Next week in Bequia

What you don't see in the Caribbean postcards.... who'd want to live here?

Behind the scenes at Pirates Of Caribbean filmset...did Johnny D actually use this phone to call home I wonder?

And what it looks like from the front now... what a con!

Katharine indulging her passion for KFC in St Vincent.... we could be anywhere!

The rather rolly ferry from Bequia to St Vincent...you should see Katharine's video of it!!

Well here we are STILL in Bequia, not that I mind as it’s actually quite nice here!! My new computer keyboard hasn’t arrived yet…. Easter got in the way…. And the essential bit for the boat has also not arrived….. Easter again.
Spending our days pottering around on the boat doing a few routine jobs, baking bread, washing, reading etc. It’s hard to be very active as the temperature rises to 80degreeF most days by 8am. It can be humid too which makes one a little uncomfortable… but I count this as training for when we get to Trinidad in June which is said to be more than just a little unbearable!!!
I think I’ve mostly conquered the insect problem now…… thank goodness. In a Castries (St Lucia) chemist I found some repellent which is 98% Deet… just about the strongest stuff you can buy. It goes on my ankles when we go ashore in the evening… the sand flies (or some other tiny little flying beasts called “no see ems”) hang around at low levels and attack viciously without one feeling anything until the next day….. then you find yourself scratching away madly. Nasty!! Other flying mini monsters always somehow find their way onto the boat even though we’re usually anchored some way from the shore so I got tough and bought some mosquito netting which I made into big “hairnets” to put over all the hatches. That also seems to have worked and I haven’t heard the unsettling whine of a mozzie buzzing around my ears at 2am since. I also think I am gradually getting a little immune too…I found a bite yesterday which just doesn’t itch….yet!
Dick has been fishing these past few days as we finally managed to find some suitable bait… little bits of fish…. I thought that you could use anything edible but apparently not. Anyway, he has caught quite a few things including a couple of old sacks and a tree branch (!!!) and some little fish which went back. Among the more interesting catches so far have been a large “horse eyed jack” (too bony for us but OK for the locals) and several large rays, one of which he brought to the surface and I tried to photograph very unsuccessfully... they wriggle a lot!! THEN he caught some fish that we could eat, lovely little snappers. Delicious!! Looking forward to lots more…. I might even try doing the messy gutting too though I don’t think I could ever do the “dispatching”. Leave that to the expert!
I have bought yet another Caribbean cookbook which I hope has all the recipes I will ever need out here. I fancy trying some of the more unusual vegetables and fruits available though I may end up trying them just the once! As I said previously, breadfruit is rather bland and boring. We had christophine the other day…it has such a lovely sounding name but it too is a little boring, a bit like onion and cauliflower and artichoke all mixed up together. Dick loves the soursop fruit which I make into a sort of icecream but I hate it. I think it tastes like something that went off in the heat!
We actually went for a walk the other day across to the other side of the island. It seemed like a good idea at the time but I soon found out just how unfit I am since I stopped walking everywhere! This island is hilly like all the rest!! It is quite difficult to stay fit on a boat. You use different sets of muscles at sea I suppose… arms stay fit…. lots of rope pulling and heaving oneself in and out of the cabin etc but legs suffer a little, apart from the muscles which keep one upright while sailing that is.
The plan is to leave Bequia next week when everything that’s on its way will have arrived I hope. There are a lot more little islands nearby to the south which are supposed to be very nice. Looking forward to seeing them. I may even go in for a swim…..!!!

Still in Bequia and not really wanting to move...yet!

Soufriere Bay St Lucia.

The slightly active and very smelly volcano above and behind Soufriere.

The perfect pier, The Pitons St Lucia

Atlantic Coast South St Lucia

The smaller but nicer looking of the Pitons!!

I have brought my little partially working computer ashore this Easter Saturday along with my separately purchased substitute keyboard which is three times the size of my mini laptop so that I can post some photos! Really hoping they will work....

Bequia

WELL........My computer keyboard stopped working again and I am hoping that after several trips to computer shops in Martinique, St Lucia and now Bequia that I may now be able to get it going again as I am a little behind with my news and having to do this in an internet cafe..... slow and expensive!!
So.... we spent a couple of nights in Rodney Bay after a pleasant southbound sail from Marin to do the supermarket shopping thing and bus trips to Castries then headed south for Vieux Fort in the south of the island to pick up Katharine from the "big" international airport. We didn't quite make it to Vieux Fort though that day so moored between the famous "Pitons" for the night. A rather impressive spot inbetween the two peaks.
A quick sail round the next morning and then I decided to walk to the airport to meet Katharine as it didn't look far.... we could see the aircraft tail fins from the boat..... great, except that it actually meant walking around almost the whole perimeter of the airport! Still, I got to see the Atlantic coast of St Lucia and very nice it looked too... pictures in a later blog... can't do them here.
Katharine arrived on time and we taxied back to the port! We sailed back to the Pitons the next morning and moored there for the night. Managed to scramble ashore the next day via a very rickety and as it turned out unusable pier for a lovely cheap local lunch. I had breadfruit for the first time..... ok but boring... a bit like bread really!
Next day, we headed north for Soufriere Bay and took a mooring near the beach. It was an interesting spot as we had a good view of the nearby houses and the pigsties on the beach coupled with an intermittent sulphurous pong from the slightly active volcano over the hill! We moved a day or so later, when the dreaded Northerly swell hit again, to a "quieter" buoy on the other side of the bay. This time we only had to put up with the laughing gulls which hung around at certain times of the day waiting for fish. While in Soufriere, we did the tourist thing for a day, visiting the botanic gardens, the volcano and the warm springs. A good time.....photos later.
Katharine had caught a cold (no surprise there!) on the aircraft so was not feeling too energetic for a while but I think the warm weather helped to shorten its duration?
Anyway, after a few days doing St Lucia, we headed south for St Vincent and the Grenadines leaving at first light so as to get there before dusk. We had a "lively" sail with the wind gusting force seven between the islands and arrived in Bequia before sunset. There are very few places to stop in St Vincent....one little anchorage where the Pirates of the Caribbean was set... but not very safe... a yacht had been broken into earlier that week. Bequia is much safer and a lovely place too, great for yachties.
We took the ferry to St Vincent ( Kingstown, the capital) for the day.... we wanted to see Wallilabou Bay ( the film setting). The ferry trip was a real experience as the Atlantic swell between the islands made us roll alarmingly...photo later!! The ferries were originally built for the Norwegian fjords and are very top heavy.... not meant to roll....much!
We just had to take a local bus to Wallilabou bay, another brilliant fun sightseeing trip around dodgy mountain roads but so cheap... St Vincent is very much like the other islands but greener... more rain... and not so touristy....yet.
On the equally rolly ferry trip back, Katharine spotted a large black fin...not a shark... but a whale. Think it was probably a "false killer whale" we decided after some research. A bit of a treat. On this return trip in the dark, we also spotted a coastguard vessel in hot pursuit of a pirogue (local fishing boat)... probably drug related. This event was reported later in the local paper. Exciting stuff! A couple of days later when Katharine and I took the ferry back to Kingstown for her flights back to St Lucia and the UK, we witnessed another hot pursuit, through the docks; this time two men being chased by half a dozen armed police. Scary rather than exciting this time as we were only about 50 yards away!
Bequia on the other hand appears to be a really safe haven and I shall write more about it next time when I have my own computer back.

Back in Marin and Martinique is once more open for business!

On the way to the swamp...... Trois Ilets

Mont Pelee..... normally hidden by cloud. A perfect volcano!!

The cell where the only survivor of the eruption was living.

The pier at Saint Pierre after one of the notorious northerly swells.. actually, I think it may have been hurricane damage!

The "calm" of Saint Pierre....the day before.

Er, we were quite happy in St Pierre and looking forward to heading north in a few days for Dominica, then this dreaded northerly swell arrived ( We'd read about it in the cruising guide but it wasn't going to happen of course, except that it did!!) We awoke on the Saturday morning to the boat rolling around quite alarmingly.... not as badly though as Pete and Helen on Troutbridge who were farther inshore and the other catamaran inside them (with absentee owner) who actually ended up on the beach. That boat was wrecked apparently and featured on the local news. There are a couple of photos I took on Pete's blog..... (mailasail Troutbridge if you want to see).

We left in a bit of a rush and headed south for shelter to a "lovely" little spot......yes it was very sheltered, virtually surrounded by little islands, mangrove etc "Trois Ilets". It was actually a bit of a swamp teeming with flying 6 legged beasties (which feasted on me naturally) with the air punctuated periodically by a foetid sulphurous odour as bubbles of gas escaped from the nasty grey goo 5 metres beneath us. Lovely!! We ventured ashore a few times but found most things closed as the general strike in Martinique continued. We weren't getting desperate but I was really missing butter on my freshly baked bread! A ferry trip across to the capital city, Fort de France was fairly uneventful. We found a good chandlery anyway which meant some things on the boat could be fixed at last....... like the light in the loo!!! We trekked around the area a little and found a nice little touristy town with wifi ( but my computer wasn't working that day) and so the days passed............ Time was running out to get to Dominica by now so we decided to leave and head south and east again for Marin and then on to St Lucia to pick up Katharine on the 22nd in Vieux Fort.

There were very few boats sheltering with us and Troutbridge.....maybe they knew about the smell? We did meet one very nice couple though, Lois and Derek from Canada, on Aldebaran II who had some incredible travel stories to tell! I hope we may stay in contact.

Back in Marin in just about the same spot we were before..... but this time, everything is OPEN ...at last!! We have already taken advantage of the stuff you can get here and nowhere else in the non French Caribbean.... like cheap wine and cheese and will carry on supermarket shopping til the boat starts to look a little low in the water!!!

I'm so glad my computer is working again as I felt a little lost without it. Sad isn't it? Photos to follow and hope to post another blog from St Lucia soon.

Moving on....

Sunset in Grande Anse d'Arlet

The Rara Avis

Diamond Rock, Martinique

We had to leave Marin in the end ....... both water tanks were eventually full.... at last! We had taken the two 25 litre water containers ashore each time we had dinghyed in and after quite a few trips, that was it..... enough water. I reckon it was over 100 gallons in the end but then we hadn't filled up since leaving Barbados on 5th Feb.............. and the tanks weren't empty either!

We headed around the corner to Grande Anse d'Arlet about 15 miles to the north and west, a lovely little sheltered bay with just a few yachts and the promise of several of those beachside restaurants. Unfortunately, the strike had got there before us and nearly everything was closed for business as usual! The next morning however we sort of struck gold because we found a "man with a van" who was selling fresh fruit and veg and... manna from heaven for me..... EGGS!! I reckon 10 minutes later and we'd have missed him so we bought as much as we could....quite expensive, but then everything is anywhere it seems... but very much worth it!

The other nice surprise in this bay was the presence of two old French sailing boats that I knew over 30 years ago, the Bel Espoir and the Rara Avis. I just had to go across to see if their owner, Pere Michel Jaoen was still around... and he was... though he must be around 80 by now but still quite active and chatty..... in French!! It was lovely to see him again.

We left this bay on Tuesday 4th and sailed north to St Pierre, the town that used to be the capital city until it got destroyed by the volcano Mont Pelee (it dominates the town to the north at 4800') in 1902. Look it up on Google for more info.... I don't have time to write the history! On the way, we sailed past Diamond Rock, photo included, which was occupied for 18months by the British during the Napoleonic era much to their annoyance!

Saint Pierre is a nice little place with all the things you would expect to see in a typical french town except that the strike has meant all the food shops are virtually empty as everywhere. We can still buy fresh fruit and veg though and for some reason, there is a glut of things like yogurt and fromage frais though what I'd really like now is some butter and olive oil! Pete (Troutbridge) arrived in Saint Pierre from St Lucia later on Tuesday and said that there was now also nothing to buy in the supermarkets there as the french had come across from here and bought it all up! The strike is supposed to be ended in Guadeloupe now but it will take a little while for it to filter through here. There was a little violence earlier on in the strike but we haven't seen any trouble apart from some shouting and a bit of shoving!!

We aim to move on in a day or so continuing north to Dominica. I believe this island is more like the Caribbean used to be and that things should be somewhat cheaper....looking forward to that though I don't expect I'll be able to get online so it may be a while now before I am back in contact.

This is how I hoped it might be....

Saturday lunchtime in Marin, Martinique at the best wifi spot in town! The photos above have only just this minute been taken. We are in the boatyard having dinghyed across from the boat to one of those wonderful little places, run by a husband and wife team where you can get just about anything......a little general store ( limited stock though after 23 days of general strike) but they have icecream and beer so who cares? They also sell petrol and diesel..... well, usually, and water, which is free to boatowners. The wifi reception is perfect, the best we've found so far anywhere, fast and free!! They have a free book exchange with thousands of books in a variety of languages. They also do laundry at the best price so far and if I'd asked, so she said, I could have had those "stubborn" stains removed too!!! Her English is very good too so I'm being extra lazy and not even trying to speak French. What a couple of stars!!! If you like rugby, you could even follow the Scotland/Italy match, currently showing on TV. The cat obviously belongs to this place, food is nearby and dogs are not welcome!

The weather is perfect for a change, I have a cold beer. I'm staying put for a little while longer!

Photos of Martinique

I'll write another update soon. These photos just take forever to upload!! This is just the general area where we are at the moment. Moving up the West coast next week when Pete and helen on troutbridge get here from St Lucia. I hope they will bring us lots of butter and eggs!!