St. Lucia

The last update was from Dominica where we made 2 stops - Portsmouth and Roseau, both very quaint villages. They speak English and drive on the left. We finally, found the old farmers market where we bought direct from the growers, well, maybe from the grower’s daughter and granddaughter. Bought some very green bananas – stayed green for several days but when finally ripened were great! The people were very friendly. The island seemed poor and did not have a lot of tourist boats. The people grow lots of vegetables and fruits. The islands south from here are “Islands that reach the clouds” They have mountains and are very green. That means rain! We get squalls, but that is so nice to wash off all of the salt water of the boat.

The sail from Dominica to Martinique was the roughest yet. It is only 36 miles of open ocean between the islands. We left with a single reef and when the winds got up and stayed over 30 knots we had to put in a 2nd reef. The seas were ugly, ugly. The wind comes all the way across the Atlantic and pushes the seas thru the opening between islands, making it a bit rough. With 8 to 10 ft. seas on the beam, we occasionally took some water over the top! At any rate we arrived safely in Martinique. We anchored in a small bay near the north, St. Pierre. This is a very picturesque village with quite a background. In 1902 the 4700 ft. Mountain Pelee erupted wiping out the entire city of 30,000 people, all except 1 soul. The lone survivor was a prisoner locked in a very thick rock walled prison. The guide book says “The blast released more energy than an atomic bomb.” At that time St. Pierre was known as the Paris of the Caribbean and was the cultural and social center of Martinique. There were many very rich plantation owners exporting cocoa, coffee, sugar and rum. There were 12 ships sunk in the bay. One managed to limp away with a few survivors. It was tricky for us to anchor in the bay not knowing exactly where these sunken ships were. Our depth gauge was all over the map. After the disaster the city has never recovered. You can walk around and see many of the original stone buildings along with a few post disaster add-ons. It was said that in 1658 after being decimated by the invading Europeans, the original island inhabitants;Caribits put a terrible hex on the European settlers. Maybe it just took awhile to happen.

Yahoo! we finally! had a smooth fast sail. Sailing in the lee of the island of Martinique in 20 knots of wind, we were really cooking, with all sail up making 8 -10 knots. We then motored into Cul de Sac du Marin. This is a huge bay with hundreds and hundreds of boats. I have never seen more sailboats in one place, lots of catamarans. Ruth and I sailed into this bay 15 yrs ago in our first catamaran and found it to be a small nice bay with a few boats. We had lost a prop and spent a couple of weeks here waiting for shipment of new prop. Now the bay is lined with high rise condominiums. This is very French. The shops open at 9 maybe, then close for lunch at 12, open again at 3 and close at 5. Close at noon Saturday and don’t even think about Sunday. We tried unsuccessfully to rent a car for a Sunday drive, finally able to rent one on Monday and toured the island. Very green and quite prosperous, more so than any other island so far. We had lunch at a small seaside restaurant. It was yet another spectacular lunch. The French cooking is really good and plenty of it. I had BBQ fish and Ruth had Mussels. All of the meals have been really good. We enjoyed getting off the boat and having transportation.

4-14-15 Had a good sail to St. Lucia. Are now in Rodney bay and may take a slip at the marina. This will be the first time that we have come into a marina with this boat. In the last 3+ months we have lived totally on the hook, making our own electricity and water. We have always anchored out. Will try to get the freezer fixed here.

We are in a lovely marina and had ice cream cones along with wifi. Yahoo. Even in the marina we did not connect to the power or water. We are also 2 slips down from where our old Boat Toucan Tango is docked. No one home.