Martinique to Les Saintes





Finn and Alex spent hours on the beach
(and in the water) at sword play

We finally left Le Marin/Ste. Anne, Martinique after a two and a half week stay. We had a great time there and, after the destruction of Finn's sword, justice was had when Finn made a great new friend, Alex from the Highlands of Scotland, who wanted to train him up to be a knight.  Both boys were thrilled to have a brother in arms. We had a great time with the rest of the family as well, from the Yacht Alkira, bound for Australia.

 

Diamond Rock

 We departed on a Tuesday, bound for the notch between Diamond Rock and the main island on a beautiful morning.  Our destination was St. Pierre at the north end of the island. This would be our jumping off point for adventures farther north. The sail was all in the lee of the island and was very pleasant after all the open ocean sailing we have done over the past six months.

Bob after cutting the fishing gear from the rudder.

As we rounded Diamond Rock, a Canadian boat passed us quite close, with a young, topless woman in the cockpit. Distracted, Bob somehow missed seeing the fish trap in our path and had to dive to cut off the lines. Fortunately for us, the line only caught the rudder and not the propeller, we had started the motor after slowing, assuming we had hit a current as we rounded the point. I have threatened a much more detailed blog post on the event but decided to be kind ;)

Finn on the Theater steps in St. Pierre

After checking out and departing St. Pierre, Martinique, we made the 35 mile crossing to the Island nation of Dominica. (Pronounced dom-in-EE-ka) We had initially shied away from this island but had heard a lot of great things about it over the past few weeks. We knew that boats were served by 'boat boys' and were looking forward to a few days on a mooring and someone to assist us in getting propane, pointing out customs, arranging a tour of the island's famous rainforests and waterfalls. We got the tour but pretty much belly flopped on the rest of it, not even getting the customs and immigration part right. We had a great tour of the rainforest, saw some great waterfalls and had some terrific local food but after the licking we took from the customs agent, decided to make a fast exit, bound for the rendezvous with my Mom and Dad in St. Maarten at the end of this week.

For my engineer friends, a wood stave pipe!

Our guide Craig stopped to assist a stranded motorist.

 The one thing our boat boy did get right was connecting us with a group tour, which helped reduce the cost a bit. We ended up spending quite a few dollars with a nice restaurant meal thrown in in the middle of the day but it was worth it! Our guide was a local taxi driver and very colorful..in his striped shirt and plaid pants. His effort was great, we saw a lot and didn't roll back home until nearly dark after a full day out and about.

Our guide Craig, helping out with our tired boy after a long hike.

Anna in the rainforest

Finn in the van

At the restaurant, a little boy attached himself to Finn. All were amazed by the size of this almost two-year-old!

Bob, Anna and Finn swimming in a hot pool. It was a little warm for Anna.

We managed to fly our Dominica flag for at least a few hours after finally clearing customs...and doing our departure paper work, simultaneously.

 Fortunately for us, the tour in Dominica was great and we left with some good memories. We arrived at Les Saintes, a French group of islands just south of Guadeloupe, late in the day on Saturday and have enjoyed several days here. We went to investigate the fort on the hill and were delighted to find quite an informative museum including this large whale skeleton!  The museum, located at Fort Napoleon just above the main settlement of the Saintes was great. We actually stumbled quite by accident on a second fort today, Fort Josephine that was just as interesting in its own way, including quite a population of resident goats. The kids waited all day yesterday while Bob worked, to head out snorkeling. We didn't make it and everyone had to be content with an early evening outing and ice cream. We have all decided that the lime flavor is the winner here!  In the end we had to wait until this morning for our adventure and headed out in squalls and overcast weather. It wasn't quite snorkeling weather but we were patient and it soon passed. We had some fantastic snorkeling and ended the day on the beach.

Fort Napoleon

Check out the shell Bob found! Unfortunately it was still inhabited so back in the bay it went.

A local inhabitant of Fort Josephine

An outbuilding near Fort Josephine



The main harbor of Les Saintes, Le Bourg.

We head out tomorrow for the Jacques Cousteau Marine Reserve on Guadeloupe. Anna and Bob spent the last bit of the day hunting for stickers but were, unfortunately, unsuccessful. As some of you know, Finn and Anna were each allowed to bring one 'boat box' of personal items on the trip. Instead of buying souvenirs everywhere we have gone, we have bought them a sticker which they put on their boxes. As you can imagine, they have quite a collection by now. Unfortunately, we never had time to shop in Dominica and could not find any here in Les Saintes. We are very sad to miss these two spots in the collage.



St. Pierre, Martinique, By Anna



St. Pierre and the Mt. Pelée Volcano

In St Pierre we learned that there is a volcano, Mt. Pelée, that erupted on May 8, 1902. There is a vulcan museum where we learned a lot of facts about the volcanic eruption. We learned that the burning, poisonous gas killed approximately 30,000 people with three survivors. One was in jail but still got severe burns. One that was found adrift in a boat and one that had escaped. There are now 5,000 people in St. Pierre. Where we were anchored there were people diving on ships that sunk when the eruption happened.

The Old Theater in St. Pierre, location of the jail cell.

We visited the old theater and the jail where the survivor was found several days after the eruption. At the theater you could see where the stage was, where the orchestra pit was and where the audience sat.

At the Vulcan museum there was the church bell from the city that was there when the eruption happened.  It was deformed by the heat and crushed until it broke.  There were other interesting things at the museum like sewing machines, huge rocks that had come flying down the mountain, and photos of the destruction.  There was even a skull.  An interesting part of the eruption is when the people fell dead they had their arms in the air and fell over backwards or forwards.  The temperature of the heat was about 2000 degrees and the flow travelled at over 400 miles per hour. The city was destroyed in less than a minute. 

By Anna.



Finn's Swim

We went swimming today and the water was icy warm, which means pretty hot. I jumped off the swim platform and it was so far away.  I jumped and the very edge of the propeller on the outboard motor hit my mask but it didn’t break. Then I went under Midwatch. It was fun.

Greetings from Ste. Anne, Martinique

I have to admit, it has been a very quiet week and a half since our arrival at Le Marin, Martinique with a big, three-mile move out of the harbor to nearby Ste. Anne. We have two repairs still to make from the crossing and a new issue we have discovered with the steering cable. We will not be going anywhere until the steering is fixed, but hope to be moving on in a week or so. The other repairs we should be able to make in St. Maarten if we are not able to accomplish the repairs here.  So what have we done? We have managed to scrape all the goose neck barnacles off the bottom of the boat and spent a small fortune including three trips to the cell phone store, a café and a magazine stand for a top-up, all in an effort to get some internet access.  

Working hard on Midwatch

 



Playing hard on Yacht Cariad

We did have to move a couple hundred meters on Saturday morning to make way for a Jet Ski race. A local official knocked on the hull on Friday afternoon and gave us a pamphlet, in French, which explained the race. We worked it out, entered the race coordinates and managed the move on Saturday morning. During an afternoon race, the kids and Bob headed over to check it out, including a helicopter, flying low over the zooming water craft. A half hour later, Bob and Finn came back, sans Anna. Apparently they had found a kid boat, a bonus one…with three families (three families on three boats) on board, all English speaking.  We had a great two days visiting, playing and sharing stories. We believe we will see them all again as we make our way north.



Enjoying an early morning in the cockpit with Mom

Finn has continued his up-with-the-sun routine that was solidly set on the Atlantic crossing and I have been getting up with him, making an effort to keep his very loud voice quieted while Anna and Bob attempt to sleep. Finn is still insisting that he wants to be a knight when he grows up and we struggle as parents whether to explain the truth to him. Yesterday he insisted on practicing sword fighting, much to the dismay of Anna and Mom who bore the brunt of the sword. After several scoldings and an ‘almost’ put out eye, Daddy declared the swords ‘done’. I headed out on my fifth internet expedition amongst huge tears and bursts of anger including, “How can I reach my dream of being a knight if I don’t practice?” I returned several hours later, to be greeted by Finn in his new “Knight Crown”, fashioned by Anna from the sword parts. I was proud of everyone for working out this dilemma without me.