.
Tobago CaysMarine park: EC$15 a person and EC$60 a boat per 24 hours, mooring or anchoring, same price. Pay online at tobagocays.org or to the rangers who come by boat; park office +1 784 485 8191. About 70 yacht moorings, mostly around Baradel; not compulsory and not all reliable, so dive the pennant. Anchor in sand only, never on coral or seagrass; 5 knots; no fishing or taking anything; scuba only with a local operator; no discharge. Enter between Mayreau and the Baleine Rocks, keep south of One Fathom Bank, follow the marks to the anchorage south of Baradel. The reef was damaged by Hurricane Beryl and some chop now gets through in strong trades. Lobster barbecue vendors on Petit Bateau; lobster is in season in April; the SVG closure starts 1 May. Salt Whistle Bay on Mayreau is inside the park boundary but pays no entry fee; its moorings were about EC$60.
Union IslandClifton's reef entrance is eyeball pilotage in good light: follow the marked channel, do not cut the corner. Moorings in Clifton are private. Happy Island is rebuilt; the big grocery is open; fuel availability after Beryl is unconfirmed, so fuel in Bequia or Carriacou. A whole yacht was stolen from the Frigate Island anchorage in May 2026.
St VincentWallilabou and Cumberland: deep, stern line ashore, official boat boys carry ID cards, EC$10–20 for running a line; customs at Wallilabou keeps a few short hours at the end of the day. An attempted boarding at Cumberland in February 2025; nothing reported at Wallilabou in 2025–26. Blue Lagoon Marina is a port of entry with fuel and water, +1 784 458 4308. Milton Cato hospital, Kingstown, +1 784 456 1185.
SeaA west-setting current in every channel, 0.5–1.5 knots and up to 2 in the southern passages, plus eddies and headland acceleration: crab to windward on the northbound legs and check COG against heading rather than trusting a fixed allowance. Squalls to 40 knots. Katabatic gusts in St Vincent's lee after sunset; wind shadow then violent gusts at the headlands. Wind shadows behind Canouan and Mayreau. IALA B, sparse marks.
RulesSpearfishing prohibited for visitors; jet skis banned nationally; lobster closed 1 May to 31 August, minimum carapace 3.5 in, no berried females, fines to EC$5,000; no fishing inside the park.
EmergencySVG Coast Guard, Calliaqua: VHF 16, +1 784 457 4578 or 457 4554. No hyperbaric chamber in SVG; nearest is SAMS in Grenada.

🇬🇩

Grenada and Carriacou

Legs 1–2 · SailClear · XCD · changeover Sat 3 Apr

Clear inPorts of entry: Tyrrel Bay and Hillsborough on Carriacou; Port Louis Marina (St George's), Prickly Bay, Le Phare Bleu, Grenada Marine on Grenada. SailClear pre-arrival expected. Weekdays 08:00–11:45 and 13:00–16:00 (Port Louis on site); weekends and holidays 09:00–13:30 with overtime. Tyrrel Bay: customs +1 473 443 6100 and immigration +1 473 443 9379 at Carriacou Marine next to the fuel dock, port call "Tyrrel Bay Port Authorities" VHF 16. Grenada Port Control on 16, working 11/12. For a stop of 72 hours or less you may clear in and out at once.
FeesMonthly cruising permit EC$75 for 40–60 ft; port charge EC$8.10 per person excluding the skipper; navigation aids about EC$30; weekend overtime about EC$40 (a Saturday clearance at Carriacou came to EC$143 all in). Guests who flew in and leave by boat pay EC$20 each embarkation tax: that is the leg 2 crew boarding at Port Louis. No separate charter levy was found in any source; ask when declaring guests. Independence Day falls on Sunday 7 February, well outside our window; the only holidays that touch the Grenada handover are Good Friday and Easter Monday, both of which are past by 3 April, but note it if the plan changes.
Port Louis MarinaCamper & Nicholsons, St George's: VHF 14, +1 473 435 7432 or 435 7431, info@cnportlouismarina.com. Customs and immigration on site, 24-hour security, new fuel dock (2025) for diesel and petrol, laundry. No rate card: quote by email, expect roughly US$0.90–1.30 per foot with a multihull multiplier. Foodland supermarket across the road on Lagoon Road has its own dinghy dock (closed Sunday); Real Value IGA at Spiceland Mall is the best shop on the island, open daily. Taxi to GND EC$50, 15–20 minutes, Airport Taxi Association +1 473 415 8977.
South coastPrickly Bay: port of entry, approach from the south-west, the Porpoises half a mile south of Prickly Point are sometimes awash; arrive by day. Moorsafe moorings US$20 a night, diesel dock, WhatsApp +1 473 456 8895; marina +1 473 440 2001. Le Phare Bleu, Petite Calivigny Bay: 60 berths, customs office, hello@lepharebleu.com. Unoccupied yachts burgled at Mt Hartman in August 2026; a dinghy and outboard taken at Prickly Bay in June 2026.
MolinièreAnchoring in the marine protected area is forbidden; 19 park moorings. From 15 May 2025: entry US$3.50 a person (US$7 from 1 October 2026), snorkel or dive US$10 a person a day, yacht mooring US$10 an hour, overnight for a charter yacht US$25. Pay in advance on the Pure Grenada portal; daily patrols. In a north swell, Grand Mal and Halifax Harbour are the protected west-coast stops.
CarriacouTyrrel Bay: well protected, a few Beryl hulks still moored in the bay; do not anchor inside the mangrove lagoon in normal weather. Carriacou Marine fuel dock: duty-free diesel and petrol for cleared-out yachts, water, Mon–Sat 08:00–17:30, Sun 08:00–14:00, +1 473 443 6292, WhatsApp +1 473 406 0314. Restaurants and groceries open. Five dinghies taken in one night in April 2026: lift and lock. Sandy Island marine park: anchoring prohibited, moorings about US$10–20 a day collected by the park boat, +1 473 443 7494. Princess Royal Hospital, ambulance 774.
Kick 'em JennySubmarine volcano 5 nm north of Grenada, summit 12°18'N 61°38'W. A 1.5 km exclusion zone is always in force (stay 4 km west of the Sisters, or within 1 km west of them); the 5 km zone applies when the alert is raised for an eruption. UWI's rule of thumb for it is 10 km west of Isle de Ronde, but the vent lies about 6 km west of the island, so that line gives only about 4 km; for a true 5 km plot the circle from the vent position. NaDMA asked mariners to keep the 5 km distance as a precaution after the August 2025 unrest, which did not change the alert level. Check uwiseismic.com the day you sail; going 10 km west costs little southbound and puts you in a worse sea on the northbound beat. Gas in the water column reduces buoyancy even without an eruption.
RulesSpearfishing banned for non-residents; lobster closed 1 May to 31 August; buying out-of-season lobster is itself an offence. IALA B; the Glover Island light is unreliable; pass outside all the islands east of Prickly Point.
EmergencyGrenada Coast Guard: VHF 16, +1 473 444 1931, alternates 444 1933 and 440 2112, or 911. Grenada General Hospital, St George's, +1 473 440 2051. Hyperbaric chamber: St Augustine's Medical Services (SAMS), St Paul's above St George's, +1 473 440 6173, emergency +1 473 407 0107, 24 hours. Cruisers' net VHF 66 (international) at 07:30 Mon–Sat covers all Grenada anchorages.

🇱🇨

Saint Lucia

Leg 2 · SailClear · XCD

Clear inPorts of entry: Soufrière, Marigot Bay, Rodney Bay Marina, Castries, Vieux Fort. Soufrière is a full port of entry (Customs → Health → Port Authority → Immigration, all by the town jetty), so the Pitons stop can be the clearance stop. Rodney Bay: Yacht Reception building in the marina village, Immigration +1 758 456 3825, Mon–Fri 08:30–13:00 and 14:00–16:00; weekend arrivals pay overtime. Clear within 24 h of arrival. Soufrière has a history of ignoring SailClear: carry paper crew lists and every guest's printed electronic immigration form with its QR code.
FeesSmall: clearance EC$15 (over 40 ft), navigation aids EC$15, pratique EC$10, mooring permit EC$25, about EC$65 in all. Overtime is quoted at EC$10–15 on the 2019 official page and EC$100–150 on 2025 cruiser reports; budget the higher figure for a Sunday or holiday. Foreign yachts carrying charter guests are expected to buy a SLASPA "occasional licence": EC$300 for 41–70 ft. Rodney Bay's SLASPA desk sells it; whether Soufrière issues it on the spot is unconfirmed.
SMMA mooringsAnchoring is forbidden anywhere in the Soufrière Marine Management Area. Call "SMMA rangers" on VHF 16 on approach; they show you a buoy and sell the Coral Conservation Permit: US$20 / EC$54 per night for boats up to 70 ft, US$120 per week. Use only the SMMA white-and-blue buoys, not the "unofficial" ones. Zones: Anse Chastanet–Anse Mamin, Rachette Point, the town jetty, Malgretoute, and between the Pitons at Sugar Beach. Rachette Point and Anse Chastanet are the quieter, better-protected moorings; the Pitons buoys are the showpiece and catch swell and mountain gusts. Office +1 758 459 5500, 24-hour +1 758 724 6332, smma.inc@gmail.com.
Boat boysSeveral boats will meet you well outside the bay. Pick one, learn his name, tell the others he is looking after you, and agree price and currency before he touches a line (EC$ versus US$ confusion is the usual trick). About EC$20 for line handling.
MarinasIGY Rodney Bay Marina: VHF 16, +1 758 458 7200, rbm@igymarinas.com. 253 berths, 4 m in the channel, fuel dock with high-speed pumps (fuel dock +1 758 717 8139), water at every slip, ice, chandleries, Massy supermarket ten minutes away. No published rate card: email for a catamaran quote, expect roughly US$65–130 a night plus power and water. Marigot Bay Yacht Haven: VHF 12, +1 758 728 9948, info@marigotbayyachthaven.com, 20 inner-bay moorings about US$40 a night, duty-free fuel in-slip, customs on site. Castries inner harbour has foul holding and is not a guest anchorage.
AnchoringRodney Bay: off Pigeon Island in the north-west corner, 4–7 m sand, best holding, quiet once the park closes; or off Reduit Beach, rollier. With guests aboard, take the marina berth.
SecurityFive reported incidents in 2025, three of them at Rodney Bay: dinghy theft and night boardings at anchor. A violent night boarding at Anse Cochon on 18 July 2026 (skipper badly beaten). Anse Cochon is a lunch stop only. Dinghy hoisted and locked every night here, hatches locked.
FishingThe recreational licence is for residents only, so a visiting yacht has no lawful fishing inside 12 nm; the SMMA is a total no-take zone; lobster closed 30 April to 1 September, so open on our dates. Buy from the Soufrière waterfront instead.
EmergencyMarine Police Unit +1 758 456 3871 (VHF 16); police 999, ambulance 911. Tapion Hospital (private, Castries) +1 758 459 2000; Owen King EU Hospital +1 758 458 6500; Soufrière hospital +1 758 459 7258. No hyperbaric chamber: Fort-de-France is the evacuation.

🇩🇲

Dominica

Leg 3 · SailClear · XCD

Clear inPortsmouth: customs at the head of the cargo and ferry dock south of town, +1 767 266 3731 or 266 4452, weekdays to about 16:00 with a lunch break. Roseau: customs in the ferry terminal, +1 767 448 4462. For a stay under 14 days you clear in and out in one visit, and the coastal cruising permit issued with it covers the move between Roseau and Portsmouth. On a Sunday the PAYS office will call an officer out for overtime. Cheapest desk on the route: budget tens of EC$, not hundreds (exact 2026 amounts unconfirmed). Every person needs the online immigration form at edcard.dominica.gov.dm done beforehand.
Portsmouth / PAYSPrince Rupert Bay is the only fully sheltered anchorage on the island. The Portsmouth Association of Yacht Security (PAYS): VHF 16, phone and WhatsApp +1 767 317 9098, dominicapays@gmail.com, pavilion and dinghy dock on Purple Turtle Beach. A yellow-flagged wooden boat meets you a mile or two out and puts you on a mooring; that man is your man for tours, water, laundry, garbage and clearance. Moorings EC$30 a night, paid to the owner. Insist on a new mooring (bright yellow buoy, new white lines): old ones failed in January 2025. Otherwise anchor in the north-east corner, 10–20 m sand and mud. Night patrol boat every night; zero reported incidents in 2025. Sunday and Wednesday beach barbecue US$25. Unlit derelicts in the bay, so arrive by day. The Salty Dawg rally fills the bay in the first week of February, which is behind us; late April is quieter, but the PAYS Sunday barbecue still runs.
Indian RiverLicensed guide only, rowing only from the river mouth: US$25 a person plus the national park site pass (US$5 a site, US$12 for a week), sold at the PAYS office. Cabrits and Fort Shirley are on the same pass.
RoseauToo deep to anchor (15–25 m). Moorings: Sea Cat, +1 767 245 0507, VHF 16, south end by Castle Comfort, with water and fuel at his dock; Dominica Marine Center, +1 767 448 2705, VHF 16, Newtown, fuel by hose, duty-free chandlery, dinghy dock; Marcus in the northern field, +1 767 285 3793. About US$15–20 a night. Roseau is exposed: a north swell has broken mooring shackles here. One night in settled weather, or a day stop.
Champagne Reef and Scotts HeadThe Soufrière–Scotts Head Marine Reserve: no anchoring or mooring without permission, no spear guns, no snorkelling or diving except with a permit, which in practice means a registered operator. EC$5 / US$2 a person to the wardens. Champagne Reef sits at the northern edge of the reserve: go by the dive shop's boat or by dinghy from Roseau, never anchor the cat there. Nature Island Dive, Soufrière village, +1 767 245 6505 (WhatsApp); Dive Dominica at Castle Comfort.
WhalesThe Sperm Whale Reserve Act passed in October 2025: vessel corridors along the west coast, no swimming with whales without a government permit, licensed operators only. For us: never put anyone in the water near a whale, 10 knots maximum inside the reserve, and in the text as passed a sailing yacht may not transit the reserve with its engine running, so motor-sail inside the 2 nm line and sail outside it. Keep the 300 m we use in French waters (Dominica publishes no figure for private yachts). See section 8.
ServicesWater from the PAYS platform (about EC$50 a fill) or by can; no fuel dock in Portsmouth, jerry cans only, fuel by hose only at Roseau's mooring operators; ice from town; laundry through PAYS; garbage EC$10. Farmers' market Tuesday, Friday and Saturday from before dawn (go 06:00–08:00), IGA supermarket in town. Roseau's Saturday market is the island's biggest; Astaphans supermarket; propane refills.
CoastingTrades 15–25 kn outside, but in the lee expect calms alternating with violent valley gusts, worst at night and off Morne Diablotin north of Roseau. Reefed and motor-sailing inside 2 nm of the coast is normal. The Dominica Channel to Les Saintes is an acceleration zone with a short, steep sea: reef before you leave the lee.
EmergencyPolice 999; Coast Guard +1 767 448 2222 or 266 5173, Marine Unit +1 767 448 4431. Dominica China Friendship Hospital, Roseau, +1 767 266 2000 (casualty 266 2105); Portsmouth Hospital +1 767 266 5605. No hyperbaric chamber: Pointe-à-Pitre for the north, Fort-de-France for the south. SAR is MRCC Fort-de-France.

🇬🇵

Guadeloupe and Les Saintes

Legs 3–4 · French online clearance · EUR · changeover Tue 13 Apr

Clear inArriving from Dominica is an entry into France: file the online dossier before arrival. Printing points: LSM at Les Saintes (Mon–Sat 09:00–12:00 and 14:00–19:00, closed Sunday), the Bas-du-Fort capitainerie, and at Deshaies the Mairie's service portuaire (+590 690 25 37 80, closed weekends; the Pélican shop no longer has the terminal). Clear out for Montserrat online: the capitainerie computer may be shut on the Carnival days.
Marina Bas-du-FortVHF 09, +590 590 93 66 20, mobile +590 690 35 19 19, info@marinaguadeloupe.com; the online booking portal is flaky, email works. High season Mon–Sat 08:00–13:00 and 14:00–17:30, Sun and holidays 08:00–12:00. 2026 visitor rate €0.89 per foot per day, multihull ×1.5, so about €61 a night alongside and about €83 on a wide floating finger; water €8/m³, electricity by prepaid badge. Sixty buoys at Îlet Cochon, €12.73 a day. Fuel dock in the marina (hours unpublished, ask on 09). Laundry, Captain Nautic chandlery +590 590 21 36 70, many technicians; large supermarkets 1–2 km away. Approach through the buoyed, lit Petit Cul-de-Sac Marin channel, by day. PTP airport is 8–10 km, 15–20 minutes, about €30–40 a car; taxi-guadeloupe.fr +590 690 41 65 64.
Easter and the seasonThe French Antilles Carnival is over long before we arrive: Ash Wednesday 2027 is 10 February. Easter falls on 28 March, before the boat reaches Guadeloupe on 12 April, so no holiday touches this stop. The Route du Rhum and the winter regattas are likewise done. What is live in April is the sargassum season starting to build on the windward coasts and the Atlantic side of Grande-Terre — see section 7.
Les SaintesBuoys mandatory for boats under 20 m across the Bourg, Anse Mire, Îlet à Cabrit and Pain de Sucre; anchoring tolerated only when the field is full. LSM (Les Saintes Multiservices): +590 590 81 53 57, lessaintesmultiservices@gmail.com, office at the ferry landing. Pay per night at the office or to the launch on its morning and evening rounds; LOA includes davits and dinghy and may be measured; multihulls plus 50%, budget €20–25 a night. Heavy metal eyes, some without chain: bridle with chafe gear and a snubber. Very crowded in season, arrive before noon; call LSM the day before about a Pain de Sucre buoy for a 46 ft cat. Approaches from the south-west: Passe du Sud-Ouest is the widest.
Réserve CousteauCore zone of the national park at Îlets Pigeon: anchoring prohibited, buoys only for boats up to 8 m, never overnight, motor exclusion in the channel between the islets, no fishing. A Lagoon 43 anchors in Malendure bay outside the core, in sand 5–12 m, and goes in by dinghy or with a Malendure operator. Park office +590 590 41 55 55.
DeshaiesDeep, 9–12 m, ferocious katabatic gusts through the valley, many local moorings; paid visitor buoys about €20–25 with irregular collection. Small Spar for provisions. Sea state in the Guadeloupe Channel beyond is the Atlantic's.
EmergencyCROSS AG 196 / VHF 16. CHU de Guadeloupe hyperbaric unit, Pointe-à-Pitre, +590 590 89 11 37, 24/7 on call; SAMU 15.

🇲🇸

Montserrat

Leg 4 · SailClear · XCD

Clear inLittle Bay is the only port of entry. File SailClear at least 24 hours ahead (Montserrat uses SailClear, not eSeaClear); call "Montserrat Port" on VHF 16 for anchoring instructions. Customs and Immigration at the ferry and cargo terminal, Mon–Fri 08:00–16:00, no clearance fee in hours; clearance is granted for 72 hours, so a stop under three days is cleared in and out in one visit. Order: Customs with last-port clearance, passports and the SailClear number, pay port dues at the Port Authority cashier, receipt back to Customs, sign four copies. Take everyone ashore for Immigration. Customs +1 664 491 3816 or 491 2555, customs@gov.ms; Port Authority +1 664 491 2791, info@mpa.ms, VHF 16 monitored around the clock.
FeesPort dues EC$50 per 24 hours for vessels up to 20 GRT (EC$100 for 21–100 GRT) plus EC$10 clearance and EC$13.50 per manifested passenger; embarkation tax EC$25 per passenger if the stay exceeds 24 hours. Overtime under SR&O 34 of 2013: with more than eight aboard, EC$60 per officer on weekdays out of hours and EC$75 at weekends, two-hour minimum per officer. Wednesday 14 April is our one day here, a weekday inside office hours, so no overtime is due — but leg 4 is three days long and there is no second chance at it.
AnchoringSouthern part of Little Bay, clear of the ferry and cargo channel; the old yacht moorings were removed and dredging in 2023 spoiled the holding, so set well and check. Rendezvous Bay at the north tip is prettier with less protection; Carr's Bay just south. Water at the dock EC$75 per 1,000 gallons; no fuel dock, jerry cans from Delta Petroleum +1 664 491 9981.
Exclusion zoneHazard Level 1 as of August 2026, but the lava dome can produce pyroclastic flows on any side without warning. Zone V including Plymouth is closed. Maritime Zones E and W, roughly 1 nm off the south coast and 2 nm off the east, are daylight transit only: sail through, do not stop, anchor, drift, fish or dive. Get the GPS boundary map from the Port Authority. Approaching from Guadeloupe at night, route to Little Bay well north of the zones. Viewing Plymouth from the water means passing the west coast by day, moving.
AshoreMVO visitor centre at Flemmings, Mon–Fri 09:00–16:00, volcano film EC$10 hourly, +1 664 491 5647; groups over 15 call ahead. Plymouth itself only with an MVO-cleared taxi or tour operator: book through the Montserrat Tour & Taxi Association from Guadeloupe on the Saturday. Garibaldi Hill for the view.
Emergency911 or 999. Glendon Hospital, Brades, +1 664 491 2552 (verify), basic care, serious cases helicoptered to Antigua. Coast Guard +1 664 496 1047 (unconfirmed). No CSSN incidents reported in 2025.

🇦🇬

Antigua & Barbuda

Legs 4–5 · eSeaClear · XCD · changeover Fri 16 Apr

Clear inAntigua ran its own eSeaClear (eseaclear.com) for years, but the operator says the Government did not renew its licence for the 2025/26 season and the service is suspended; SailClear now lists Antigua & Barbuda. Register on both, check in early March which one the Dockyard accepts, and carry paper crew lists. File before arrival, clear within 24 hours, captain alone ashore. Ports of entry: English Harbour (Customs, Immigration and Port Authority in one building at Nelson's Dockyard; Falmouth anchors there but clears at the Dockyard), Jolly Harbour (customs on site, cash, no VHF, cheaper because no park dues), St John's, Parham, Barbuda. Health inspection at English Harbour is afloat by appointment: WhatsApp the health inspector +1 268 764 3446. Hours are not published; Nelson's Dockyard Marina office is Mon–Sat 08:00–17:00. Allow two hours; it is the slowest desk on the route.
FeesPort Authority entrance fee plus a monthly cruising permit by length (EC$50 reported for a 51-footer in January 2026). National Parks dues in English and Falmouth harbours, anchored or berthed: about $0.10 per foot per day plus per-person environmental charges, currency unconfirmed. Embarkation Sea Port Tax EC$75 (US$30) per passenger leaving by yacht after more than 24 hours in the country: for the crew departing to St Kitts in leg 5 that is about US$240. No charter licence or charter tax for a visiting foreign yacht was found in any official or cruiser source; list the guests as passengers, carry the charter agreement, and ask the Port Authority officer at the Dockyard. Cards accepted at the Dockyard; Jolly Harbour is cash.
MarinasNelson's Dockyard Marina (National Parks): +1 268 481 5035, info@nelsonsdockyardmarina.com, 30 stern-to berths, customs in the Dockyard. Antigua Yacht Club Marina, Falmouth: +1 268 460 1544, aycmarina@candw.ag, duty-free diesel to the slip, the only maintained moorings in Falmouth, 5% card surcharge. Falmouth Harbour Marina: VHF 10, +1 268 460 6054. The Catamaran Marina, north end of Falmouth: +1 268 460 1503, fuel dock, rigging on site. Antigua Slipway, English Harbour: +1 268 460 1056, fuel dock, chandlery. Jolly Harbour Marina: VHF 68, +1 268 462 6041, info@jhmarina.com, customs on site, duty-free diesel, petrol, water, propane, pump-out, Budget Marine; published catamaran rate US$2.45 per foot per night (about US$113 for 46 ft). Riggers and sailmakers in Falmouth: Antigua Rigging, A&F Sails (contacts to verify).
Regatta clash — this is the hard oneThe Antigua Classic Yacht Regatta runs 14–19 April 2027 out of Nelson's Dockyard, and our Antigua handover is Friday 16 April, in the middle of it. English Harbour and Falmouth will be full: Dockyard berths gone months ahead, moorings gone, the National Parks docks committed to the fleet, taxis and restaurants stretched. Book the Dockyard or Falmouth berth as soon as the dates are firm, or plan the handover at Jolly Harbour instead — 30–40 minutes from ANU either way, and Jolly has a marina, a supermarket, fuel and a customs desk. Antigua Sailing Week follows 21–25 April, with its fleet building in Falmouth from about the 19th; we are gone by then, but it keeps the whole south coast booked out for the fortnight. If the handover has to be in English Harbour, clear in on Thursday 15 April and expect the desk to be slow.
AnchoragesFalmouth: anchor from Blakes Island towards Turtle Bay, heavy dinghy traffic, Bishop Shoal off the entrance marked by a large red buoy. English Harbour: 4 knots, Freeman's Bay at the entrance. Nonsuch Bay: approach from the south, stay offshore until east of York Island, keep York Island and Neck of Land to port, watch the reef off Ricketts Harbour, avoid York Bank in any swell, 5 knots in the channel; anchor in 10 m of mud, or at Rickett Harbour on Green Island. The Spithead Channel to the north is local-knowledge only. Deep Bay and Five Islands are the west-coast options but roll in a north swell; Carlisle Bay is a lunch stop. Cades Reef runs along the south-west coast. Dinghy-part thefts at the Falmouth dinghy dock (four in five years): lock the outboard and cowling.
BarbudaNo new clearance after Antigua, but you must hold the cruising permit. Outward clearance is valid 24 hours, and a Friday clear-out in Antigua followed by two Barbuda nights and a Monday departure for Nevis is outside it. Either ask the Dockyard officer explicitly for clearance covering the Barbuda stop and note the answer, or make Codrington the departure point: email the Comptroller 48 hours ahead and arrange the Barbuda customs officer, Matthew John, +1 268 464 5012 (WhatsApp). Booyard Yacht Services for taxis and tours +1 268 717 4979. No aids, unreliable charts, uncharted heads: arrive 10:00–14:00 with the sun high, never with a north swell running. Low Bay off the 11-mile beach, 5–10 m sand, good holding, open north and west. If the light goes or the swell rises, the bail-out is back to Antigua, not onward to Nevis at dusk. Coco Point on the south coast, 5–8 m sand, better trade-wind shelter. The frigate-bird colony in Codrington Lagoon is reached only by licensed boat from the lagoon side, about US$40–50 a boat plus US$2 a person, booked the day before; from Low Bay you walk across the spit. Lobster closed 1 May to 30 June only.
RulesA licence is required to fish from a vessel (about US$100 for three months); spearfishing is for citizens only; lobster minimum carapace 3.75 in; conch closed July–August. Fines to EC$50,000.
EmergencyABSAR, English Harbour: +1 268 562 1234, WhatsApp +1 268 720 8836, VHF 16, 24 hours, paramedic afloat. Coast Guard +1 268 462 0671. Mount St John's Medical Centre, St John's, +1 268 484 2700, the only full hospital. Police English Harbour +1 268 460 1002. No hyperbaric chamber in Antigua; the nearest is Basseterre.

🇰🇳

St Kitts & Nevis

Leg 5 · SailClear + eAPIS · XCD, cash on Nevis

Clear inThree things before entering territorial waters: SailClear; advance passenger data, which was the CARICOM eAPIS form until that portal's decommissioning on 30 September 2026 and is now the CARICOM MDEX portal (confirm the maritime route in January); and the eTA for every person aboard at knatravelform.kn, US$17, single entry, approved in about a day, required of all foreign travellers since 26 May 2025. Ports of entry: Basseterre (Customs at the Port Zante marina office, Immigration and Port Authority in the cruise terminal; at weekends Immigration only at the airport), Christophe Harbour / Safe Harbor St Kitts (customs on site 10:00–18:00 daily in season, US$30 admin fee covering in and out), and Charlestown on Nevis (everything in one building at the pier, year-round, cash only). Captain alone ashore: Customs, Immigration, Port Authority, pay. One clearance covers both islands; there is no clearance between St Kitts and Nevis, just call NASPA on 16 when you arrive at Nevis. Departure notification through SailClear before visiting Customs.
FeesRoughly US$50–100 in total: customs US$12–30, port dues EC$60 for vessels under 150 GT, head tax US$5 per person, environmental levy EC$4. Nevis is cash only and slightly dearer. Overtime at weekends.
Nevis mooringsAbout 100 NASPA screw moorings along the west coast: Pinney's Beach, Nelson's Spring, Cades Bay, Tamarind Bay, Oualie Bay. Call NASPA on VHF 16 within 24 hours of arrival for an assignment; anchoring is no longer permitted at Oualie. Fees by length band (36–60 ft is ours) with 25% on top weekday evenings and Saturdays and 50% on Sundays; the dollar amounts live in NASPA's online calculator, cash. NASPA +1 869 469 2001. Charlestown and Pinney's roadsteads are 8–12 m sand.
St KittsPort Zante Marina, Basseterre: VHF 68, +1 869 466 5021 (also 666 5021), Mon–Sat 08:00–16:00, 36 slips, customs on site, fuel 06:00–18:00, catamaran rate US$1.50 per foot per night; swell and cruise ships, tight docking. Safe Harbor St Kitts (ex-Christophe Harbour): +1 869 765 0312, VHF 71/16, fuel dock, but a published minimum of 80 ft LOA and a reported US$100 a day dinghy-landing fee, so do not count on it. Anchorages: White House Bay on the south-east peninsula (calm, mooring balls, best snorkelling, Salt Plage bar), Ballast Bay, Friar's Bay, Frigate Bay in 15 ft sand and grass. Basseterre roadstead rolls, and a catamaran was boarded there at 02:00 in November 2024: sleep at White House Bay.
The Narrows2–3 nm wide, 20–30 m, trade-wind chop; respect the shoal and reef off Booby Island and Cockleshell on the St Kitts side and the reef off Nevis' north shore; follow the charted channel. Treat the lee of the 985 m Nevis Peak as gusty and fickle.
RulesFishing licence from the Chief Fisheries Officer; no spearfishing for visitors; lobster minimum carapace 3.5–3.75 in.
Emergency911. JNF General Hospital, Basseterre; Alexandra Hospital, Charlestown (numbers to verify on arrival). Hyperbaric chambers at the Commercial Diving Academy of the West Indies, Bay Road, Basseterre, accessed through the hospital: the nearest chamber for the whole of leg 5 north of Guadeloupe. Yacht agent if needed: St Kitts Yacht Services, Port Zante, +1 869 762 4400.

🇧🇶

Sint Eustatius

Leg 5 · SailClear · USD · Coast Guard 913

Clear inOranjestad (Oranje Baai) is the only port. Harbour office +599 318 2205, harbour@statiagov.com, VHF 16, 08:00–17:00. Customs and Immigration at the harbour office on VHF 14: Mon–Fri 08:00–16:00, weekends 08:00–11:00 only. STENAPA park office on VHF 17. Harbour check-in and out about US$35; customs and immigration free; marine park fee US$10 a night, US$30 a week, anchored or moored.
AnchoringSources disagree on whether yellow yacht buoys exist for visitors (one lists twelve, Noonsite 2025–26 says none, private and dive-only): assume you anchor in the designated sand zone off Oranjestad and ask the harbour office on 16. The park's north and south reserves are no-anchoring, no-fishing; the old lower town's ruins lie under the sand, so respect the marked no-anchor areas. Open roadstead, rolly, untenable in a north swell. Keep clear of the oil-terminal tanker moorings to the north. No fuel, no waste disposal; fresh water available. 5 knots near the anchorage.
AshoreDinghy to the harbour, walk up the cliff road to Upper Town and Fort Oranje. The Quill: a mile of concrete road then a marked trail, trail tags from STENAPA. Dive with Golden Rock Dive Center or Scubaqua only. Queen Beatrix Medical Center, Oranjestad. Coast Guard 913.

🇧🇶

Saba

Leg 5 · SailClear · USD, cash · the fragile one

Clear inFort Bay, south-west corner, is the only port of entry and the only place to land: pick up a mooring or the check-in buoy, dinghy in, Customs and Immigration, then the Harbour Office, then register at the Marine Park office, all at the harbour. Harbour office 06:00–18:00 daily, VHF 16, +599 416 3963, cell +599 416 5452; Fort Bay Harbor unit +599 416 3311, WhatsApp +599 416 7343. Marine park +599 416 3295. SailClear pre-registration required. No alongside berthing: the pier is a loading dock; small dinghy dock below the offices.
FeesHarbour fee US$20–40 by tonnage, departure tax US$10 a person, marine park US$3 a person plus a nature fee of US$1 a person a night. Cash.
MooringsYellow buoys are for visiting yachts up to 20 m or 50 tonnes, first come, seven-day maximum; white and red are licensed dive boats only. Eight yellow moorings between Ladder Bay and Wells Bay on the west side, plus moorings and one large buoy at Fort Bay (not for overnight). Anchoring in coral or in any dive zone is prohibited; the two permitted zones are Ladder–Wells and Fort Bay. Run about 10 m of your own line through the pendant eye back to a second cleat. Roughly half the moorings were missing in one 2018 report: count on arrival.
SwellLadder and Wells Bay are sheltered in south-east wind and roll at night even then; in any north swell the west side closes and Fort Bay is the only anchorage, and Fort Bay is bad in south-east wind or southerly swell. Comfort limit at the moorings is about 12 knots. Landing a dinghy at Wells or Ladder is often impossible: land only at Fort Bay. Starlink is reported blocked at the moorings and works a quarter mile off. Decide on the swell forecast the day before; the fallback is St Barth.
AshoreAll scuba through a licensed centre: Sea Saba +599 416 2246 (WhatsApp), info@seasaba.com, at the harbour, free island shuttle, rendezvous dives for yachts; Saba Divers and Saba Deep also at Fort Bay. Taxi up the hairpins arranged at the harbour. Tourist bureau +599 416 2231. A.M. Edwards Medical Center, The Bottom. Historic recompression chamber at Fort Bay: current status unconfirmed, check with Sea Saba. Coast Guard 913, WhatsApp +599 9 510 0913.

🇧🇱

Saint-Barthélemy

Leg 5 · French clearance plus the port's own portal · EUR

Clear inTwo filings: the port's own portal at clairances.portdegustavia.fr, at most 24 hours before arrival, then present at the port office; and the national online dossier, since Saba or Statia is abroad. No port clearance fee reported. Port de Gustavia: VHF 12 "Port de Gustavia", +590 590 27 66 97, portdeplaisance@portdegustavia.fr, open 07:00–18:00 every day of the year.
BerthingCall VHF 12 before the channel, 3 knots inside, every manoeuvre in the port needs authorisation. Inner harbour: Med-moor stern-to on your own anchor, 30 visitor places, about 200 moorings. Outer anchorage zones between the port and Corossol, outside the mooring balls; no anchoring in the yellow-buoyed cable zone off Shell Beach. No formal reservations, but email LOA, beam and draught in advance: a 7.7 m beam in February needs the port's goodwill. Fees per night by zone and size, lowest in the outer anchorage (historic formula LOA × beam × €0.20, about €21 a day), highest stern-to; the 2027 tariff was not retrievable, ask on 12. Water on the quay €0.019 a litre.
FuelOn the adjacent Public commercial dock, 2.5 m, Mon–Fri 08:00–14:00, Sat–Sun 07:30–11:00; expect a premium over Martinique.
ColombierInside the Réserve naturelle: free visitor buoys, anchoring only on sand in the designated area away from the buoys, a small reserve fee per person collected by the rangers (about €0.80 in 2018; current figure unconfirmed). No services; beach landing; the walk to Flamands is the guests' outing.
EmergencyHôpital de Bruyn on the Gustavia quay, urgences +590 590 27 85 78, 20 beds, no chamber. CROSS AG 196 / VHF 16.

🇸🇽

Sint Maarten

Legs 5–6 · no SailClear · USD · changeover Sun 25 Apr

Clear inSimpson Bay: Customs and Immigration are walk-up windows in the police station beside the lagoon channel and bridge; the Simpson Bay Lagoon Authority (SLAC) clearance office is in the same building, +1 721 545 3183; Immigration +1 721 545 0031. Hours differ by source: plan on Mon–Fri 08:00–12:30 and 13:30–16:30, weekends 07:30–15:30. Every vessel entering Simpson Bay or the lagoon clears with SLAC. Philipsburg alternative: Bobby's Marina, Immigration 07:00–17:00 seven days, +1 721 542 2277. Yacht agent if wanted: Sea-Grapes +1 721 545 3777, WhatsApp +1 721 520 0300. The French side is a separate jurisdiction: sailing round to Marigot means clearing into France (online, free).
FeesWorked example for a 45 ft boat for a week: customs clearance US$26, harbour and anchoring fee US$40 (weekly, 42.6–59 ft band), bridge US$21; about US$87 in all.
Carnival and King's DaySXM Carnival runs roughly 15 April to 3 May 2027, with the village in Philipsburg and the two big parades at the end — the Grand Parade and Carnival Day, a public holiday on Friday 30 April. Our handover is Sunday 25 April, mid-Carnival: Simpson Bay and the lagoon will be busy, taxis and hotel rooms scarce, and the island in a mood. King's Day is Tuesday 27 April and closes the Dutch desks on Sint Maarten, Statia and Saba, so clear out on Monday 26th at the latest. Book the berth and the crew's hotel rooms early, and treat the road to the airport as slower than it looks.
Simpson Bay bridgeVHF 12, call ahead with name, direction and destination marina, arrive 15–30 minutes early, 5 mph in the channel and lagoon, no anchoring in fairways. Outbound 08:30, 10:30, 16:00. Inbound 09:30, 11:30, 14:00, 17:00 (schedule in force since 26 December 2024; older listings showing 15:00 are wrong). Causeway bridge 08:00, 10:00, 16:30 both ways, free. Opening 17 m wide, 6 m deep; fee inbound only, US$21 for 12–15 m LOA and US$42 for 15–18 m; the Lagoon 43 is 13.85 m LOA, but davits and a dinghy on them can push what the window measures past 15 m, so measure what they measure; no exit fee. Bridge office +1 721 545 5230. Current runs through the cut on the tide: keep way on. Check the outbound times against the leg 6 crew's arrival before choosing a lagoon berth.
MarinasIGY Simpson Bay Marina: +1 721 544 2309, VHF 16/79A, 07:00–18:00, beam to 34 ft, winter rate on request. IGY Isle de Sol takes 80 ft and up, not us. Lagoon Marina, Cole Bay: info@lagoon-marina.com, alongside and rafted, 9 ft, sail loft, electronics and refrigeration on site, free dinghy dock at Lagoonies bar. Island Water World marina, Cole Bay: fuel dock, store +1 721 544 5310. Yacht Club Port de Plaisance is the catamaran-friendly option in Cole Bay (contact to verify). Philipsburg: Dock Maarten +1 721 520 0225 (WhatsApp), VHF 87; Bobby's Marina +1 721 542 2366. Chandleries: Budget Marine HQ, Cole Bay, Mon–Sat 08:00–17:00, +1 721 544 3134, WhatsApp +1 721 559 2863, customer dinghy dock; Island Water World Cole Bay. FKG Rigging for rig work (number to verify). Airport is on the lagoon's north shore, about ten minutes.
SecurityAll five Dutch-side incidents in 2025 were in Simpson Bay and the lagoon; the French side of the lagoon had fifteen, including targeted burglaries of unoccupied yachts at Witch's Tit. The classic theft is a dinghy cut from the dock between Buccaneer and Simpson Bay Marina during dinner. Cable-lock at docks, lift at night, lock the boat when everyone is ashore.
RulesNo fishing in the Man of War Shoal marine park or within 50 m of a dive mooring; spearguns illegal without a police permit; sharks, rays, turtles and marine mammals protected; lobster minimum 9.5 cm carapace. Nature Foundation +1 721 544 4267. Assume no discharge in the lagoon.
EmergencyCoast Guard (Kustwacht Caribisch Gebied) 913 free 24/7 on Sint Maarten, Saba and Statia, WhatsApp +599 9 510 0913, VHF 16. Ambulance 912 or +1 721 542 2111; police 911. St Maarten Medical Center, Cay Hill. No hyperbaric chamber found on the island; dive with licensed operators.

🇲🇫

Saint-Martin (French side)

Leg 6 · French online clearance · EUR

Clear inA separate jurisdiction from Sint Maarten: coming round from Simpson Bay is an entry into France. File the national dossier (free, valid three months), or have the port print it for €10.50. Port de Marigot: VHF 16, +590 590 87 59 06, info@portdemarigot.com, office at the Gare maritime, Galisbay, Mon–Fri 08:00–17:00, Sat 08:00–12:00, closed Sunday. Sunday 25 April is our arrival and the office is shut: file online before leaving Simpson Bay and register for the mooring zone by email.
Marigot mooring zoneZMEL Baie de Marigot: 75 buoys for boats under 20 m and 20 t; holding tank mandatory if you have heads; register two days before arrival or within an hour of arriving at mouillage@portdemarigot.com with proof of insurance and the crew list before anyone lands. 12.1–15 m band €11.96 a day or €71 a week, multihull plus 50%, plus 4% tax: about €18.66 a day or €110 a week for the cat. Free pump-out at Marina Fort Louis for zone users. The bay is open to north swell.
Marina Fort LouisNo bridge to pass: +590 590 77 31 26, reservations@marinafortlouis.com, VHF 16, online quote by LOA and hull type, high season Mon–Sat 08:00–18:00, Sun 08:00–12:00 or 17:00 by source. 150 slips, 3.6 m, fuel dock, clearance at the office, plus 15% alongside, plus 4% tax, pay in advance, out before noon.
Sandy Ground bridgeInto the lagoon from the French side: opens 08:30 and 17:00, inbound and outbound in the same slot, outbound priority, VHF 16, +590 590 87 50 04, free. Only 10 m wide and 3.5 m deep, 3 knots, with current in the cut: a 7.7 m beam fits but it is not the Simpson Bay bridge (17 m, 6 m). Confirm on VHF the day before. Not needed if we stay on the Marigot side.
Grand Case and the reserveGrand Case: free anchorage, quieter than Marigot, exposed only to a rare north swell, small dinghy pontoon; the Tuesday-evening "Mardis de Grand-Case" street festival runs January to April, so the Tuesday we are in these waters, 27 April, is at the very end of the season — check locally rather than promising it. Réserve naturelle (Pinel, Tintamarre, Rocher Créole, Caye Verte): buoys rated 15 t and 50 ft. The Lagoon 43 is 13.9 t light and 16–17 t with ten people and stores, so it is over the buoy rating, and the reserve tolerates anchoring on sand only for boats under 10 m. The cat cannot lie in the reserve at all: leave it in Grand Case or Marigot and take the guests to Pinel or Tintamarre by dinghy or with a licensed operator, or ask the reserve in writing. Daytime mooring free; overnight only at Tintamarre and Rocher Créole with written authorisation requested at least three working days ahead on reservenaturelle-saint-martin.com. Ranger +590 690 50 71 77. Pinel pennants are 12 mm chain: bridle with chafe gear. Anse Marcel marina on the north-east coast, +590 590 87 31 94, narrow buoyed entrance, call ahead.
AirportSXM to Marigot 20–30 minutes, zone tariff, about US$20–30 for two, surcharges after 22:00; budget two vans at US$40–60 each.
EmergencyCROSS AG 196 / VHF 16. Centre hospitalier Louis-Constant Fleming, Marigot, urgences +590 590 52 25 25, 24/7. No chamber confirmed on the French side.

🇦🇮

Anguilla

Leg 6 · no SailClear · XCD / USD · permit-bound

Clear inRoad Bay (Sandy Ground) is the only port of entry; Customs and Immigration by the dinghy dock at the pier. Anguilla Air & Sea Ports Authority +1 264 497 5816, info@anguillaports.com, Mon–Fri 08:00–16:00; weekend hours unconfirmed, so arrive on Monday 26 April in hours. Entry and exit about US$50 for a small yacht; departure tax US$3 a person.
Cruising permitRequired to go anywhere outside Road Bay, including by tender. Sold by the day, week or month at the pier, by tonnage band; the schedule reads "$110" up to 5 t and "$225" for 5–20 t, and Anguilla's regulations are normally in EC$, so about US$41 or US$83 a day, with much cheaper weekly rates. The band goes by the registered tonnage on the certificate, so read it off the ship's papers rather than guessing from displacement. Confirm the currency at the desk before buying. Marine-park moorings (Little Bay, Sandy Island, Prickly Pear) are day use only, 06:00–19:00, for vessels up to 65 ft, with a user fee; no boat may stay in a marine park between 19:00 and 06:00; no anchoring at all in Little Bay; anchor in parks only on designated sand. Pattern: overnight in Road Bay, day-trip on the permit, back by 19:00. The public ferry from Marigot (about hourly, cash) is the cheap way to give guests a land day on Anguilla without buying the permit.
Road BayFaces west, takes swell in Christmas winds; basic facilities, no confirmed fuel dock or water; restaurants along Sandy Ground (Elvis', Johnno's). Princess Alexandra Hospital, The Valley. Port Nimara, a superyacht marina on the south-west coast, is due to open in 2027 and may change the fee schedule.
RulesNo fishing by visitors inside the marine parks at all; no spearfishing or traps anywhere; no discharge; no anchoring in Little Bay or Shoal Bay East. The cruising-permit regulations also require the owner of a charter boat to appoint and notify an agent in Anguilla (reported, text not retrievable): ask the ports authority by email before the trip. No CSSN incidents in 2025.

07 · Weather

Wind, swell, channels and forecasts

5 kt

10 kt

15 kt

20 kt

25 kt

Barbs fly from the station circle into the wind, the usual way round: a half feather is five knots, a full feather ten, a pennant fifty. Plotted value is the mean daily maximum over ten seasons, 27 March to 1 May — the strongest hour of an average day, not a gust and not a daily mean. Rings mark the channels where the trade accelerates; the chart does not put a figure on that, because no grid this coarse resolves a ten-mile jet. Isotherms are sea surface, 0.08°C per degree of latitude. Swell vectors carry mean height and period. Not for navigation.

Measured over 27 March – 1 May. Wind is the daily maximum: mean, ninetieth percentile and the highest single day in ten seasons. Channel and offshore rows are shaded.
Position	kt	p90	max	from °	sea °C	Hs m	air °C	rain d
Martinique	15	18	21	84	27.7	1.2	24–30	2.1
Saint Lucia	15	18	21	84	27.9	1.0	26–30	0.4
St Vincent	15	18	21	84	27.9	1.1	26–30	4.5
Bequia	15	18	21	84	27.8	1.3	26–30	1.0
Union Island	16	18	21	84	27.9	1.2	26–30	0.9
Grenada	16	18	20	83	27.7	1.2	26–30	1.6
Dominica	15	18	22	85	27.9	0.7	23–31	6.8
Guadeloupe	15	18	21	86	28.1	1.0	22–29	2.3
Montserrat	14	18	22	85	27.5	1.3	24–28	1.9
Antigua	15	18	23	87	27.4	1.2	24–29	2.2
Barbuda	14	18	22	87	27.2	1.5	24–29	2.3
Nevis	14	18	21	84	27.6	1.2	25–29	2.7
St Kitts	14	18	21	85	27.6	1.1	24–29	3.1
Sint Eustatius	14	18	21	85	27.6	1.3	24–29	0.9
Saba	14	18	21	84	27.5	1.4	24–29	1.6
Saint-Barthelemy	14	18	21	86	27.3	1.4	25–29	2.0
Sint Maarten	14	18	21	86	27.4	1.2	25–29	1.6
Anguilla	14	18	21	86	27.3	1.1	25–28	1.7
Grenada Passage	16	18	21	84	27.8	1.1	—	—
St Vincent Channel	15	18	21	85	27.8	1.6	—	—
St Lucia Channel	15	18	21	85	27.8	1.2	—	—
Dominica Channel	15	18	22	85	27.6	1.6	—	—
Guadeloupe Passage	15	18	21	86	27.6	1.1	—	—
Saba gap	14	18	21	84	27.6	1.3	—	—
Anguilla Channel	14	18	21	85	27.3	1.1	—	—
Leg 6 rhumb line	14	18	21	85	27.8	1.2	—	—
Atlantic, windward	15	18	22	86	27.6	2.0	—	—

What late March and April do

Trades. East, and remarkably steady: 083–087° at every one of the thirty-five sampled positions, with a daily mean of 14–16 knots and a top decile of 18. The Christmas winds are over. In ten seasons of record, not one day in this window averages over 20 knots anywhere on the route — the boat will see 25 in a squall and in the acceleration zones, but the sustained overpowered day that January produces eight times in a hundred does not happen here. The trade also backs east through the window, so the two upwind legs get better the later they fall.
Acceleration zones. Add 5–10 knots to the forecast in the Guadeloupe Passage, the Dominica Channel, the Carriacou–Grenada gap and between Saba, Statia and St Kitts. In spring that means 20–25 in the channels on a normal day rather than the 30 a January gap can produce, but the sea state in a wind-against-current channel is unchanged.
Lee effects. Dominica, Martinique, Basse-Terre and St Vincent cast wind shadows 10–20 nm downwind; close inshore a westerly sea breeze can blow from 10:00 to 16:00, and at night katabatic gusts to 30 knots drop out of the valleys around 02:00, worst under Morne Diablotin and along the St Vincent coast. At the north and south tips the wind and swell bend round the island: confused sea, gusty patches. Reef before leaving a lee.
Squalls. A line of showers from the east, 10–15 knots over the ambient for 10–20 minutes with a veer, then a lull. More of them than in midwinter and more of them wet: the wet-day rate roughly doubles from the Grenadines to Dominica and Guadeloupe. Reef before dark on passage.
North swell. North Atlantic gales 1,000–2,000 nm to the north-west send long rollers (8 s and up; the dangerous ones 12–16 s) that arrive two to three days after the gale and last two to three days. On this route they empty Saint-Pierre and the Anses d'Arlet, Roseau and Portsmouth, Deshaies, Little Bay, Pinney's Beach, Oranjestad, Saba's west side, Barbuda's west coast, Road Bay, Marigot and Grand Case and Gustavia's outer anchorage. Le Marin, the southern Grenadines, Prickly Bay, Falmouth and English Harbour, Nonsuch and Simpson Bay are largely immune. Read it on Windy's swell layer by period and direction, not height: 2 m at 14 s from 350° is a problem, 2 m at 7 s is a wind sea. OPC's Atlantic surface analysis shows the gale two or three days before the swell. The season is against them by now: the ten-year record puts a north swell on about 2.6% of days over the window as a whole, against 4.6% in January and February, and by leg 5 in late April it is down to 0.4%. Late March is where the residual risk sits, which is leg 1 — the Grenadines, where it does least harm.
Current. The Caribbean Current sets west to north-west through every passage, 0.5–1.5 knots, strongest in the southern channels. On the upwind leg 2 — four days, 157 nm, 63° off the wind — start each crossing from the eastern tip of the island you are leaving and expect to be set to leeward. Tidal range is 0.3–0.5 m and matters only for reef-lagoon currents.
Channels. Wind against current plus Atlantic swell make the Martinique, St Lucia, St Vincent and Dominica channels the roughest water of the trip: 2–3 m with 20–25 knots is normal in a Christmas-wind spell.
Sargassum and Saharan dust. This is the change the January brief did not have to carry. Sargassum builds through the spring and the Lesser Antilles influx runs up from about April to a May–August peak; the recent seasons have been the heaviest on record. Expect weed in the windward bays and the Le Marin approaches, on Barbuda's and Antigua's Atlantic side, in Nonsuch, and along Guadeloupe's Grande-Terre coast. Practical consequences: check the raw-water strainers daily, look before you anchor, and do not swim into a mat. Saharan dust also rises from spring into summer; in April it is still light. Read the current picture on the USF bulletins and the CARICOOS sargassum tracker in the fortnight before departure.

Daylight and moon

Date	Sunrise	Sunset	Moon
Sat 27 Mar (boarding)	06:04	18:16	Waning gibbous; full moon was Mon 22 Mar, last quarter Tue 30 Mar
Mon–Tue 29–30 Mar (night passage)	—	—	Waning gibbous near last quarter, rising around midnight: dark for the first half of the night, moonlight for the pre-dawn approach to Bequia — the opposite of January's passage, and the better way round
Sat 3 Apr	05:59	18:17	Waning crescent; new moon Tue 6 Apr
Wed 7 Apr	05:56	18:17	New moon was 19:51 the evening before: the darkest nights of the trip fall on the Martinique–Dominica crossings
Tue 13 Apr	05:52	18:18	First quarter: half moon setting around midnight for the Montserrat and Antigua days
Fri 16 Apr	05:50	18:18	Waxing gibbous
Tue 20 Apr	05:48	18:19	Full moon 18:27, rising as the sun sets: bright nights for the Saba and St Barth days
Sun 25 Apr	05:45	18:20	Waning gibbous
Tue–Fri 27–30 Apr (offshore leg)	—	—	Last quarter Wed 28 Apr: the moon rises around midnight and is up past sunrise, so the first half of each night is dark and the second half lit
Sat 1 May (hand-back)	05:42	18:21	Waning crescent

Fort-de-France local time, UTC−4; add about 8 minutes to sunrise and sunset in the northern Leewards. Days are a little over twelve hours throughout and lengthening: 12h12m at boarding, 12h39m at the hand-back. Last safe light for reef work is about 30 minutes before sunset; reef entries at Tobago Cays, Barbuda and Nonsuch want the sun high and behind you, 10:00–15:00. Be anchored by 17:00.

Forecast sources

Météo-Francemeteofrance.mq → Marine for Martinique's coastal zones and the "Mer Caraïbe" offshore bulletins; meteofrance.gp for Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and St Barth. Houle (swell) is given separately from mer du vent. BMS are the gale warnings.
VHF bulletinsCROSS Antilles-Guyane announces on 16 then reads the coastal bulletin on 79 or 80. Martinique: Le Marin 07:20, 10:50, 18:20, 20:20 on 79; Bellefontaine 07:30, 11:00, 18:30, 20:30 on 80; Grand-Rivière 07:40, 11:10, 18:40, 20:40 on 79; La Caravelle 07:50, 11:20, 18:50, 20:50 on 80. A BMS is broadcast on receipt and repeated hourly at H+30, French then English. Guadeloupe relays follow the same pattern. Offshore bulletin on 2545 kHz at 09:33 and 18:15 after a call on 2182.
NOAAOffshore Waters Forecast OFFNT3 (nhc.noaa.gov/text/MIAOFFNT3.shtml): wind, seas and named swell for every zone of the eastern Caribbean, four times a day, out to five days. Tropical Weather Discussion and the OPC Atlantic surface analyses alongside it.
Chris ParkerMarine Weather Center: East Caribbean net 10:00 UTC (06:00 local) on 4045 and 8137 kHz USB, evening net 22:00 UTC on 8137 and 12350. Listening is free; questions, email, WhatsApp and Zoom briefings need a subscription (around US$110 a month). Office +1 863 248 2702, WhatsApp +1 941 915 7608.
With StarlinkWindy (ECMWF, GFS, ICON, swell layer), PredictWind for departure planning and GRIBs, the two text products above, and Parker's morning net. Keep the VHF bulletin times as the fallback for the offshore leg if the dish drops.
Cruisers' netsGrenada 07:30 on VHF 66 Mon–Sat (68 is the hailing channel there); Bequia 08:00 on 68; Rodney Bay 08:30 on 68 Mon–Fri; Le Marin and Sainte-Anne 08:30 on 08, Monday and Friday; Antigua English Harbour 09:00 on 06, Jolly Harbour 08:00 on 74; Sint Maarten 07:30 on 10 Mon–Sat. Weather, security and who has a spare impeller.

08 · Rules

Rules of the water: parks, fishing, discharge, whales

Where moorings are compulsory or anchoring is banned

Place	Rule	Cost
Anses d'Arlet Bourg and Grande Anse, Martinique	No anchoring (2015); buoys closed to 31 Dec 2026, check for March 2027	Use Petite Anse, Anse Noire or Saint-Pierre
Saint-Pierre wreck zone	No anchoring inside the three yellow buoys	Bookable buoys via Navily, or anchor outside
Mustique	Britannia Bay only, moorings	EC$200 for up to three nights
Tobago Cays	Sand only, never coral or seagrass; 5 kn; no fishing; no discharge	EC$15 pp + EC$60 per boat per 24 h
Sandy Island, Carriacou	Moorings only	About US$10–20 per 24 h
Molinière, Grenada	Moorings only, pay online in advance	US$7 pp entry from 1 October 2026 + US$10 pp snorkel + US$10 an hour on the buoy, or US$25 overnight for a charter yacht
SMMA, Soufrière, St Lucia	Anchoring forbidden, SMMA buoys only, no fishing	US$20 / EC$54 a night ≤70 ft + EC$25 permit
Roseau, Dominica	Too deep to anchor; private moorings	About US$15–20 a night
Scotts Head–Soufrière reserve, Dominica	No anchoring or mooring, no spear guns, operator only in the water	EC$5 / US$2 pp
Les Saintes	Buoys mandatory under 20 m	About €20–25 a night for a cat
Réserve Cousteau, Guadeloupe	No anchoring; buoys only for boats ≤8 m, no overnight	Anchor at Malendure, free
English and Falmouth Harbours, Antigua	National Parks dues, anchored or berthed; 4 kn in English Harbour	About $0.10/ft/day + per-person charges
Nevis west coast	NASPA moorings, call VHF 16 within 24 h; no anchoring at Oualie	By length band, +25% evenings and Saturdays, +50% Sundays, cash
Statia	Designated sand zone only; north and south reserves no-anchor, no-fish	US$10 a night, US$30 a week
Saba	Yellow buoys only (≤20 m, 50 t), Ladder–Wells or Fort Bay; no anchoring in coral or dive zones	US$3 pp + US$1 pp a night + harbour fee
Colombier, St Barth	Free reserve buoys or sand away from them	Small per-person reserve fee
Simpson Bay lagoon	No anchoring in fairways; 5 mph; weekly fee to SLAC	US$40 a week for our band + bridge US$21
Marigot bay	ZMEL buoys for boats under 20 m and 20 t, holding tank mandatory, register ahead	About €18.66 a day or €110 a week
Saint-Martin reserve (Pinel, Tintamarre)	Buoys rated 50 ft / 15 t, sand anchoring only for boats under 10 m: the loaded Lagoon 43 qualifies for neither. Visit by dinghy from Grand Case or Marigot	Free by day
Anguilla marine parks	Day use only 06:00–19:00, ≤65 ft; no anchoring at all in Little Bay; cruising permit for anything outside Road Bay	Permit on the order of US$100 a day + park user fee

Fishing, lobster, spearfishing

Spearfishing by visitors is banned in effect everywhere on the route: SVG, Grenada, St Lucia, Dominica, Antigua & Barbuda, St Kitts & Nevis, the Dutch and French marine parks, Anguilla's parks; Sint Maarten treats a speargun as a weapon needing a police permit. Leave it at home.
Trolling on passage for the galley is the universal grey area. St Lucia issues fishing licences to residents only, so a visiting yacht has no lawful fishing inside 12 nm; Antigua wants a vessel licence (about US$100 for three months); Grenada, SVG, Dominica and SKN want a licence in law that nobody sells to yachts. Outside 12 nm you are still inside a coastal state's 200 nm fishing zone, so distance offshore is not a licence either. The honest position is that a trolled lure on the two long passages is a widely tolerated technicality, and fish is bought ashore everywhere else.
Lobster is in season for all but the last day: the closures start 30 April in St Lucia and 1 May in SVG, Grenada and Antigua — 1 May is the hand-back, so the whole trip is inside the open season and nothing bought on the way home is. Buy from the vendors at Tobago Cays, Bequia, Union, Portsmouth, Les Saintes, Barbuda, Anguilla and Grand Case; refuse berried or undersized animals (3.5–3.75 in carapace), and ask for a receipt in Antigua where the fisheries officers check.
Turtles, conch and coral are protected everywhere; Grenada's turtle and sea-urchin seasons close 1 April. Ciguatera: skip barracuda, large jacks, big grouper and snapper from reefs; buy small pelagics.
Lionfish are welcome everywhere, but spearing them still needs the local authorisation the dive shops hold.

Discharge, garbage, speed, dinghies

Holding tanks in every park and enclosed bay: Tobago Cays (explicit), SMMA, Saba and Statia, Simpson Bay lagoon, the French reserves, Les Saintes, Marigot (mandatory), Nonsuch, English and Falmouth. With 80 l tanks and ten people the regime is valves to tank in harbour and discharge offshore on the crossings, more than 3 nm from any coast (the French rule for a boat this size; MARPOL's baseline for untreated sewage is 12 nm and under way; the parks are zero), and further from Dominica, whose reserve bans any discharge out to the EEZ. The Bequia and St Vincent channels are mostly inside 3 nm; the Martinique, St Lucia and Guadeloupe passages are not.
Garbage lands only where it is taken: Le Marin, Port Louis, Rodney Bay, Portsmouth through PAYS, Bas-du-Fort, English Harbour (billed at clearance), Simpson Bay. Never on the Tobago Cays, Mayreau, Mustique, Barbuda, Saba or Statia.
Speed: 5 knots inside the 300 m band from any French shore (the yellow swimming buoys), in the Tobago Cays, in the SMMA, in Simpson Bay lagoon and its channel, 4 knots in English Harbour, 3 knots in Gustavia's channel. Dinghies included. Marked swimming zones are closed to all craft.
Dinghy at night: COLREG applies everywhere. A powered tender under 7 m that cannot exceed 7 knots may show an all-round white light alone; anything faster needs sidelights as well; a torch is the concession for a rowing boat, not for an outboard. Fit a proper all-round white to the tender and carry a torch as well. Lift and lock it every night; that sentence is repeated on every island card because it is the whole of Caribbean yacht crime.
Sunscreen: no statutory rule, but the parks ask for zinc or titanium formulas; tell the guests before they pack.

Whales and the air

French prefectoral order of 12 July 2024: 300 m from any cetacean in the waters of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Martin and Saint-Barthélemy, boats, divers and drones alike; passing a whale's position over VHF is prohibited too. If whales surface close, take the engine out of gear, slow right down, change heading only to avoid collision, and let the animal decide; nobody goes in the water.
Dominica's Sperm Whale Reserve Act (passed October 2025; later reports say commencement stalled, so treat it as in force and be pleasantly surprised): the reserve runs from a line 2 nm off the west coast out to the EEZ between roughly Scotts Head and Prince Rupert Bay. Inside it: no vessel over 10 knots, no discharge of any kind, no swimming with whales without a permit, no approaching a whale that is nursing or disturbed, and, in the text as passed, no passage by a sailing yacht with its engine running or by any vessel over 60 ft, except through the maritime corridor to be designated for Roseau traffic. The practical reading: coast Dominica inside 2 nm when the engine is on (which is where the gusts are), and go outside 2 nm only under sail alone, under 10 knots. Fixed penalties EC$5,000.
Drone law for all fifteen jurisdictions is on the main page; Saba and Statia have no lawful category at all, Antigua can bond the aircraft at the border.

09 · Safety

Emergency, medical, security

Who coordinates a rescue

Centre	Covers	Reach
CROSS Antilles-Guyane (MRCC Fort-de-France)	French waters and, in practice, the whole chain from Anguilla to St Lucia; relays for everyone	VHF 16 and DSC 70 · 196 from a French network · +596 596 70 92 92 · alternate +596 596 73 16 16 · MF 2182 kHz
Dutch Caribbean Coastguard (JRCC Curaçao)	Sint Maarten, Saba, Statia	913 free from local networks · +599 9 510 0913 (also WhatsApp) · JRCC +599 9 463 7700 · VHF 16
ABSAR, English Harbour (volunteer, paramedic afloat)	Antigua and Barbuda	+1 268 562 1234 · +1 268 720 3992 · WhatsApp +1 268 720 8836 · VHF 16
Antigua Coast Guard	Antigua & Barbuda	+1 268 462 0671 · VHF 16
SVG Coast Guard, Calliaqua	St Vincent & the Grenadines	+1 784 457 4578 · 457 4554 · VHF 16, 2182 kHz
Grenada Coast Guard	Grenada, Carriacou	+1 473 444 1931 · 444 1933 · 911 · VHF 16
St Lucia Marine Police Unit	St Lucia	+1 758 456 3871 · 999 · VHF 16
Dominica Coast Guard	Dominica	+1 767 448 2222 · 266 5173 · Marine Unit 448 4431 · 999
St Kitts & Nevis Coast Guard	SKN	+1 869 465 8384 · 911
Montserrat	Montserrat	Port Security VHF 16 around the clock · 911 · Coast Guard +1 664 496 1047 (unconfirmed)
MRSC Barbados	Sub-centre for the eastern Caribbean	+1 246 536 2948
DAN emergency line	Diving accidents, evacuation advice	+1 919 684 9111, 24 h, collect calls accepted

A DSC distress alert (the red button, which transmits on channel 70) followed by a Mayday by voice on 16 reaches whichever centre is listening; CROSS AG relays across the region. Check the boat's EPIRB registration shows the base's 24-hour contact and the skipper's own; for a French-flagged boat the alert routes through CNES to Fort-de-France.

Hospitals and hyperbaric chambers

Island	Hospital	Chamber
Martinique	CHU Pierre Zobda-Quitman, Fort-de-France, +596 596 55 20 00, via SAMU 15	Yes, at the CHU
Guadeloupe	CHU Pointe-à-Pitre, via SAMU 15	Yes: hyperbaric unit +590 590 89 11 37, 24/7 on call
Grenada	Grenada General Hospital, St George's, +1 473 440 2051	Yes: SAMS, St Paul's, +1 473 440 6173, emergency +1 473 407 0107
St Kitts	JNF General Hospital, Basseterre; Alexandra Hospital, Nevis	Yes: CDA-WI, Bay Road, Basseterre, via the hospital, 911
SVG	Milton Cato Memorial, Kingstown, +1 784 456 1185; Bequia hospital +1 784 458 3294 (no trauma)	None: Grenada
St Lucia	Tapion (private), Castries, +1 758 459 2000; OKEU +1 758 458 6500; Soufrière +1 758 459 7258	Reported at Tapion by one directory, not confirmed: plan on Martinique
Dominica	Dominica China Friendship Hospital, Roseau, +1 767 266 2000; Portsmouth Hospital +1 767 266 5605	None: Martinique or Guadeloupe
Montserrat	Glendon Hospital, Brades, +1 664 491 2552 (verify); medevac to Antigua	None
Antigua	Mount St John's Medical Centre, St John's, +1 268 484 2700	None: Basseterre or Guadeloupe
Statia / Saba	Queen Beatrix Medical Center, Oranjestad; A.M. Edwards Medical Center, The Bottom	Saba historically had a chamber at Fort Bay (+599 416 3456 listed); status to verify with Sea Saba
Sint Maarten	St Maarten Medical Center, Cay Hill; ambulance 912	None found
St Barth	Hôpital de Bruyn, Gustavia, urgences +590 590 27 85 78	None
Saint-Martin	CH Louis-Constant Fleming, Marigot, urgences +590 590 52 25 25	None confirmed
Anguilla	Princess Alexandra Hospital, The Valley	None

Before the charter, not at handover: the certificate of registry with call sign and MMSI, the radio licence, and the safety inventory checked against the French Division 240 category for the distance offshore we sail: liferaft capacity and service date, EPIRB registration, fixed and handheld DSC VHF, lifejackets for twelve, tethers and jackstays, flares in date, extinguishers, navigation lights, spares. Diving guests should hold DAN or equivalent, and the skipper should carry their policy numbers. French islands have full pharmacies; the English islands only in the main towns. Kit for ten: seasickness tablets, rehydration salts, antihistamine and hydrocortisone, vinegar for fire coral and jellyfish, antibiotic ointment and a prescribed oral antibiotic, swimmer's-ear drops, analgesics, loperamide, wound strips, burn dressings, splint, tourniquet, thermometer, pulse oximeter, gloves.

Security, honestly

The Caribbean Safety and Security Net counted 124 incidents across the whole Caribbean in 2025, seven of them violent, and three-quarters of the rest were dinghies and outboards taken from boats that had not lifted them. On our track the 2025 numbers were SVG 12 (Bequia 5, Canouan 2, both boardings there through open doors), Saint-Martin 15 (nine in the lagoon), Martinique 11 (Le Marin 4), Grenada 7, St Lucia 5 (Rodney Bay 3), Sint Maarten 5 (all Simpson Bay); nothing reported for Dominica, Antigua, SKN, Montserrat, Anguilla, Saba or Statia. In 2026 so far: a violent night boarding at Anse Cochon, St Lucia (July), an assault at Sainte-Anne, Martinique (August), three burglaries of unoccupied yachts at Mt Hartman, Grenada (August), five dinghies in one night at Tyrrel Bay (April), a whole yacht stolen at Union (May). There is no piracy north of Grenada; the Venezuelan coast is 80 nm south of the route and off it.

Lift and lock the dinghy every night, cable-lock the outboard and its cowling, and use attended docks ashore.
Lock the saloon door and hatches when everyone is asleep or ashore. Ten people aboard is not a deterrent through an open door.
Nothing of value in the cockpit overnight; no cash on the saloon table.
One named boat boy in Soufrière and Wallilabou, price agreed first; official ones carry ID cards.
Day stops only at Anse Cochon and Vieux Fort; sleep at Rachette Point rather than off Soufrière town, at White House Bay rather than Basseterre roadstead, in the marina rather than off Reduit Beach.
Listen to the morning nets, join the island WhatsApp groups, and check thecssn.org again in February for the season's picture. Report anything at thecssn.org/report-incident.

10 · Changeovers

The changeover routine

Five mid-trip changeovers plus the initial boarding and the final hand-back, on five different weekdays. Each one is a fixed, repeatable routine and it cannot be run off a rolly anchorage: six people, suitcases and a dinghy is how luggage and tempers go in the water. A berth for the handover night and the night before it, at every handover port, is in the budget. Two of the six — Wed 7 April and Fri 16 April — land on the day the boat comes in off the previous leg, so on those two the arrival has to be brought forward to the evening before or the routine below has nowhere to happen.

Date	Port and berth	Airport	Clearance note
Sat 3 Apr	Port Louis Marina, St George's	GND, about 15 min	Clear in on Friday 2 April at Port Louis. A Saturday clearance is overtime, about EC$40.
Wed 7 Apr	Marina du Marin	FDF, about 45 min	Easiest of the five: French clearance online, printed at the captainerie or a chandlery, no overtime and no weekend. But the boat arrives from leg 2 the evening before, so it has to be alongside Tuesday 6 April.
Tue 13 Apr	Marina Bas-du-Fort, Pointe-à-Pitre	PTP, about 15 min	French terminal, weekday, nothing closed. Arrive Monday 12 April and clear in then.
Fri 16 Apr	Nelson's Dockyard / Falmouth, or Jolly Harbour	ANU, 30–40 min	The hard one. Antigua Classics is running 14–19 April and English Harbour will be full; Jolly Harbour is the fallback. Clear in Thursday 15 April, allow two hours, slowest desk on the route. Leg 4 is three days long, so this arrival cannot slip.
Sun 25 Apr	Simpson Bay: IGY Simpson Bay Marina, Lagoon Marina, or the lagoon anchorage (Isle de Sol takes 80 ft and up)	SXM, about 10 min	Mid-Carnival and a Sunday: Dutch weekend hours at the desk, the bridge on its fixed times, the island busy. Arrive Saturday 24 April, clear in that day, and check the bridge schedule against the flights before committing to a lagoon berth.
Sat 1 May	Marina du Marin, hand back 11:00	FDF, about 45 min	Labour Day in France: the desk, the office and the chandleries are shut. Everything — clearance, fuel, water, the berth paperwork, the laundry — is done on Friday 30 April.

The standing routine

Two days out. Confirm the incoming manifest with Ivan. File the crew-list amendment on the relevant system (SailClear, the French online form, or paper for Antigua if its portal is still down). Order the transfer vehicles. Size the restock.
The day before, morning. Arrive at the handover port. Alongside by early afternoon at the latest.
The day before, afternoon. Clear in. Fuel, water, pump out. Linen to the laundry. Start the restock where the shops are good. Ask the desk how it wants the crew change handled: the outward clearance has to carry the people who are actually leaving on the boat, so it is done after the new crew boards (Bequia, Le Marin and Bas-du-Fort make this easy; Grenada and Antigua may want it the day before with the new names, plus the departing guests signed off in front of Immigration). An online amendment is a notification, not a clearance.
Handover day, morning. Departing crew ashore and to the airport. Deep clean cabins and heads. Photograph each cabin after cleaning and before the new manifest boards. Collect and make up fresh linen. Finish the restock and stow.
Handover day, afternoon. Arriving crew collected. Board, cabins allocated, passports copied for the onward crew list. Safety briefing, 90 minutes, no exceptions: lifejackets, harnesses and jackstays, liferaft, flares, VHF and DSC, MOB drill, gas, seacocks, heads, dinghy, fire. For the two passage legs add the watch system: skipper and cook split the night in three-hour watches with one guest each as lookout, harness clipped on in the cockpit after dark, no alcohol for anyone standing a watch, nobody forward alone at night.
Handover day, evening. Slip and go to an anchorage an hour away if the light, the crew and the skipper allow it: starting the leg on the water sets the week's tone and buys back a morning. With a green crew, a late arrival or dusk, stay alongside; the Le Marin channel after dark is the same class of risk as a night entry, and Bas-du-Fort's is not much better.

The boat comes with one set of sheets and towels. Six changeovers need six made-up sets across three guest cabins: one spare set bought outright, plus a laundry service at each handover port, dropped on the arrival day and collected the next morning. The budget, float and crew terms are in the private cabin ledger, not on this page.

11 · Money and comms

Three currencies, and where the phone works

Currency	Where	Note
EUR	Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin	Cards everywhere; cash for moorings, boat boys, the Les Saintes launch, taxis. More than €10,000 cash per person must be declared.
XCD (East Caribbean dollar)	St Lucia, SVG, Grenada, Dominica, Montserrat, Antigua & Barbuda, St Kitts & Nevis, Anguilla	Pegged at EC$2.70 to US$1. US dollars accepted at every desk, change comes back in XCD at a poor rate; draw XCD at Rodney Bay, St George's and Jolly Harbour for anything substantial. Nevis is cash only.
USD	Statia, Saba, Sint Maarten	The working currency; Saba's fees are cash.

US dollar cash is the single most useful thing to carry: it pays customs, park rangers, dive shops, guides and airport vans on every non-French island. Every receipt, including chits from boat boys and drivers, photographed the same day; thermal paper does not survive five weeks in a chart table. The float, its composition and the spending authority are in the ledger, not here.

Comms

StarlinkRoam works under way and within 12 nm of shore; beyond 12 nm the dish needs Ocean Mode at US$6 per GB (from 27 September 2026), which on this route means the offshore leg only. The Personal Maritime plan (US$185 a month) is written for vessels up to 40 ft and the Lagoon 43 is 45 ft 5 in, so confirm eligibility with the base; Roam has a 30-day-per-country cap that seven jurisdictions in five weeks should not trip, but check. Saba reports Starlink blocked at the moorings and working a quarter mile off. Mount the dish clear of the boom and bimini.
MobileThe French islands are EU roaming: EU SIMs work at home rates (St Barth on Orange, to be confirmed). Digicel and Flow cover every English-speaking island; local SIMs about US$10 plus data, or a regional eSIM. Sint Maarten is TelEm or Digicel and is not EU roaming.
VHF16 for calling and distress, dual-watched; 68 is the yachts' hailing and working channel in the English islands (69, 72 as alternates); 12 is the Simpson Bay bridge and Gustavia; 09 is the French marinas; 14 is Port Louis and Statia customs; 79 and 80 carry the CROSS bulletins. Call on 16, move off immediately, low power in harbour, MMSI programmed. The French "sécurité" announcements on 16 before every bulletin mean 16 carries traffic all day.
LicencesA French-flagged yacht carries an ANFR ship station licence; the operator needs at least the CRR, and a foreign skipper's SRC or LRC is recognised. Carry the card.

12 · Directory

Every number in one place

Route order. VHF first, then phone; WhatsApp where a source published one. Numbers marked "verify" came from a single or older source.

Who	VHF	Phone / WhatsApp	Email / note
Martinique
CROSS Antilles-Guyane (MRCC)	16 / DSC 70	196 · +596 596 70 92 92 · +596 596 73 16 16	Covers all French islands, relays region-wide
Marina du Marin capitainerie	09	+596 596 74 83 83 · WA +596 696 82 74 58	contact@marina-martinique.fr · Mon–Sat 08–17, Sun 08–12:30
Station CAP fuel dock, Le Marin	—	+596 596 76 51 61	Daily 07:30–13:00, 14:00–17:00; clearance printing
Douane Le Marin	—	+596 596 74 91 64	Daily 07:00–12:30
Douglas Yacht Services (agent)	—	+596 696 20 73 49	conciergerie@douglasyachtservices.fr
Rade de Saint-Pierre moorings	09	+596 696 61 60 43	st-pierre@marina-martinique.fr · Navily
Étang Z'Abricot marina, Fort-de-France	09	+596 596 75 11 57	contact@portetangzabricots.fr
Le Ship / Mécanique Plaisance	—	+596 596 74 68 74	assistant@mecaplais.fr · Yanmar dealer, Sat 08–12:30
Caraïbe Marine / Caraïbe Gréement	—	+596 596 74 80 33	Lagoon dealer, rigging
CHU Martinique	—	+596 596 55 20 00 · SAMU 15	Hyperbaric chamber on site
Taxis: marina rank / airport	—	+596 596 74 62 78 · +596 596 42 16 66	€40–85 per van to FDF
St Vincent & the Grenadines
SVG Coast Guard, Calliaqua	16	+1 784 457 4578 · 457 4554	office.natsec@mail.gov.vc
Bequia customs	—	+1 784 456 1111 ext 6250	Seven days; Sun 09–12, 15–18
Union Island customs, Clifton	—	+1 784 485 8294	Mon–Fri 08–16, behind Bougainvilla
Tenuta Chatham Bay (clearance agent)	—	WA +1 784 433 9685	EC$100, daily 09–12, 13–16
Mustique harbourmaster	16 / 68	+1 784 488 8363 · 533 0216	EC$200 up to three nights
Tobago Cays Marine Park	16 (call "rangers")	+1 784 485 8191	info@tobagocays.org · pay at tobagocays.org
Daffodil Marine, Bequia	—	WA +1 784 454 0045	Fuel, water, ice, laundry alongside
Doris' Fresh Food, Bequia	—	via dorisfreshfood.com	Provisioning to the boat
Sandy Lane Yacht Club, Canouan	68	+1 784 533 0000	marina@slycr.com
Blue Lagoon Marina, St Vincent	—	+1 784 458 4308	info@bluelagoonsvg.com · port of entry
Milton Cato Memorial Hospital / Bequia hospital	—	+1 784 456 1185 · +1 784 458 3294
Grenada
Grenada Coast Guard	16	+1 473 444 1931 · 444 1933 · 911
Port Louis Marina	14	+1 473 435 7432 · 435 7431	info@cnportlouismarina.com · customs on site
Grenada Port Control	16 → 11/12	+1 473 440 7678
Tyrrel Bay customs / immigration	16 ("Tyrrel Bay Port Authorities")	+1 473 443 6100 · 443 9379 · port +1 473 421 0726	At Carriacou Marine
Carriacou Marine fuel dock	—	+1 473 443 6292 · WA +1 473 406 0314	Duty-free diesel, water
Prickly Bay Marina / Moorsafe	—	+1 473 440 2001 · WA +1 473 456 8895	Moorings US$20
Le Phare Bleu	—	—	hello@lepharebleu.com
Sandy Island MPA	—	+1 473 443 7494 · hotline 538 5851
SAMS hyperbaric chamber	—	+1 473 440 6173 · emergency +1 473 407 0107	24 h
Grenada General Hospital	—	+1 473 440 2051
Airport Taxi Association	—	+1 473 415 8977	EC$50 to Port Louis
St Lucia
Marine Police Unit	16	+1 758 456 3871 · 999
SMMA rangers, Soufrière	16 ("SMMA rangers")	+1 758 459 5500 · 24 h +1 758 724 6332	smma.inc@gmail.com
IGY Rodney Bay Marina	16	+1 758 458 7200 · fuel dock +1 758 717 8139	rbm@igymarinas.com · Immigration +1 758 456 3825
Marigot Bay Yacht Haven	12	+1 758 728 9948	info@marigotbayyachthaven.com
Tapion Hospital / OKEU Hospital	—	+1 758 459 2000 · +1 758 458 6500	Soufrière hospital +1 758 459 7258
Dominica
Coast Guard / Marine Unit	16	+1 767 448 2222 · 266 5173 · 448 4431 · 999
PAYS, Portsmouth	16	+1 767 317 9098 (also WA)	dominicapays@gmail.com · 08:30–16:30
Portsmouth customs	—	+1 767 266 3731 · 266 4452	Cargo dock, weekdays to 16:00
Roseau customs	—	+1 767 448 4462	Ferry terminal
Sea Cat moorings, Roseau	16	+1 767 245 0507	Water, fuel, laundry
Dominica Marine Center, Roseau	16	+1 767 448 2705	info@dominicamarinecenter.com
Nature Island Dive, Soufrière	—	+1 767 245 6505 (WA)	natureislanddive@gmail.com
Hospitals	—	Roseau +1 767 266 2000 · Portsmouth +1 767 266 5605
Guadeloupe and Les Saintes
Marina Bas-du-Fort	09	+590 590 93 66 20 · +590 690 35 19 19	info@marinaguadeloupe.com
LSM Les Saintes moorings	—	+590 590 81 53 57	lessaintesmultiservices@gmail.com · Mon–Sat 09–12, 14–19
Deshaies service portuaire (clearance)	—	+590 690 25 37 80	alefort@villedeshaies.fr · closed weekends
Parc national (Réserve Cousteau)	—	+590 590 41 55 55
Captain Nautic chandlery, Bas-du-Fort	—	+590 590 21 36 70
CHU Guadeloupe hyperbaric unit	—	+590 590 89 11 37 · SAMU 15	24/7 on call
Taxi Guadeloupe	—	+590 690 41 65 64	Serves all marinas
Montserrat
Montserrat Port Authority	16 ("Montserrat Port")	+1 664 491 2791	info@mpa.ms
Customs	—	+1 664 491 3816 · 491 2555	customs@gov.ms · immigration@gov.ms
MVO visitor centre	—	+1 664 491 5647	Mon–Fri 09–16
Glendon Hospital	—	+1 664 491 2552 (verify) · 911
Antigua & Barbuda
ABSAR	16	+1 268 562 1234 · +1 268 720 3992 · WA +1 268 720 8836	24 h
Antigua Coast Guard	16	+1 268 462 0671
Health inspector, English Harbour	—	WA +1 268 764 3446	Inspection afloat by appointment
Nelson's Dockyard Marina	—	+1 268 481 5035 · 481 5021	info@nelsonsdockyardmarina.com
Antigua Yacht Club Marina	—	+1 268 460 1544	aycmarina@candw.ag
Falmouth Harbour Marina	10	+1 268 460 6054	falmar@candw.ag
The Catamaran Marina	—	+1 268 460 1503	catamaranmarina@candw.ag · fuel, rigging
Antigua Slipway	—	+1 268 460 1056	antslipway@candw.ag · fuel, chandlery
Jolly Harbour Marina	68	+1 268 462 6041	info@jhmarina.com · customs on site
Barbuda customs officer	—	+1 268 464 5012 (WA) · +1 268 460 0085	matthew.john@ab.gov.ag · Comptroller 48 h ahead
Booyard Yacht Services, Barbuda	—	+1 268 717 4979	booyardyachting@gmail.com
Mount St John's Medical Centre	—	+1 268 484 2700 · 911	Police English Harbour +1 268 460 1002
St Kitts & Nevis
SKN Coast Guard / Port Authority	16	+1 869 465 8384 · +1 869 465 8121
NASPA moorings, Nevis	16	+1 869 469 2001	naspamarketing@gmail.com
Port Zante Marina, Basseterre	68	+1 869 466 5021 · 666 5021	Customs on site
Safe Harbor St Kitts	71 / 16	+1 869 765 0312	80 ft minimum published
St Kitts Yacht Services (agent)	—	+1 869 762 4400
Statia, Saba, Sint Maarten
Dutch Caribbean Coastguard	16	913 · +599 9 510 0913 (WA) · JRCC +599 9 463 7700	info@kustwacht.org
Statia harbour office	16 (customs 14, park 17)	+599 318 2205	harbour@statiagov.com · 08–17
Saba harbour office, Fort Bay	16	+599 416 3963 · cell 416 5452 · WA +599 416 7343	info@sabagov.nl · 06–18
Saba Marine Park	—	+599 416 3295
Sea Saba dive centre	—	+599 416 2246 (WA)	info@seasaba.com
Simpson Bay clearance (SLAC) / Immigration	—	+1 721 545 3183 · +1 721 545 0031	Police station by the bridge
Simpson Bay bridge	12	+1 721 545 5230	Out 08:30, 10:30, 16:00 · In 09:30, 11:30, 14:00, 17:00
IGY Simpson Bay Marina	16 / 79A	+1 721 544 2309	07–18 daily
Lagoon Marina, Cole Bay	—	—	info@lagoon-marina.com
Island Water World, Cole Bay	—	+1 721 544 5310	Fuel dock, chandlery
Budget Marine HQ, Cole Bay	—	+1 721 544 3134 · WA +1 721 559 2863	Mon–Sat 08–17
Dock Maarten / Bobby's, Philipsburg	87 / 16, 69	WA +1 721 520 0225 · +1 721 542 2366	Immigration Philipsburg +1 721 542 2277
Sea-Grapes yacht agent	—	+1 721 545 3777 · WA +1 721 520 0300
Nature Foundation Sint Maarten	—	+1 721 544 4267 · WA +1 721 581 6365
Ambulance / police, Sint Maarten	—	912 · +1 721 542 2111 · 911	St Maarten Medical Center, Cay Hill
St Barth and Saint-Martin
Port de Gustavia	12	+590 590 27 66 97	portdeplaisance@portdegustavia.fr · 07–18 daily
Hôpital de Bruyn, Gustavia	—	urgences +590 590 27 85 78
Port de Marigot / ZMEL	16	+590 590 87 59 06	info@portdemarigot.com · mouillage@portdemarigot.com
Marina Fort Louis	16	+590 590 77 31 26	reservations@marinafortlouis.com
Sandy Ground bridge	16	+590 590 87 50 04	08:30 and 17:00, free
Réserve naturelle ranger	—	+590 690 50 71 77	Night mooring requests on reservenaturelle-saint-martin.com
Anse Marcel marina	16 / 11	+590 590 87 31 94	capitainerie@ansemarcel.com
CH Louis-Constant Fleming, Marigot	—	urgences +590 590 52 25 25
Anguilla
Anguilla Air & Sea Ports Authority	—	+1 264 497 5816	info@anguillaports.com · Mon–Fri 08–16
Weather and diving
Marine Weather Center (Chris Parker)	SSB 4045 / 8137 kHz, 10:00 UTC	+1 863 248 2702 · WA +1 941 915 7608	mwxc.com
DAN emergency	—	+1 919 684 9111	24 h, collect accepted