St. Pierre, Martinique to Iles des Saintes, Guadalupe

12.02.12



Un chat blanc not worried at all about the volcano

On Friday morning we checked out of Martinique in St. Pierre, stopped by the lovely vegetable market, visited the local museum and the ruins of the theater and jail where the lone survivor of the 1902 eruption of Mt. Pelee dwelled.  Such an staggering event.  Mt. Pelee is not extinct but dormant.  She is expected to erupt again in 100 to 200 years.  The beautiful young museum docent told us that because Mt. Pelee may erupt again, many people will not move to this end of Martinique.  It is interesting to note that the population in 1902 was nearly 30,000 and now it is 5,000. 

 

Dave and I prepared the boat for sail and left along with Celtic Rover and Alibi at around 4:00pm for an overnight sail.  Other than the lazy jacks (lines that contain the dousing main sail) breaking and two bolts shearing that hold one side of the dinghy davits, it was an uneventful sail.  This is good.  We fortunately missed the squalls and 30 knot winds that Alibi encountered just a couple of nautical miles ahead of us.  We got by with the highest wind of 24 knots and light rain. 

The only other difficulty was trying to figure out the course of a large ship.  The radar showed that it was to the right of my mast, but my eyes showed that it was to the left of my mast.  This had never happened before.   Plus it was getting closer.  I turned the boat to starboard about 15 degrees.  Still the large ship got closer.  Finally when it was less than a kilometer away, the AIS showed its MMSI number.  I hailed it using this number and asked, “Do you see me?”  The captain said that he did not, so I told him that I would turn on more lights.  I turned on every exterior light that we had and asked him again, “Do you see me now?”

 “Yes, I see you and we are passing,” he responded. 

Whew.  I still don’t understand why this happened but will investigate on our next journey during the day. 



The village, Bourg de Saintes is on the left.  Wayward Wind is the dark-hulled boat at the bottom. 

We are now in Iles des Saintes, which is a group of small islands to the south of and belonging to the country of Guadalupe.  The town, Bourg de Saintes on Terre de Haute, is about as quaint as you could imagine.  Everything is small, old, freshly painted and clean.  The main street is edged with boutiques, restaurants, and boulangeries with beautiful original local art, nothing tacky.  The people are friendly and helpful.  The main street is blocked off from motorized vehicles making it perfect for a stroll.  What makes this town different than other tourist areas is that the locals obviously take pride in their town and work and shop at the same businesses as the tourists such as the grocer and the boulangeries.  Also two blocks from the town center is the local elementary school.  I was impressed with the number of bicycles out front, which is how I remember my elementary school yard back when children were not chauffeured in SUVs. 



Children ride their bikes to school.  What a concept!


Nice elementatry school

 

Dave and I decided to have a gallette (crepe) for breakfast and stopped by a tiny spot with one table out front.  I practiced my French with Sarah, the cook, who practiced her English with me.  I asked her how she came to live in Iles des Saintes.  She said that in France she was an energetic teacher of sports who was tiring of her students’ attitudes.  She then did a perfect impression of the universal teen-age apathetic slouch and mumbled, “I don’t want to run.” 

“I know exactly what you mean!” said I.  We nodded our heads with a complete school teacher understanding of each other and laughed.

One day, two years ago, she said to herself, “Sarah, you are 40 years old and this is not good.”  She asked her school for the following year off to travel.  She crewed on sailboats across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal, to the Galapagos Islands and back to the Caribbean.  One day while walking down the street in Iles des Saintes, she thought to herself, I would like to live here, so at the first stop, the creperie, she asked the owners if they needed any help.   The owners said, “Yes,” and she got the job here for six months.  Several months into it and obviously pleased with her, the owners asked her to stay another six months.  She didn’t know if her school would allow her another year off, but it did.  She said, “I am from Brittany and now it is cold and rainy.  Here I work in fresh air, meet interesting people, and swim every day.”  Une joie de vivre is clearly alive and well in Sarah. 

Along with the joy of life in France is the joy of food.  Again baguettes, croissants – real buttery, flakey croissants – wine, fabulous buttery cheeses and perfect pastries are plentiful.  Already I feel the pounds mounting. 

This morning, Darrell came over and went up the mast to repair our lazy jacks.  The ferry from Guadalupe frequently comes by making a hellava wake.  Riding one such wake, the intrepid Darrell clung to the mast as he tipped back and forth many feet till the roll subsided.  Darrell expertly took care of that job.  Thanks, Darrell!

Hang on, Darrell!  (this still photo does not depict how much he was being slung to and fro)

For our lunch break, Dave and I dinghied into town on a baguette mission.  It being Sunday, we knew that it was risky.  We went to the boulangerie where only one clerk worked behind the counter and all of the eight or so patrons were quietly standing back away from the counter.  Had they already been helped?  Was there a line in which we should wait?  It was a bit of a mystery, but not wanting to appear rude, we waited among the others.  After fifteen minutes, with not a lot of action, we opted to head to the grocery store in search of the baguette.  Alas no baguettes were to be had.  BUT on the way back to the dinghy, we spotted a woman standing behind a small table covered in a floral cloth upon which beckoned three baskets containing lovely pastries – long ones stuffed with fish, fluffy ones stuffed with crab, and big ones stuffed with coconut or guava.  We like variety so got some of each.  A perfect though high caloric lunch for two for about eight bucks US.  So a baguette tomorrow.  C’est la vie!

Darrell working in an inconvenient location, the starboard lazarette, to add new bolts to the davits

Darrell returned to WW in the afternoon to help us repair the dinghy davit arch.  He had an idea to improve it so as not to have the same problem again.  That job went smoothly.  Again, thanks, Darrell!  When doing a project, you must bring out the tools that are stored in various places such as under the settees in the salon.  Within minutes, the boat is turned upside down in the pursuit of a large crescent wrench.  When the job is completed, it takes about an hour to clean up and put all of the tools away.  Once that’s done, then the job is done.  Today I got a lot of fiberglass on me that was scratching me like crazy.  The solution was to don my swim suit and jump into the sea.  Ahhhh, it did the trick and just in time for sundown viewing.  Life is good. 

Cooked up a frittata made with local squash and goat cheese accompanied by a green salad with avocado.  YUM!