March 16 - 25, 2017
Our friends from Canada visited us for the Canadian spring break. We arrived into Marigot Bay, St. Lucia to await their arrival. We love Marigot Bay, the mooring ball price (for Capella Marina) is $30.00 US and we get the use of the resorts bars and fabulous pools.
Our friends had a few "wish list" items that we hoped to fulfil throughout their vacation. The list was clear water, experience a jungle and to catch a fish.
We stayed two nights in Marigot to allow our friends to acclimatise. We had also promised Paige that we would take her over to the basket weaving guy and have him teach her how to weave. We all headed over to the Doolittles beach area to claim our Capella Resort beach chairs while Paige had her lesson on basket weaving with a palm frond. It was a huge success! The fellow even gave her a spare frond to take back to the boat to test her skills. Unfortunately, while she was weaving the second basket, one of the 15 leaves fell off making it difficult to finish.
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| learning to weave a basket |
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the finished product with her teacher
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The following day we took our guests an hour and a half north to Rodney Bay to anchor in the bay for the night before heading over to Grande Anse, Martinique. As soon as we dropped the hook in Rodney Bay, Bob, Gavin and Shaun snorkelled the anchor to make sure it set properly. Once that was complete the kids went snorkelling and found an octopus with its conk shell.
We all got up the following morning for the sail across to Grande Anse, Martinique. It took us 3.5 hours and the sailing was a bit bumpy. A few of us were feeling the "mal de mere" but, we arrived into Grande Anse, Martinique unscathed and dropped the hook. Once we were settled, we hopped into the dingy. All of us with the exception of Brandy (her newly replaced ACL wasn't up for the jaunt) made the walk over to Anse d’Artlet so that we could check in. It is a 2 mile gentle walk with loads of scenery and wildlife. We saw a lot of lizards, caterpillars and cows. Paige was showing Gavin the art of catching geckos along the way (which made the trip slower LOL).
Grande Anse has great snorkelling around the boat as well as in a roped off reef. Many turtles live in the bay. They like to settle at the bottom under boats. Gavin and Jordan were snorkelling off the bow and found some sea stars. After we snapped a photo they put them back. In the afternoon we all pilled into the dingy and headed over to the reef. The variety of sea life is incredible. We saw trumpet fish, moray eel, damselfish, parrot fish, blue tangs, trigger fish, trunk fish and many more.
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| Bob sitting at the bow experiencing the swell as we crossed to Martinique |
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| Brandy and Gavin sitting at the port helm seat |
We left Grande Anse and headed up to St. Pierre. St. Pierre is the town where the Mount Peleé volcano erupted in 1902, killing 30,000 people. The only 2 people that survived were a prisoner and a cobbler. It majestically overlooks the area.
We stopped at a small museum (one room) to look at pictures and artefacts from before the eruption as well as after. One of the first items we saw was a huge church bell that had been crushed during the eruption.
As we walked around the town we were rewarded with picturesque ruins with vines growing around them with Mount Peleé ever present in the background.
At first glance St. Pierre was not my favourite stop. Many shops were closed or abandoned. It had a feel of poverty. After some reflection I am reminded of the beauty and history.
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| Mount Peleé |
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| view of Element from up on top of the hill |
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| view of the main road |
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| always a great shot while sitting on a cannon |
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| Gavin, Jordan and Paige in the theatre |
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| Mount Peleé in the backdrop |
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| a cool old fountain |
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| Mount Peleé from the theatre |
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| a view up the steps to the fountain and just beyond the vine covered ruins |
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stone buildings make for great photos
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| the "rue de la prison" |
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| I love the colours in this photo |
After leaving Martinique we headed across to Dominica on our way up to Les Saintes. This was our longest sailing day and our bumpiest. Several of us were feeling green but, as soon as we were in the shadow of Dominica we had a reprieve. As we motored up the coast of Dominica and were passing Portsmouth, a motor boat came screaming out to see if we were looking for a mooring ball. We declined but the fellow introduced himself as Alexis and asked us to look him up upon our return. We did and it was one of our best decisions.
It was late in the day before we finally made it to Les Saints. We learned quickly that the mooring balls are highly sought after and are tricky to acquire. For that evening we had to anchor outside the mooring ball field. It was not our favourite spot but allowed us to have dinner and rest. The following day we weighed anchor to try and scoop a ball close to town. We weren't able to find an open ball so we headed back up to a small bay around a point. This proved to be an excellent decision because the snorkelling was the best we have seen to date. The parrot fish are huge and in large schools. As we don't have an underwater camera there are no photos. The area was teaming with sea life.
Terre de Haut is a quaint town with beach bars, tourist shops, boulangeries, and cafés. We were in need of dinghy fuel so we decided to rent a car. Shaun made two trips to the town. Each increasingly wetter and longer. Our dinghy wasn't running at full speed, one of the many to do list repairs. Most vehicles on the island are electric and so our rental "car" was a glorified golf cart. Also, there is only 1 fuel dock and it is only accessible by water or by foot. Always an adventure. We split the cost of the "car" rental with Bob and Brandy. While they had the car they took the opportunity to visit
Fort Napoléon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Napoléon_des_Saintes). They really enjoyed it. Our family caught up on internet and explored the small town. When they returned Shaun took us to this awesome bar called Lō Blue Hotel (
http://www.lobleuhotel.com/en). It proved to be a charming place to be with a pleasant and relaxing atmosphere. Had we had more time we would have explored more. However, we really wanted to take our friends to Dominica (this will be in my next post).
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| a close up of an iguana in a tree |
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| Jordan took this picture of an iguana on the beach |
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