We have been pinned down for 5 days in St Pierre, Martinique. The weather forecast was for moderately strong winds when we left Fort de France on the 7th March so we decided to move up to St Pierre 10 miles further up the coast, ready for the crossing to Dominica next day. The anchorage was very busy and we probably had one of the worse night with winds howling relentlessly. The next morning forecast was not much better, but we thought we would tempt crossing the channel. We had watched boats going up and we were prepared for a rough crossing but when we reached the top of Martinique the sea rally worsened. By this stage we had been soaked and buffeted by the wind for 2 hours. We had watched a boat going full speed ahead and noticed that they seemed to come back our way. It turned out to be Pepper (Hattie & Phil) and they emphatically suggested that this was no time to be out there with gusts up to 35 knots and waves of 3 metres, They had crossed the Atlantic 2 handed so were no scaredy cats and I was quite relieved that we followed them in and retraced our steps back to St Pierre. The weather was bad for 4 days, it rained and rained and rained all day. But we made the most of it, more exploring….