April 9 to April 19 - St. Lucia

We arrived in St. Lucia in the midst of a squall. Very blustery, rainy and ugly!!! Unfortunately, the squalls came up after a beautiful sail leaving Le Marin. For once we were on the much-desired beam reach, thoroughly enjoying ourselves. Ah, well, we enjoyed what we could.

Rodney Bay is another wide beautiful bay, the scene of a Sandals hotel among many others. The area, though a little touristy, is a nice place to be as there are boating stores, an excellent grocery store--the first fresh milk since Antigua, and nice restaurants. We are actually expecting mail to be delivered here, but who knows? It hasn't arrived yet. Wednesday we took a bus to Castries Town, the capital, about 20 minutes south. It was the usual--a van with six rows of seats, usually crowded, that travels at breakneck speed with sudden stops. Castries Town was a huge disappointment--dirty, ugly and totally lacking in charm. It has suffered several fires from which it has never recovered, apparently.

We had the good fortune to run across our friends, s/v YOLO, and enjoyed a great Colorado meal aboard their boat with Karen's brother, Jim, who had just arrived from Denver.

We enjoyed a beach party last night put on by a local family who also run a laundry service for cruisers. They barbecued chicken and served it up with yellow rice, green banana and salad along with rum punches. They had brought in CDs played from a loudspeaker in their van. About 12 cruisers were there. We enjoyed making new friends. This was the last beach barbecue of the season we learned as most big groups of cruisers have already passed through. We were glad not to have missed it though. A fun evening.

We also enjoyed a rustic little restaurant on Pigeon Island called Jambe de Bois. The food was good and reasonably priced, and they have a huge library from which to swap books.

Incidentally, Mike is very proud of himself--he can now fit into my shorts, a feat occurring in the book, "An Embarrassment of Mangoes," that he's been trying to accomplish.

Above are three views from Jambe de Bois of the anchorage at Rodney Bay, then two of the fruitman, who comes around daily selling fruits and vegetables.

March 27-April 8, 2008 Martinique

A blustery day on Thursday, March 27, resulted in a boisterous sail to Martinique. The waves were tall and choppy but smoothed out a bit after 3 hours as we approached St. Pierre, our destination. St. Pierre, known as the Paris of Martinique, was the first capital of Martinique and appeared to have been very much a first-class European city in the late 1800s. However, in 1902, the island's active volcano, Mt. Pelee, located just above the city erupted. At that time, little was known about volcanoes so although there were warning signs, they were thought to be meaningless. As a result the city of 30,000 people was decimated on May 8. Even the ships in the harbor were destroyed. Only two men survived, one a cobbler; the other, Cyparis, in prison for murder who later became a Barnum & Bailey circus star, survived for four days in an underground cell. The city is now populated by about only 4000. There is an interesting museum regarding the city before and after the eruption.

Moving on, we loved the market at the dock. Lots of fresh, colorful vegetables, fish, meat and other goods. We bought some fresh tuna--delicious! We're sorry we're having to buy fish though. Our fishing has yielded nothing for quite awhile. Of course, also, fishing is not permitted everywhere.

After St. Pierre, we sailed south to Grande Anse d'Arlet, a beautiful wide bay with a gorgeous beach. Stayed overnight then went on to St. Anne, a nice little town outside Le Marin, a huge sailing community in Martinique. After two days, we moved into the Le Marin area in order to avail ourselves of the stores selling cheap wine, French bread and cheese. Of course, the object of our stay was to sample wines and stock up on those we liked. It's the last good chance to buy French vin de pays at good prices. So, we were there for a week or so.

One day we rented a car and drove up to Fort de France, the largest city on Martinique as well as its capital. It turned out to be disappointing--huge, dirty and run down. However, we enjoyed the ride and were struck by the excellent roads and the beautiful countryside. We crossed the interior to go to the east coast which we had heard was seldom visited. Although the ride was enjoyable, the day turned rainy and cold. Vauclin, the town we drove to on the east coast, turned out to be sailing center for the French. Despite the nasty weather, there were one or two fellows parasailing and windsurfing.

We left Le Marin on Wednesday, April 9, to head to our next island, St. Lucia.

Above are pictures of the DePaz Distillery, a street view of St. Pierre, Jus'Now from a St. Pierre street, a view of the Le Marin harbor and the sugar cane fields.

March 23-26, 2008 - Roseau, Dominica

Having spent quite awhile in Portsmouth, we were anxious to move onward. Roseau, the next big city in the southern part of Dominica, is a port of call for cruise ships--ergo, a much bigger city. Roseau turned out to be a charming city with many windy, narrow streets full of shops and restaurants and grocery stores. The market was a treat, as usual, with lots of women and a few men selling fresh vegetables at reasonable prices. Although prices on wine were terrible, we were able to take advantage of the duty-free prices on liquor.

On Wednesday, we decided to take a bus tour to the west coast just to see the countryside. What an adventure. We found the bus stand with perhaps 20 van-like "busses" parked and waiting for passengers. Each had a destination marked in the window. We found one that was going to Marigot. The driver invited us to get in. We were the first passengers. Now we did expect that soon he would leave, however, that was not to be. It turned out he was waiting for his bus to fill up. After about 45 minutes, we decided that lunchtime was fast upon us and we had better get a bite to eat just in case the trip lasted a long time. Mike left to do this; just then the driver hopped behind the wheel. I told him I'd have to get off if he was leaving because Mike had gone to get food. No problem, he said; we'll wait for him. Well, of course, we waited for not only Mike, but others who were shopping, getting children, running errands. One more half-hour and we started up only to go around the block where the driver ran into a store to pick up a package. Back to the bus stand and more waiting. Soon he started up again for real although we did stop at another store along the way to pick up a package for one of the passengers.

We arrived in Marigot about an hour later after a lovely drive through the magnificent rainforest. The ferns are actually tree-sized; tall palm trees form a canopy over the forest. Banana plantations dot the hillsides. Although it rained off and on for most of the trip, it was beautiful. At one point on a hairpin curve, we had to back up the hill in order to let a tractor trailer make the turn--quite exciting.

Upon reaching Marigot, we were going to find a restaurant for a real meal. Instead another bus driver approached saying he would take us to Portsmouth where we could get a bus back to Roseau, but first we'd go to a nearby restaurant as he had to eat too. This sounded like a good deal so we wend to a local establishment where we had the fish lunch: grilled dorado, green banana, plaintain, salad and dasheen (we think). Not bad, but the most delicious thing turned out to be the drink of guava juice which we had instead of a beer. (When we asked for beer, the bus driver told us that the restaurant was a Christian establishment and did not serve alcohol.)

The rest of our trip worked pretty well except that in Portsmouth, two bus drivers fought over which bus we should get into. Obviously, we wanted the one leaving first as we had spent several days in Portsmouth the week before. On to Roseau. The western part of the island turned out to be dry and not nearly as pretty as the central and northern areas.