REVISITING CASTRIES

With many stops it takes a 15 minutes ride from Rodney Bay to Castries. The mini bus-van is always packed with adults, school kids ans sometimes a chicken or two. The atmosphere is upbeat. You always get a response to your greet, you might hear it in spite of the loud music.

The bus ride is an introduction to Castries, as if life on the bus spilled on to the streets. Is there anybody left at home or in the office? The streets are so packed with people, you have to weave your way through the crowds. Side walks are filled with the street vendors, from them you can buy anything from sandals to fruits, but mostly little snacks and hair decorations. St. Lucian women and girls take special care of their hair. If they don't wear their wigs, and many do, they braid and decorate their hair with bright and shiny decorations. Some colour their hair red, an old African tradition, using canna blossoms. Little school girls are beautiful in their yellow and white uniforms and matching beads in their braids.

We walked into the harbour, where four cruise ships were docked, the fifth was anchored close to the harbour entrance. And yet, markets with colourful clothing, carved statues and beautifully weaved baskets were poorly visited by tourists. There are to many markets on the islands, where cruise ships stop.
We found some of the things we were looking for, had lunch in one of the harbour restaurants and had another exciting ride on a speedy public mini bus going back to 'NADA'

Note the cruise ship at the end of the street

Calabash tree

SUN RAYS THROUGH THE CLOUDS

The clouds have turned from grey to white, the late afternoon sun coloring them deep pink.
We are anchored in Rodney Bay again after a comfortable sail from Martinique in a 15 knots wind.
The ARC (Atlantic Rally for Cruisers) boats are coming in, four or five a day, looking majestic with all their sails up until the finish line.
It was calm and rainy for days, we welcomed the wind, that pushed the clouds elsewhere. The life on the beach woke up again, umbrellas adding the colour to lashes green trees and bushes, that in the rainy season reached almost all the way to the water.
Most of our sailing friends have left to sail north, avoiding ARC crowd of over 200 boats. Some went home for the holidays. 'NADA' is waiting for the new batteries, that should arrive this week. Then we'll be heading south.

Le Marin beauty

The advantage of the autopilot

Tired

We have a visitor

Drying a spinnaker at the dock 

                                       

LE MARIN

We are anchored in a bay carved by the sea deep into the south end of Martinique. The town that hugs the bay in rightfully named Le Marin, The Sailor. You don’t see as many sailboats anywhere else. The town has everything that sailors need, marine stores, sail making lofts, charter companies. Vegetable, fruit and spice market is close enough to have a view of the marina, while supermarket has a convenient dock into the anchorage.


We have been here five days and it has rained on and off, today the raindrops have been knocking on the boat continuously from early morning.

Years ago I was grieving over something unimportant, my friend Jane Ripley comforted me by saying: Everything that happens to us, has something good in it.

In the last five days we filled up our water tanks.




The appartment building, overlooking the bay

The town cemetery



Shoppers gather fruits, vegetables and spices in the weaved baskets



Kids having fun





Ready to go



On a road again



PEOPLE WATCHER

Unlike Rodney Bay in St. Lucia, we don’t have the Internet connection on Le Marin anchorage. Yesterday we took a dinghy ride to the ‘Mango Bay’ café for the Internet, beer and cappuccino. It was almost lunch time, the place was busy. While Polde was working on the keyboard, I was watching people.


A party of six came in, three men and three women, matured, not old. Two men well trimmed, the third heavy set, barely squeezed his belly between the chair’s backrest and the table. It was hot and humid; after all, we are in the tropics. The two slim men took their shirts off. No, Nooo! Where is the sign: NO SHIRT, NO FOOD! I thought it was supposed to be the other way around. You come in, you put your shirt on, you leave, you take it off, and get a sun burn.

Anyway, I looked away, and then I couldn’t help myself, holding on to my cup, I took a deep breath, my eyes went back to the naked table. The third shirt stayed on, I let my air out.

When the party left the table, men (I cannot use the word gentlemen, can I?) put their shirts back on.

Mango Bay cafe

Not an accident, carelessness!

Tuesday at noon
Just as I was thinking, that I didn't have any material for the blog (after all, the most exciting creatures on the boat yard are chickens and dogs), I heard a scream: "Nada, Nada!" I ran up onto the deck, and on the stern, where the scream was coming from. Polde was sitting there with his head leaning forward, blood running down his face, his clothing  and then collecting in a paddle around him. There were two large slashes on the top of his head. I grabbed the boat's first aid, squeezed an antibiotic cream on the wound, piled a gauze on the top and a tight bandage over to stop the bleeding.
The boat yard worker Kelly drove us to the nearest medical center only a few blocks away from the boat yard.
We made a mistake coming in through the main instead the emergency entrance. We told the receptionist, what had happened and she calmed us down, saying: "It will be just a little while, the doctor is with the patient."
As we all know, a little while can be five minutes or a whole life. Don't we always say, that life is short? There was nobody in the waiting room, when we came in and we didn't know, that patients were waiting outside, preferring the shade of the tree over an air conditioned waiting room.
A little lady, neatly dressed in a baby blue dress came in and seeing my tears of fright, said to me: "Pray, God will help". But the line for the "God" was long and we didn't get our turn until four o'clock.
As modest and unimpressive the waiting room was, the emergency room shined with cleanliness, everybody, except Polde and me, dressed in light blue doctors' suits and caps. Young doctor stitched Polde's slashes, changing surgical gloves every time, he had to move away from the operating table. Two students observed his work.
The drama was over.

When we had our little ones on board, the only strickt rule was: no climbing on the dinghy davits, that also serve as a support for the solar panels and two airfoil blades for the wind generator.
Polde ignored the rule, stepped on davits for a small repair on them, when the gust turned the blades into the weapon. Fortunately the blades didn't damage his pritty face.

I am including the medical bill: The doctor's fee $18.50, x-ray $44.50, antibiotic and painkiller $5.40



 Now, who is going to do the blue jobs?

St. Lucia, late October 2011

St. Lucia greeted us nicely, as always. We have been coming here for some years now. At the airport the same people are holding on to their jobs, customs waving us through, even though we are loaded with the sailing equipment. Sailors are important part of St. Lucian's tourism, officials are making it as easy as possible for us.
One of the taxi drivers calling out to us: "Welcome back!" It wasn't his turn to drive, so he helped loading our bags into another cab. It feels good to be back, good to be welcomed.

No hurricanes travelled over St. Lucia the passed summer. The boat was as we left it in spring. There was not enough rain to wash off the yellow dust, that accumulated into a thick layer.

First morning shower cools off the air. The boat yard rooster screeches out a song of relief, but the rain drops covered the dust only to rise again as a steam.

                               There is a lot of work to be done!

Mayra and Marcel

'NADA' was lifted out of the water once more and put on the stands. She served us well this sailing season through some calm seas and some storms and high seas. Now she will rest a few month.

We walked the boat yard to see what was old and what was new. Some boats were still being worked on, the owners hoping to launch them next season. 'MARC LE NOVICE', the most polished sailboat on the boatyard and the only one with the grass growing underneath, had a staircase built to the deck. In the shade of his boat, Marcel enjoyed the midday rest. He is 92 years old and his wife Mayra is 89. He is French and she is British. Their sailboat hasn't been in the water a few years. Their home is in France, where they raised their seven children, one of them, Marc, a fisherman, was lost at sea in a storm. Their second home is Rodney Bay's boat yard. Here they work on their sailboat, paint her over and over, polish her, love her.

Sailing back to the the home port

We are on Montserrat in a Little Bay, the only anchorage on the island, that has been greatly effected by volcanic eruption. Since then life had moved to the north part of the island, where the smell of sulfur and volcanic ashes can not reach. Every time we stop here or sail by, we see new buildings high up in the hills, the sign of people's determination.

For us this is a resting place between Nevis and Guadeloupe, stretch too long to make it in a day and this time too windy and wavy to sail during the night. Except for the fishing boats rolling on the north swell, the bay looks deserted, quiet with only a few buildings overlooking the bay from the shore. From one of them, we are getting a strong Internet signal. Time to blog?

It is not easy looking back to all the bays we stopped, remembering them all. They all have their own characteristics, that in a month or two fade into the word Caribbean: turquoise water, blooming plants, sunsets and bright stars.



Approaching Deshaies, Guadeloupe before the storm




Close to home port



Fishing

I caught enough fish this sailing season to have a fish meal every day. Twice I persuaded Polde to eat a snapper. That was a 100% improvement from last year and he was proud of it.

Here are some fish I caught, ate or return to their world.



Mahogany snappers




Trunk fish





Barracuda




Trunk fish

 


Sting ray, 8 lb

Dolphin fish (mahi mahi)

Horse eyed jack



A week with Eva, Chris, Nina and Maya

Valentin left on the 17th of February and two days later Eva arrived with her family. What a joy it was seeing our little girls again!
They love the beach, so we stayed in Grand Case. During the day they swam off the boat all the way to the white sandy beach and played there.
Every Tuesday evening the vendors from different St.Martin towns come to Grand Case, so our young family had a night out, shopping and treating themselves to local foods.
It was all too short, after a week we sailed to Baie Friar and spent a few hours snorkeling there, and then on to Baie de Marigot. They flew home on the 26th.

Eva, Maya, Nina and Chris

Grand Case, St. Martin

We spent more time in Grand Case then anywhere else. The bay is beautiful with white sandy beach. The town is inland within walking distance from the beach, that is lined with many restaurants, most of them serving French cuisine.
Valentin treated us to a perfect meal in one of them, L'Escapade. Grand Case is a culinary center of St. Martin and comes to life after dark, people are driving from everywhere to have a meal here, and leaving convinced, that it was worth it.

To be close to the Internet on a shore we anchored in a very shallow, we had barely enough water left under our keel. But it is all sand there and touching the bottom would not have been a problem.

I thought it was rather unusual to catch large snappers in a nine feet of water. And yet I caught five of them the first night and more through the week we stayed there, all mahogany and one yellowtail.

As on most islands (but not all) public transportation is fast and inexpensive. It is a good way to see the island and meet people.
Walking is another way, and one day we stretched our legs by walking over the hill to Baie Marcel to check out the marina there and to see, weather we could sail into this rather small bay.

The scenery there is beautiful, but the beach was a bit crowded because of the hotels around it. Music was sounding from different beach bars, it was before noon and they were busy already. If you like action, that is the place to go.

Grand Case shopping mall

Nature playing tricks on us?

Anguilla

For us Anguilla was a new island, only 5NM distance from St. Martin’s Baie Grand Case. We sailed there from St. Barth with the overnight stop on Tintamare, a small French island NE of St. Martin, only a narrow channel between the two.

Tintamare is a marine resort with a beautiful beach, enclosed with reefs on each side. The island is only a mile long and half a mile wide, too small for people to live on. It is a pleasant beach and snorkeling spot, but rolly in the North swell.

Early next morning, on the 5th of February, we sailed to Anguilla.

It is a British island with a small population of 12.000. Though their livelihood is tourism, we didn’t think of it as sailors friendly. There is no charge to stay on the main anchorage Road Bay, but you need an expansive permit to sail into other bays, some of them not overnight anchorages.

We stayed in a Road Bay in a shallow turquoise water, enjoyed a beautiful beach and the music from the beach bar.

Only a narrow strip of land separates the Road Bay from the Salt Pond, the source for salt industry there from 1600 to 1986.

Polde, Valentin and I walked into the town Valley to get supplies and then loaded took a cab back. People were friendly. On the way in a car stopped, the driver offered us a ride. Coming back the cab driver volunteered information about Anguilla, proudly talked about the island.

We were surprised to see many abandoned unfinished houses, grass growing inside the cement block structures. Then some very poor areas with shacks made of boards. Passing by one, puzzled which way to go, a woman came out, wishing us a ‘Very good day’ and directing us to our point of interest.

When we reached the top of the hill, overlooking the bay, a handful of mansions shone, with pools on their terraces.



Road Bay, separated from Salt pond by a narrow strip of land.
 The pond was used for the salt industry from 1600 to 1986.




Simplicity



Anchored




Spring any time

Adorable!
School is painted in the colours of the childrens' uniforms





The importance of the first impression