Christmas Eve was Debbie's birthday with breakfast on Amelie and a visit from Peri and Thornton (our Siamese friends from Sephina). Peri enjoyed being nosey and eventually settled down in Amelie's washing basket meanwhile Thornton found the master cabin and snuggled down on Stephen's side of the bed with the Christmas stockings at the foot. We revisited a lovely beach fronted restaurant in a Swedish hotel in Friendship Bay with Ju and Clive. Traditional dolls in national costume and clogs adorned the reception and a reading room with a huge Christmas tree with presents underneath. Very nostalgic feelings of Christmas with the absence of the family cause for reflection. Later that day Lou and Colin joined us for supper and Tequila shots.
We had a special Christmas in Bequia with a fabulous traditional roast turkey with homemade bread sauce and all the trimmings on Sephina. Lobster Bisque to start and homemade ice cream to finish, with Clive having his shot of rum. We managed to locate crackers with impressive trinkets and jokes.
Boxing Day was originally a resting day but we decided to entertain on Amelie with piles of cheese and wine. Following our guests departure, we decided that we would do an overnight sail to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. This was a good decision and we realised how much we had missed these night sails. Anchoring at 5am in the dark was not so funny, nevertheless we caught a few hours sleep and checked in with Customs and Immigration.
The following day we excitedly met up with Lorraine and Jim (Stiarna) who were spending the seasonal period on the Queen Mary and were docking into St. Lucia for a few hours. A chatty lunch catching up with all their news and hopeful plans for seeing one another in the near future. Time went too fast and with emotional goodbyes they returned to the Queen Mary.
New Year's Eve was planned by Debbie and the venue was Spinnakers. The Babes' absence was a disappointment but laden with silly crowns, tiaras, noisy blowers and bubbles, Ju, Clive and the Amelies saw 2015 in with fireworks from the hotel next door.
We were anchored just off Pigeon Island when the Christmas winds came in with full force. We rely heavily on our anchor and once again it proved to be a reliable part of the boat. On hind sight we spent far too long in Rodney Bay as it wasn't our sort of place. Pigeon Island offered walks up various hills but we were pleased to leave and had a magnificent sail to Martinique.
The Carib name for the largest of the windward islands is Madinina, meaning island of flowers. The Empress Josephine (Napoleon Bonaparte's wife) was born here.
Martinique is French speaking and one of the most beautiful islands in the Caribbean. It appears to have connections with Grenada which only made us love it more.
Apart from a couple of short British occupations the island has been French since the colonial days. It shows itself in the French cuisine and the infrastructure of the island is significantly more westernised than the other islands that we've been to — plenty of EU money seems to find its way to funding projects here. We managed to get some spares for Amelie which we haven't seen since the UK for example special filters for our drinking water and navigation lights for "M". We found a gem of a restaurant, Ti Toque, where the Foie Gras Creme Brûlée was totally outstanding. The Chef was extremely clever with fusing flavours and using ingredients that we certainly wouldn't combine with others......but they worked. We went back three times during our stay in Le Marin.
We had three epic walks, the first along a tree lined coastal path to Anse de Saline. The second was inland enjoying the lush countryside and a level of agricultural endeavour that we've not seen elsewhere; cow pastures, sugar and banana plantations with crops abounding. The third walk we did with Sephina around an EU subsidised coastal path which was in itself beautiful,on the windward side of the island. We topped off this walk with a great three hour French lunch at a coastal restaurant.
We hired a car for two days and visited the capital, Fort de France. The highlight of which was yet another restaurant, The Crew.
The arrival of the Babes encouraged us to move from Le Marin (a massive yachting centre with a 750 berth marina and probably as many yachts joining us in the bay at anchor) to St. Anne’s a very pretty seaside town with a beautiful, quiet anchorage. True to OWR style there were alternate parties on board Babe and Amelie with the added bonus of meeting Mick and Bea on their gaff cutter, Hannah. Paul and Stephen were to enjoy the delights of sailing Hannah from St. Anne to Fort de France accompanied by James from Ocean Rainbow and turned the clock back to yachts without fancy electric winches, lots of belaying pins, baggy wrinkles and miles of string! Debbie and Trish enjoyed a girlie day.
We were not yet done with Martinique and had a glorious thirty mile sail on Amelie around to the anchorage at St. Pierre, the former capital of Martinique. St. Pierre nestles below the volcano, Mount Pelee, and sadly in May 1902 thirty-thousand inhabitants perished as the volcano erupted engulfing the city in lava, ash and poisonous gases. Boats anchored in the bay suffered a similar fate and the anchorage is littered with the wooden bones of the wrecks. Walking around this atmospheric and historic town with scorched steps, walls, old buildings, theatre and prison provide memories of that catastrophic day. The photo shows Mount Pelee’s peak, one of a few moments when it wasn’t shrouded in cloud and the bonus of a rainbow.
Martinique has all the senses of typical French anchorages, waking to cockerels crowing and dogs barking, the wafts of baking bread from the many Boulangeries, honking of car horns as the drivers fly around the windy coastal roads and leading up to midday, the rich smells of lunch being cooked in the homes plus the pain of shops closing for lunch and some not opening until the evening.
Roberta (Luna of London) had suggested we ate at Le Tamaya, a small French/Creole restaurant run by retired yachties. The food was sublime. We ate typical French, variously escargot, frog's legs, duck and profiteroles and the service was very friendly, not at all like some of the surly French that we met, for example the tourist office, where a simple request "parlez vous Anglais?” was met with a blunt "non".
The Babes and Amelies embarked on another mammoth walk, initially along the road leading deep into the countryside. We were heading for the Beauregard Canal or Canal des Enclaves. This canal was built in 1760 by slaves and served three rum distilleries. Today it still irrigates several properties. The path of the canal climbs into the rainforest and at times the width of the path was between 12-18 inches wide with long drops down into the lush Carbet Valley. Finding lunch meant that we had the steepest climb up to Fond St. Denis, a small village with one roadside restaurant. Lunch was interesting followed by entertainment by Paul, as he got himself locked in the bar. Luckily some local men sitting at one of the tables knew how to release him, much to the mirth of Trish and Debbie.
The next day Sephina joined us on a walk to the Depaz rum distillery which still uses steam to operate their machinery. The steam engine in its former life powered the fountains at Fontainebleau.
A thoroughly interesting short visit to the local museum showed before and after pictures of the destructive eruption in 1902. This was followed by another lunch at Le Tamaya.
We set sail soon after lunch for Dominica, (this island is in fact part of the Leeward Islands of the West Indies) pronounced Dom-in-eek-a, not to be confused with Dominican Republic. It is a ruggedly beautiful island and environmentally probably hasn't changed much since the time of the European explorers. It is the least spoiled island in the Caribbean with 365 different water sources, ie rivers, streams, brooks,etc. the interior is hard to access and two-thirds of the land mass remains as natural forest vegetation. The islanders are very proud of their island and supportive of their government and are involved in the protection of their island whilst maintaining a living. They currently produce 40% of their electricity by hydro and are eighty-million dollars into a geothermal plant that will supply not only the other 60% but enable them to sell the surplus to neighbouring Guadeloupe & Martinique.
There is a Carib Reserve where descendants of the fierce Carib Indians continue to farm and sell woven baskets and jewellery to us tourists.
Dominica was fought over by the English and the French mainly being a British colony until 1967 when becoming independent. The French influence still survives through many of the family and place names and the speaking of Creole, a mixture of French and African, used by the slaves.
Following our southern island tour last March, we decided to organise a northern tour with the help of Albert who introduced us to Winston, our driver and tour guide for the day. He was quite a character and kept up the banter all day. Stopping for spectacular camera moments, a visit to the Carib reserve, lunch in a mountain restaurant with the best Rum Punch that Stephen has tasted so far and a short walk to the Emerald Lake where some of us bathed and massaged in the freshwater waterfall. Rounding off the day we travelled to Roseau, the capital, as Stephen had run out of cigars and had resorted to the pipe. From our previous visit, he knew where to buy his favourite cigars and duly presented himself with five others in tow. They refused to sell him the cigars probably as they were longing to go home and couldn't be bothered to go through with the laborious transaction with the duty free paperwork, buying duty paid wasn’t even an option! Winston was on a mission and the tour wasn't going to end until he had found Stephen his cigars which he did in a local deli. Stephen had a smile on his face......the rest of us were relieved!
Dominica was chosen as one of the main locations for the shooting of the ‘Dead Mans Chest’ Pirates of the Caribbean movie. We had seen some of the locations during our island tour but the best was saved for last, the Indian River. This is the only navigable river on the island and no engines are allowed so with Albert as our guide, he rowed us up this spectacular heritage site. The banks of the river are lined with buttress rooted Redblood trees, it was an "out of this world" experience. We did see Iguana, Kingfisher, Green breasted herons, humming birds but alas no parrots or Boa Constrictors, which also live on this river and the neighbouring swamp. Albert was a wealth of knowledge about the flora,fauna and local tales. The nearly three hour trip was fantastic value at just over £10 a head. This in itself would have justified a trip to Dominica.
We had to say goodbye to the Babes but will be seeing them in Iles des Saintes. We departed Dominica after fuelling up at the duty free dock with a leaky diesel hose. The two custom guys decided to vent their blame on Debbie regarding diesel in the water.......wrong move. Politely she told them how to maintain their equipment by tightening up the nuts on their hose and then fired back at them how the leak had messed up Amelie's deck. They politely wished us Bon Voyage and then told the fuel guy to sort out the hose.
Fully fuelled we had a fast sail to Iles des Saintes for the old boy's birthday celebrations.