Up the west coast of Martinique

Our Honda generator's coil mutinied so we were left without 110 volt power to charge the batteries leaving us to  rely on solar and/or wind, giving up smoothies for breakfast along with electric perked coffee.  Since our norm are fruit smoothies the hunt was on for a coil or new generator.  The only generators on the island are 220 volt for european appliances and the part to repair ours will take 2 - 8 weeks to ship in.  So we left St. Anne and sailed up to Grande Ainse and anchored for a couple of nights and then on to Fort du France to try to find a generator part.

into Fort de France Fred & Marsha are to the left

We did find some other parts sorely needed but no generator so we pulled anchor and crossed the bay to Trois Ilets for ice cream and the night.  Next morning we sailed up to St. Pierre to anchor and sign out of the country.
Since we have no schedule we did not know what day it was, the customs office closed at noon on Friday to reopen 0930 Monday.  So we got an unplanned weekend in the town at the base of Mt. Pele, which 30,000 were killed by the 1902 eruption.

Mt. Pele from St. Pierre harbor

Gorgeous little seaside town, has a lighted statue of Virgin Mary to guide sailors safely into port.  A catholic Cathedral constructed in 1635 and is just now being renovated.

Virgin Mary by night

by day

 pot of gold must be in the Catholic Cathedral, confirms my suspicions!

the cathedral

300' off the beach the water was over 100' deep so we ended up anchoring in 20 ft of water in a honky tonks backyard.  Saturday got a little rowdy but Sunday they toned down the speakers, brought live performers and gave us decent entertainment all day until 2200hrs.

too close to shore for comfort, our anchor is midway from the beach to Encore, depth gauge shows 43' at boat

nights entertainment

Martinique

The more time we spent in Martinique to better we liked it, despite it being french and only speaking french.  Kinda like a cat, totally indifferent to anyone except when they want fed or want someone to finish what they started.  The main problem with them is there is no french word for shower or deodorant and when in the same building with one it is suffocating.  Other than rudeness and B.O. it is a beautiful island, lush vegetation and dotted with small farms or huge commercial operations growing bananas or pineapples.

dinghy dock in St Anne

church at the end of the dock over 300 yrs old

We met new cruising family Marsha & Fred Anderson, S/V Take it Easy and Fred was in the hospital to treat something wrong with his leg.  We rented a car to tour the island and invited Marsha to join us. On the way over her dinghy motor took a break and we had to activate Towboat Jerry & pull her in.

Towin,  towin,  towin on the river 

The day with Marsha was more fun than should be allowed by law.  We drove up the east side where will will not be able to go in the boats and then on up to Mt. Pele, that killed 30,000 people during its last eruption in 1902.

mt. Pele

one of many small farms

typical street scene

Most of the roundabouts had sculptures or art in the center area and two of the best are here

Honors the banana workers

Honors the fishermen

After we got back and gave up the car we went to Le Marin to the grocery that had a dinghy dock.  I very, very seldom lock the dinghy and did not this time cause it is slow, different & has a small motor.  As we walked up the dock I saw a guy with no shirt, a day pack, bottle of wine, cheese & bread and a battery powered cork screw (how did he keep it charged).  He looked homeless and shared a little cheese with two stray kittens so he had someone to talk to.  I really started worrying cause ours was the only dinghy on the dock.  I circled around the store and took his picture so I could show the police if he took it.  It was the shortest grocery run ever & when we got back he was gone but our dinghy wasn't.

honors the winos

Two delightful people came over in their dinghy and introduced themselves becoming more new cruising family.  Ken & JoAnne Reed, S/V Allicat, Fred & Marsha, Sally and I walked over to the other side of the island to a beach for lunch.  

beginning of the trail

happy or gay beach,  note lizard on cactus

tiny restaurants & bars at the beach

homemade ice cream vendor with ringing bell in hand

the group, as happy to sit as to eat

Ken & JoAnne headed South so Fred & Marsha with us tagging headed north.

To Rodney Bay & on to Martinique

We left blue lagoon and sailed, repeat sailed all the way to Rodney Bay to drop the anchor for overnight, then up at sunrise to sail on to Martinique.  The passages between all the islands have confused, high seas and wind, along with a 2 - 4 knot current funneling past the land.

The not so grand Pitons.   for perspective, the sailboats are much larger than ours

how do you spell pensive?

We entered Martinique thinking of going to Le Marin but since all the photos we could see showed about a thousand boats we decided to stop at St.Anne, a saint little town with only a hundred or two boats on anchor.  As soon as we were anchored a fishing boat came up right behind us running fish/lobster/crab traps made from sticks and wire.  

running traps 

The next day he entered an off shore contest and caught a 620 marlin which he smoked and had for sale in the open air fish market two days later.  I enjoyed what I bought but Sally only ate half a bite.  St. Anne turned out to be an absolute treasure, narrow one way streets with quaint little restaurants and shops lining the sidewalks so close you have to walk in the streets most of the time.

There was a long line of large yellow buoys marking an area of no anchoring, which turned out to be the edge of a sea plane landing strip.  We have a front row seat but still waiting on something to touchdown besides seabirds.

approaching St. Anne and a yellow seaplane buoy

St Anne dinghy dock and town sorta square

Blue Lagoon in St. Vincent

This blue lagoon did not have Brooke Shields with a fish tail but is a very beautiful resort/marina.  They have all services you could ask for including Sally's favorite spot of the whole trip, a gorgeous pool shaded by palm and other tropical trees, frankly I would have preferred a topless mermaid!

Sally's pool hideaway

We took taxi tour of the island but were disappointed since the first hour was a monsoon and we could barely see the curb.  We drove the coast all the way to Chateaubelair and turned east winding up a one lane trail that had been washed out in several places.

best part of trail, about 100 yds ahead total  washout

 Boulders larger than the mini van blocked the trail but rather than move the rock everyone just drove around them.  At the end of the ruts we left the van and walked across a swinging  bamboo bridge that three guys were trying to repair with bamboo that had just cut down with machetes, it was an exhilarating experience at best.

just studying

On a swing and a prayer!              brown ones are rotten, green slick as . . . !

 All just to see water cascading over a rock cliff.  Was pretty, but we had to go back across the rotting bamboo bridge.

And just how do you expect me to describe this

much ado about a little

From there we went to Wallibaloo where more of The Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed.  No one could tell me if it was an existing building or just phony movie set, my bet is on a movie set.

where most of the town scenes were filmed

 left over sailor ghost

Then we went to the Botanical Gardens to look at trees, like that is not what we had been doing for the last two hours.  It was a little entertaining but the guide was an out of work comedian that loved his own humor and new very little about botany.

some BS about this being used by males always looking up

this is the female batting her eyelashes

there were two cops at the ticket booth so I couldn't take my money back!

Bequia

We grabbed the first mooring ball as soon as we entered admiralty bay after just slowing down to a crawl because of whiteout conditions caused by a 30 kt squall that lasted about 30 minutes.  The ball is owned by Daffodil, a very gracious and friendly lady that provides boat side water, ice, laundry and fuel.  We could not pick up wifi so she found us another mooring ball close to shore.  It is a very comfortable anchorage and the beachfront roads are set up as boulevards with one way vehicles on one side and walking on the other.  Their tourist season still has not started so very little is open.  We did find a Mac's Pizza, for some really superb pizza, fresh baked bread and great conversation with the owners.  There were several fresh produce vendors on the way back to the dinghy so we stocked up on good food.  

We took a taxi/nissan pickup tour over to the sea turtle sanctuary so Sally could pet the turtles.  They hatch the eggs and raise them in huge tanks till adult and then release them after about a year, only to be gobbled up by sharks and big fish since there are no predators in the tanks to teach them big is bad.

Babies

 i

this big boy is about 4 feet long the ones on top of the water about 18"

beach where the sanctuary is located

from the beach

took this for the gingerbread facia and then noticed the brown white picket fence

Entering St. Vincent & Grenadines waters 10/19

We motored on up to Union Island, the southernmost Grenadine Island where you can check into customs and immigration.  We picked up a mooring ball at Clifton Harbor and dinghied over to check in.  The officers were very helpful and if you took away all my bs, it only took 10 minutes.  In actually I was there for a couple of hours and have several new friends.  We went in for dinner at the Barracuda (which wasn't on the menu) and had lamb stew & shrimp kebabs sitting at a table that was not rocking back & forth.   It was very good but Sally could not believe I would eat one of the little lamb lawn mowers that were so cute.

Barracuda

  Late afternoon the kite surfers came out to give us an eventing show.  They raced towards each other like a blue angels show and would leave the water summersaulting 30 feet or more above the water.

the one on the left is totally airborne

last night in Clifton

 We bought lots of fresh fruit & vegetables from the open air market and one of my new "friends" brought us a 6 lb fresh tuna and cleaned it on his boat before passing it over.  He used my filet knife that Sally's grandson recommended and liked it so well he borrowed it that afternoon to filet a #3 washtub full of red snapper, of which I didn't get a sample! That was sign, so the next morning we pulled out and went to Tobago Keys to dive with the sea turtles in a sea turtle sanctuary. No one told the turtles so we snorkeled for a couple of hours and saw not the first turtle.  So we left and headed to Bequia.

snorkling & cleaning the bottom at Sandy Island till 10/19

Just north of Terrel Bay is a well protected spit of sand that is a marine state park with mooring balls, named of all things, Sandy Island, go figger.

 It has clear water and seemed like the perfect place to get out the hookah rig and clean the bottom of grassy growth & a few very small barnacles.  Sally got to snorkel the reef and was excited enough to come get me to join her.  There were lots of small fish, a several schools (?) of squid with a blue luminance blue stripe down its back.

hog fish?

another hogfish?

squid

When I cleaned the bottom thousands of small fish came up to eat what I was cleaning off.

feeding time at the aquarium 

  One of our neighbor boats put up a whirligig and then another boat put up a larger one so we had dueling whirligigs but I only got a pic of my neighbor, the other boat departed, whirligig tucked between their legs.

Aloha, winner by far

On Saturday afternoon the local yacht club was out training the juniors in their opti's.  We were below and would have missed it except for all the kids yelling, screaming and laughing.  Nothing like a child's laughter of pure fun!

race is on

heading home

we were there for the full moon and the night before we left I was given a nice sunset