Well, here we are in Fort de France, Martinique, the furthest south that we have been yet.   It’s wonderful to be in a big city for a change and to be anchored literally a few hundred feet from the city streets is unique in our experience.  However, with convenience comes some discomfort as we hear music blaring each evening and there is a constant parade of ferry boats rocking us, sometimes violently, as the come by from 08:00 to 16:00.

However, we are well protected from the strong winds, tucked below a ovely historic French fort.Of course, as the bottom drops off quickly as you get further from shore, the anchorage is tight, and yes, we are as close to the other boats as this photo appears.   However, tight anchoring works here as the wind is so consistent with the easterly prevailing winds.  The catamaran just in front of us is Raven, with our friends Barbara and Ted aboard.   They are from Austin TX and have been living aboard for the last two years.  We arrived here a few days ago after an overnight stop in Dominica, a very rural island that was trashed during last seasons hurricanes.   We only stayed there and didn’t even clear in, to break up the trip to Martinique.  It was sad to see the devastation that they have endured.    Leaves had been stripped from the rain forest.  When we were here last winter it was a dark green and very lush.  We were told that this is much improved compared to a few months ago when the hillside was completely barren. This closeup really gives a feel for how barren the trees are.
While a good deal of cleanup has been done, there is still a lot to be done to get things back in shape ashore.   There are signs of damaged boats and buildings everywhere. What’s remarkable is that just 30 miles south, as you approach Martinique, the forest is lush and untouched.    And, speaking of lush, we rented a car with Ted and Barbara yesterday to tour some of the rum distilleries and countryside as we drove around much of the island.  It was really beautiful.  Details to come on that in my next post. Anyway, we have also explored the city near the waterfront and it’s a unique mixture of old and modern.    There are many lovely streets in the historic district. With colorful shops selling most anything from marine supplies to island themed fabric. And, stirred into the mix are some really modern buildings.  Somehow it all works.  There are a few real standout buildings including the Schoelcher Library designed buy a disciple of Gustave Eiffel, that guy that brought you the Eiffel Tower in Paris.   Like the famous tower, the library was also built for the 1889 worlds fair, disassembled, shipped here to Fort de France and reassembled.    See what others have said about the building.

Inside is impressive with a soaring ceiling. And an impressive collection of old books and manuscripts.   Remarkably, this is open to the street so the books are not being stored in a climate controlled environment.    Wonder how they will do over time exposed to the humidity.  Nearby the St Louis Cathedral also by the same designer in perfect condition. There’s lots more to tell but too much for a single post so you’ll have to stay tuned.    Fort de France is a remarkable spot and I expect that we will stay here for a while before heading further south.

Along with the remarkable architecture the difference in the condition of the island compared to nearby Dominica just serves to reinforce the point that real estate agents always say “location, location, location” and in this case how things change only a few miles apart.

To see the near total devastation on an island so nearby is certainly sobering.

We are here in Iles de Saintes, a small archipelago here just south of  Guadeloupe.   It’s fascinating to visit some of these islands where countries battled it out years ago to control those islands that were valuable, mostly because of sugar production, and because they had good ports where ships could call home.

Les Saintes are such a group of islands.   As they are low lying and dry, I expect that the appeal wasn’t agriculture but as a place to control shipping.   And, as is so often the case in these parts, this island saw much action as the English and French fought for control time and time again.

As you’d expect wherever there is warfare, there are forts and this place has a number of them with the largest, now a terrific museum.  It would be tough to sneak up on a garrison with such a commanding view. And, with such a large harbor, comes the need to control it and at least once a large battle with dozens of ships fought for control in what is known as the
“battle of the Saintes”.   This diorama showed all the ships that fought.  This is only a detail shot but it’s sufficient to say that there were a lot of ships banging away at each other.    The museum has a number of very nice large scale models including this one of the 90 gun flagship, The Formidable, launched in England in 1777 after a ten year build.  Interestingly, it wasn’t dismantled until the early 1800s.   That’s a long career for a wooden fighting ship.  The model is nearly 5′ long.   Impressive.
Interestingly, there was also a model of the Santa Maria, Columbus’s ship.   Oops, the description of why it was in the museum was in French.  And, speaking of nice views, which I was earlier in the post.  Nice spot to have our picture taken.
The fort is in amazing shape after all these years.   It’s remarkable to see how flawless the walls are.  Not a wave or ripple.   Perfect construction. These large iguanas were in the nearby trees everywhere.  They are very territorial and this big guy was standing his ground in spite of our invasion of his space.
Another bit of local fauna, a kestrel, I think. And, of course, goats.  Always lots of goats.  In this case, baby goats, goatettes, or goatees.   Hmm…Down in the main town there was a great little parade.   Drums and all sorts of percussion.  All the marchers were probably nearly deaf after the event was over.  Brenda and I loved this little household garden.  I also enjoyed watching these guys “launch” a boat, freshly painted.  They walked briskly along, stopping every 100′ or so for a break.   “Stop, stop Francois, time for a cigarette break.  We are French after all.”  Looks heavy. Along the way (we rented a golf cart for the day) we stopped at a “beach bar” for lunch.   How about tuna ceviche and wine at a lowly beach bar?  Only in a French Island!  Bon appetite!  Indeed.
So, there you have it.  Another post of random thoughts from the Caribbean.

Great food, lovely Caribbean breezes.     I have to say that I am glad that the French persevered here as somehow I don’t think that the food would be quite as good if the English had won.

And, on top of that, clearing in would be ten times harder and cost more.

Tomorrow, off to Dominica and on to  Martinique.   Yes, more baguettes in Pandora’s future when we get to Martinique.

It’s been a while since my last post and since then we visited Nevis and went to Montserrat again, this time aboard Pandora.

When we were in Antigua we decided, as I reported in an earlier post, that we would visit St Kitts and Nevis which was directly down wind from Antigua.   The plan, after that, was to head to Guadeloupe, a long but, we thought, doable trip.

The run from Antigua to Guadeloupe is an easy reach so it seemed to me that the same, if a bit harder on the wind, would be the case from Nevis to Guadeloupe.   NOT!

Unfortunately, after spending a week of fun in spite of an annoying wrap-around swell in both Nevis and St Kitts, we struck out for Montserrat for an overnight stop as that was about half the way to Guadeloupe.  Unfortunately, with the prevailing easterly, the run was more on the wind than I had realized and it put us hard on the wind motor-sailing in some pretty rough conditions.  Brenda was not pleased.

It was quite a rough day.  It’s always frustrating to try and take photos of waves as it never seems to really show what it was like.  Perhaps these two shots of our friends on Oasis, who sailed with us make the point.   Here they are close by us as we made our way to Guadeloupe.  Looks pretty normal?A few moments later as a 10 second swell was between us.   What boat?  Where dey go?We anchored in the tiny harbor, such as it is, in Montserrat and spent the night pitching back and forth in the swell.  After a day of pounding into the wind and anchoring in a rolly harbor, and all on her birthday, Brenda wasn’t too happy. A close up of Pandora anchored.  If it was a video, you’d see the long swell rolling through the anchorage and her mast swaying back and forth 20 degrees side to side. However, swell or not, we were able to go ashore and visit a weaving studio which made her very happy.  Brenda had heard about the studio a while back and this was a destination worth fighting for and there we were.   We hired a taxi and had a terrific visit.  Two happy weavers and one happy birthday girl. After buying one of just about everything in the studio, we invited the owner and her mother out to Pandora for a glass of wine.   That was fun too, in spite of more rolling around, with our guests, while clutching our wine glasses.  Not a good location for glasses with stems.

Anyway, we slept, sort of, that night and left early the next morning to head the rest of the way to Deshais Guadeloupe, again motorsailing, hard on the wind.

A short distance to the southern end of the island we passed the remains of what was once the capitol of Montserrat before the volcano wiped it out.   Seeing these buildings, once a thriving city, under tons of ash and mud was sobering.   It was hard to see due to the smoke from the still active volcano.  You could see the deep ravines that were carved out when a huge lake that had filled with rainwater for several years following the eruption, finally broke through and thundered to the sea.  I can only imagine what that day must have been like.   Perhaps not as bad as a major volcanic eruption but not fun, even a little bit. It was two long days to Guadeloupe but we made it and that was two rough days more than Brenda needed, especially as one of the days was her birthday.  Thank goodness for the weaving studio we visited.  I was fearful that she’d jump ship and head for the airport.  Fortunately not.

As we slogged our way to Deshais we were passed by a large sailing ship.  It was an impressive sight as she passed us in the distance. We were happy to relax in Deshais for the evening.  It’s a beautiful fishing village and we were particularly pleased to be back on a French island.  Bring on the food.   We binged on baguettes and cheese.  Yum.    Ok, we also bought some produce too, local of course. Unlike Antigua and other islands influenced by the UK, the French islands have very easy customs procedures.   Instead of going from window to window or office to office, in Deshais all you had to do was to go to this T shirt shop, fill out a form on a PC, French keyboard of course, and pay four Euros.  Simple.  And you can check in and out at the same time if you know when you are going to depart.  It was very picturesque.   Lots of boats, along with Pandora, out in the harbor.
Outside where we had lunch they had a charming bird feeder that was very popular with the locals. So, now we are here now in Les Saintes, also part of Guadeloupe, where we will stay for a while, perhaps through next week before heading south to Martinique, French again.  There are wonderful places to dine and the food is great.
As I write this post I am sitting in a cafe overlooking the main town square.    A lovely view.
From downstairs, you can look out and see Pandora on her mooring nearby.   that’s her, with the dark hull.  Not the best shot but you get the point, I hope.  Very close. We just love the local architecture, shabby chic. So, here we are for a while and tonight we head to a friend’s boat for cocktails.  It’s amazing that everywhere we go there are always boats that we know.    Could be worse, we could be in sub-zero temps.

I prefer this.   However, all is not always easy as our trip to Nevis showed, there’s a good and bad way to do everything and now we know how NOT to visit St Kitts.

I have written about the “islands that kiss the clouds” before and that was mostly in anticipation of visiting those that qualify for that distinction.  In order to be one of “those”, and they are mostly located south of Antigua, and island must have a mountain that is high enough, around 3,000′ tall, so that the trade winds, blowing out of the east, hit the side of the mountain,  rise up, cool the air as it rises and then condense their moisture in the form of rain.

What makes these islands distinctive is that their summits are always crowned with clouds.  It’s beautiful.  This is Nevis, where we stopped today along the way to our planned destination of Montserrat.  The winds are less than they have been for the last week but as we got underway today it turned out that it was still pretty windy, with gusts into the low 20s.

Bill, on Kalunamoo, had spoken to folks earlier in the day on the SSB radio and heard reports that  that it was still pretty bumpy out there, so armed with that knowledge, we decided to just head the short 6 miles to Nevis and pick up a mooring.  As holding can be challenging here, there are plenty of moorings to pickup.

Bill was the first to arrive and picked up a mooring only to have it float away with him attached, somehow no longer connected to the bottom.  Not good.  That doesn’t give me a lot of confidence.   Anyway, after we picked up one ourselves, I dropped the dink and retrieved the “floater” and secured it to another mooring.  I’ll enjoy talking about that when someone comes out later asking for payment for the use of the mooring.   With a smile I’ll say “No problem, I’ll trade you a floating, no longer connected mooring for a free night.  Oh yeah, and that applies to my friend Bill too, you know, the guy who almost floated out to see attached to your mooring”.

Anyway, here’s the view of the highest peak in Nevis, dead ahead, “kissing the clouds”.We enjoyed our visit on St Kitts if you don’t include the relentless wind that we put up with over the last week. However, a tour of the island, trips to the local bars and a few meals out made for a fun visit.

We also enjoyed seeing members of the local monkey population.   They were shy but sometimes we were able to get pretty close.   300mm lens or not, this guy didn’t seem to concerned about us.Last night our group went out for drinks at a nice bar.   The sunset did not disappoint.Yesterday afternoon this lovely little sloop anchored nearby.  It’s home port is Rockport Maine.   That’s a long way from home for a boat that looks like it’s under 30′ long.   Beautiful.  I would have enjoyed talking to the owner to learn more about the boat.  I’ll bet he built it himself.  Of course, with all that “mountains kissing the clouds thing” comes rain and rainbows.  We saw plenty during our visit and again this morning as light showers washed over us.   I guess after posting so many rainbow photos I have to find one that was a bit different.  Looks like someone spray painted it on a cloud. Off of our bow here in Nevis is the Four Seasons Hotel, supposedly a first class spot.    As Brenda’s birthday is tomorrow and we will likely be underway for Montserrat, perhaps we will go out for a drink there this afternoon.It sure looks like a great spot and lush with a perfectly green golf course.  Not many of the dryer islands can support a golf course.   This island is pretty lush. Well, the day is young so I’d better head out and see what’s involved in getting ashore.  Unfortunately, it’s Sunday and most everything is closed in these parts on the Sabbath so we probably won’t have much to choose from.

I wonder if I can track down a birthday cake for you know who?  If I can I’ll bet that the islands that kiss the clouds won’t be the only ones getting kisses.

Pretty clever way to end the post?  Perhaps not but it’s the best I can do on short notice.  Wish me luck.  Cake or die trying…

It’s been a few days now that we have been here in St Kitts and we are hopeful that we will be able to leave for Guadeloupe over the weekend.  The problem has been the winds, the strong Christmas winds more specifically, that have made sailing south problematic.

For several months during the winter the winds can be pretty stiff, in the high 20s and sometimes gusting into the 30+ range.  Last winter we found ourselves stuck in Antigua for several weeks when the winds picked up and just about everybody sticks in place until the breezes moderate.

Additionally, because of the height of the island and the clouds that are there most of the time, our solar panels have been coming up short on recharging the batteries.  The shorter days of winter complicate that as well so we have had to run the generator for more time than we’d like to keep the batteries up to snuff, make water and keep it hot for showers.   This problem will become less of an issue as the days get longer, later in the season.  Also, the islands that aren’t as high will be less inclined to precipitate cloud cover.  Islands, like Antigua, as one example, with less elevation, don’t get the cloud cover that we have here in St Kitts.

It’s tiring to listen to the sound of the wind in the rigging, especially at night when the winds are stronger.   The hum in the rigging punctuated by higher gusts and the boat surging against her anchor can get a bit old.

Don’t get me wrong as it’s not all that bad here in St Kitts, a beautiful island.  As I write this we are sitting in a pavilion in this very high end development overlooking a beautiful pool and beach.  Not a bad view to be doing a post while enjoying.  As an added bonus, as it’s so far from the normal tourist locations, we have the place mostly to ourselves.  No cruise ship tour bus mobs here.

This is the view of the main building known as “the Pavilion”, nestled in an exclusive community.  This place is about a mile of so walk from the marina and along the way we spied a troupe of monkeys.  Last evening we went out for drinks with our friends at yet another lovely spot that’s part of this development.  It’s right on the water with a view of the western horizon, perfect at sunset.   Can you say “happy hour”?  Happy, indeed.   Just love the “turbine lamps”.  Our son Rob would be all over these and want them for his own patio.    The flame swirls in a lovely arc.  Pretty ethereal. We have been spending time ashore each day and the four couples we are here with spent time touring the island together a few days ago.   We hired a driver for the day and drove around the entire island, stopping along the way.

This end, the southern part, of the island is more arid than the higher parts of the northern part, so we were excited to see the rain forest.

Sugarcane production was big business here and it was interesting to see the remnants of an old railroad that runs around most of the island.   This trestle is evidence of what was once a dominant business on the island. We visited the ruins of a water powered “factory” facility that once processed raw sugarcane and produced rum.  It was in a beautiful area complete with some of the old cast iron equipment and the remains of an aqueduct that brought water to the cane crusher from the mountains.  Everything was wet from the near constant rain that comes and goes briefly each day.  The guide told us that this area of the island gets over 150″ of rain a year verses 50″ or less in other areas of the island.    For comparison, the definition, in Wikipedia of a rain forest is one that gets between 98 and 177 inches of rain per year so this clearly qualifies.   It’s remarkably lush with moss and ferns everywhere.After seeing such dry areas it was amazing to see green grass and ferns everywhere. After spending so much time on islands where the primary source of water was through reverse osmosis, it’s a treat to see rivers and streams everywhere.  Here on the other end of the island it’s quite arid and I expect that the primary source of water is RO.   Amazing since the island just isn’t that big.As you’d expect, where there is rain forest there is zip-lining. I would have loved to take a turn at that however, with 8 of us sharing a van and trying to see the island in a single day, there wasn’t much time to dawdle.

Along the way we stopped at a tiny spot for lunch.  I expect that the owners were related to the driver.   Not much to look at, not even a little bit actually, but the food was excellent.  It was interesting to see, all within a few hours, everything from lush forest, open pasture and arid hillsides dominated by cactus on such a small island.  A beautiful church perched near the sea.    Looked pretty exposed but beautiful. Along the way, nestled in the rain forest, was a lovey sort of botanical garden/batik factory.    I had to work hard to get photos that weren’t overrun with cruise ship tours.  However, it was set in a beautiful surrounding. The fabric that they dyed was hung outside to dry in the breeze. They had an area where they demonstrated the technique.  Brenda and I had both done this technique in college I think and the smell of the wax, a mixture of paraffin and beeswax immediatly brought back memories.
The complex patterns of color are built up by sequentially waxing various areas of fabric and then dying in progressively darker colors.   In the end, the wax is taken out of the fabric and it’s sewn into various items for sale.Everywhere you turned the view was charming if a bit crowded with tourists.  Even the entrance to the facility was charming and well thought out.  There are ruins of an old bell tower, once used to signal the slaves when their time in the cane fields began or ended.   This may be the only one left as all the others were torn down after the abolition of slavery as symbols of oppression.    Legend has it that the owner of this particular plantation was a fairly reasonable “owner”, compared to the others, so his bell tower was preserved. St Kitts is a volcanic island, as most are in this area, although this one is not currently active.    A popular spot to visit is on the most northerly end of the island called “black rock” by the locals.   Again, swarmed with tour buses, the view of the volcanic rock was impressive and gives meaning to the term “lee shore”.   Not a great spot to run aground.   Good luck with that.   Of course where their are tourists, there are “entrepreneurs” and in this case, a guy with a monkey.   Before she could say “I hope that monkey doesn’t poop on me”, he climbed all over Brenda for a photo moment and a bit of fruit.    She, Brenda that is, was a very good sport.  St Kitts is a remarkable island tempered by the fact that anchoring is only possible in fairly exposed areas.  However, when conditions are right, it’s a great place to visit.   With everything from arid hillsides with cactus, to lush rain forests, St Kitts is truly an island of many faces.

Hopefully, in the next few days Brenda and I will be able to make our way to Guadalupe.   Don’t forget, Monday is Brenda’s birthday.  I won’t.

The bad news, and it’s bad, is that we may find ourselves underway on that special day and not in port as we’d prefer.   However, it’s nice to know that we will soon be in Guadeloupe, with all the fine French food you’d expect.

I guess I’ll just have to make it up to her somehow.    Brenda, would you care for a baguette?