Martinique and St. Lucia

From Dominica we pushed south to Martinique to catch up with Bay Pelican in the port of Le Marin. The charts promised a flat calm anchorage and it was that. It was also hot and buggy and not suitable for swimming. One of the neatest things about this life style is that we are free to move our home if we don’t like what we see. We managed to eat a few more baguettes and pastries and we moved on to St. Lucia.

We found Rodney Bay in St. Lucia to be much more pleasant. Cooler breezes, clean water and free WiFi on the boat. Tom managed to SCUBA and clean the bottom again and Kim got two coats of varnish on the caprails. The scenery is more rustic and the people are friendly and welcoming. The entrepreneurs come out to the cruising boats in anything that will float selling fish and vegetables and offering to take dirty laundry and will fill any other need you may have.

We moved further down St; Lucia’s coast to the famous pitons. Located near Soufriere, these primeval twin peaks are St. Lucia's most famous landmark. Towering nearly 3,000 feet above sea level, the majestic peak of Gros Piton, along with its twin peak Petit Piton, dominates the western coast of St. Lucia. The lush green slopes of these pyramid shaped icons rise abruptly from the sapphire blue waters of the Caribbean. Covered with thick tropical vegetation, the massive outcroppings were formed by lava from a volcanic eruption 30 to 40 million years ago.

We nestled Emily Grace into the waters directly beneath these giants and grabbed a park mooring that put us within 100 feet of the shoreline. We enjoyed a day of snorkeling and enjoyed a meal ashore with more cruising friends aboard Voyager, a custom trawler complete with full dining room and a fireplace!

Tom

Crafts at the Lawler Academy of the High Seas

Many folks have asked how Emily keeps busy now that school is out for the summer. Well, Kim has been steadily feeding the right side of her brain (creativity) throughout the year with music lessons on the keyboard and one craft project after another.

Of course Leggos and Playdough get top billing for versatility and neither rust or make too much of a mess. Both of these media are universal. Below is a shot of Emily and Marvin playing together. Marvin only speaks French, but that made no difference to either child.

Each country visited provides an opportunity to learn about a new culture or language, but also we make all the courtesy flags that we must fly after clearing in. Below is Emily painting the stars on the flag for Dominica.

The ten green stars, which are the traditional symbol of hope, represent the ten parishes of Dominica. The Sisserou Parrot is the national bird of Dominica and symbolizes flight towards greater heights and fulfillment of aspirations. The Parrot also comes from the Dominica Coat of Arms, representing the official seal of the country. The Dominican flag's stripes form a cross representing the Trinity of God... And so it goes...each flag has a story.

Kim has even made a few attempts at painting with Emily on canvas. She has a good eye and can paint many animals from memory where the teacher prefers looking at the real thing or a picture. Both teacher and student paint the same scene. The top paintings were done by our eight-year-old crew.



Emily already has several boxes filled with shells collected and identified from the beaches we have strolled. Several of the shells made it into the shadow box above.

Finally, Kim has taught Emily to knit and the short video shows our student on the first project; a scarf for Dasher.



Tom

The Saints in Guadeloupe and Dominica's Indian River Tour

We slept one night in Northern Guadeloupe, but did not clear into this country until in Les Saints. The islands were named Los Santos by Christopher Columbus, who arrived there on All Saints' Day of 1493. These islands are mountainous and very clean. We enjoyed the little town and even managed to have a nice meal at one of the seaside restaurants.

We motored south to Dominica and decided to do some touring of this island. Dominica has been nicknamed the "Nature Isle of the Caribbean" for its seemingly unspoiled natural beauty. It is the youngest island in the Lesser Antilles, still being formed by geothermal-volcanic activity, as evidenced by the world's second-largest boiling lake. The island features lush mountainous rainforests, home of many very rare plant, animal, and bird species.

We took a tour of Indian River with a guide who rowed us up into this tropical river into the rain forest. Come along with us and enjoy a short video with the sounds of our guide rowing and the tropical birds.

We saw colorful birds and a 5 foot iguana sleeping 15 feet above our boat. The tour took about 1 ½ hours and we learned a lot about the plants and animals of Dominica. There were hundreds of land crabs along the river banks and some of them were bright blue.

After the guide returned us to our home, he made a bird and fish for Emily and Kim out of reeds he had collected along the river bank.

Stay tuned Dear reader as the adventure continues as we will tour inland tomorrow ....

Tom

Dominica - An Inland tour

The second day in Dominica we had booked an all-day inland tour with cruising friends on Navigator and La Leeze. We saw sweeping vistas of the island, the home of a woman who had lived to 128, and we all learned more about the plants that grow here. Our guide stopped several times to pick wild lemon grass, basil, bay leaves, cashews and fruits from the side of the road.

We stopped at a cassava bakery where the Caribe Indians are still making bread the original ways. We sampled a warm piece and it was very good. Kim bought a hand woven basket that rivaled those that we had seen in Charleston for 1/10 of the US price. We had native food for lunch on the side of a mountain with more sweeping views of the sea.

The highlights of the trip were the hike to a waterfall where we could swim beneath the cascading water and another hike that lead us to a naturally heated pool. We had to swim across a river with a very swift current to get to the pool on the other side. The current was so swift that we started across about 30 feet upstream and swimming as fast as we could across the stream would land us at our target. We emerged from the cool fresh water river and immersed ourselves in 105 degree water heated by the volcanic activity below. It was wonderful. Emily must have crossed that stream 5 times, each time getting braver and further away from Dad’s reaching hands.

After a long day, we returned to our boats to be greeted by a short tropical downpour and a double rainbow that spread all the way between Dominica and the sea. More treasured memories to store away for our twilight years…

Tom

Antigua and Barbuda

The normal path south from St Barts would be St Eustatius-St Kits-Nevis. Tom had read about some petty crime on St Kitts and the anchorages did not look too protected. The alternative would be to go 70 miles directly into the wind to Barbuda and then to Antigua. Since this crew has never been accused of doing anything normal, and we had a decent (read no heavy projectile vomiting) weather forecast, the steadfast captain pointed the bow towards Barbuda. The passage was indeed long, but we were greeted by a wide white powder sand beach at Cocoa Point with calm blue water on which we rested.

The next day we moved almost directly south to Antigua and checked into this country in its capital city of St Johns. The island of Antigua was named Wadadli by the natives and is today called "Land of Wadadli" by locals. Kim found out when she asked for the local beer and was served a Wadadli beer.

Christopher Columbus landed here on his second trip in 1493 and named the island Santa Maria de la Antigua. Antigua means "ancient" in Spanish and he named it after a church in Spain, Santa Maria La Antigua — St. Mary the Ancient. Early settlement by the Spanish was replaced by English rule from 1632 (British rule from 1707 Acts of Union), with a French interlude in 1666. Slavery, established to run the sugar plantations on Antigua, was abolished in 1834. The islands became an independent state within the Commonwealth of Nations on November 1, 1981, with Elizabeth II as the first Queen of Antigua and Barbuda

The real draw for visiting Antigua was the historic aspects of English Harbor that Tom had read about. English Harbor on the southeastern coast is famed for its protected shelter during violent storms. It is the site of a restored British colonial naval station called "Nelson's Dockyard" after Captain Horatio Nelson. Today English Harbor and the neighboring village of Falmouth are internationally famous as a yachting and sailing destination and provisioning centre.

We cruised into English harbor and saw the dockyard and famous fortifications. Nelson had laid chains across many of the harbors and many still lie on the harbor bottom waiting to snag new anchors. Tom therefore opted to anchor in adjacent Falmouth harbor. From there we toured the museums and had lunch atop Shirley Heights and enjoyed the commanding view from there. I assume that this magnificent mountain was named after my mother, but my history may be a bit cloudy on that point.

We took a side trip to lovely Green Island on the southwest side of Antigua where we enjoyed an uninhabited island and some nice snorkeling. We harvested four conchs from the reef and Kim made conch salad and fritters for a little party with the crew of navigator.

Since the English are not particularly known for their cuisine and we were running out of baguettes, we headed almost directly south for the French island of Guadeloupe. We looked to starboard about halfway through the trip to see if Monserrat was erupting again, but we saw no lava or ash plumes, so all must still be OK there.

We tucked into Deshaies for the night and had an enjoyable ride the next morning in the lee of Guadeloupe towards Les Saintes. These islands were named Los Santos by Christopher Columbus, who arrived there on All Saints' Day of 1493. The first French settlers arrived in 1648. Because of their strategically important position, the Îles des Saintes were fought over by the French and the British in the Battle of the Saintes; they have remained under French control since 1816.

These last few islands, we have been traveling in company with John and Mary aboard Navigator which has been very pleasant. Mary continues to cook and lavish us with deserts, cookies and breads and John and I commiserate over fixing broken boat things. Most of the broken things have been on his boat lately, but we all know that my turn is coming. In reality, all the preparation work I did in the 2 years prior to embarking on this folly have been paying dividends now. Relatively minor problems on Emily Grace have been fixed quickly and most of the needed spares have been on board.

Also as we move south the weather and water have been getting warmer. Daytime temps are always around 90 and we are lucky to see 82 in our stateroom at night. The trade winds keep it bearable, but cooking the evening meal requires running the A/C some nights. The water temps are now around 83 and wet suits are rarely needed any more.

Tom