March 2008

March 2008 Log #16
Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, a safe wide open anchorage protected by land on all sides except to the west. Good holding in sand with a few rocky patches. We don’t know St.Lucia all that well, a few pit stops at the Pitons on the way south and here on the way north. There is also Marigot mid island on the leeward side another beautiful bay which has fallen to a developer and is all marina and rented moorings so we have sailed passed it the last couple of years.
The English once hid a fleet in Marigot disguising their rigging with palm fronds from the French who sailed right by and lost their tactical advantage to the British who came out behind them gaining the wind, to their advantage. The island has a very established tourist trade and combined with the cruise ship trade can make it pricey for cruisers on a budget. Rodney Bay also has a lagoon which is the home to the marina which in turn hosts the arrival of the Arc rally from Europe via the Canaries every December. You can get almost all technical boat problems taken care of here.
Our biggest concern in the anchorage is the fast local traffic which blasts out of the lagoon entrance usually loaded up on testosterone and carelessness. To this, mix in the beach, which is loaded with all inclusive vacationers who rent water jet skis and hobie cats turning the place into a war scene out of WaterWorld. Some Jet Ski operators are clearly inexperienced and never seem to be totally in control of their machines. Several times we have had to wave some of them off to avoid running into our anchor line. There have been several accidents with inexperienced hobie users and the jet skis. The authorities have a live and let live attitude which is understandable because they don’t want to discourage the tourist hotel trade. Also it is hard to find fault with the vacationers who only have a week or two and want to make the most out of their time. In the cases where there is an accident the cruiser inevitably loses in court usually based on the fact that the vacationers defence is based on the premise that they didn’t realize the yacht was not moving. Pretty lame but an accepted legal tactic so it is advisable to hoist a day anchor symbol here (a black ball) to protect yourself legally in court in case you do get hit. So not needing the hassle we just find it better to anchor away from the pack a bit and go about our business and leave. We haven’t really done the island justice.
Cruise ships dock in the Castries, which is a mix of old and new having been rebuilt after a destructive fire. Here you get the modern and old starting with the ubiquitous duty free mall. This then opens to the usual American fast food restaurants. A mix of local stores then leads to the rebuilt market or town square. The market here hosts a generous treasure trove of local crafts and fresh vegetables. Just beyond the market is the bus stop where you can get the bus back to Rodney or elsewhere on the island. We haven’t done inland here yet but by all accounts it is beautiful as are most large Caribbean islands.
In the centre of this area while waiting for the girls to catch up, I was approached by a fella about my age except he had a full head of greying dreads and same colouring on a full beard.” Hey mon, you need cigars opening a small box for inspection”, “no thanks I don’t smoke”, “weed mon you need some weed””No thanks I am ok”, “blow mon need some blow”, really man I”m ok, “Woman mon I get you a woman”, “no thanks man, Jesus my wife’s just over there shopping”, “don’t matter mon, do you quick only a minute”, “No that’s quite alright, thanks anyways” later when telling Deb about my little shopping experience and the minute part she could only chuckle “as if”.
We were trying to tag up with Dan and Wendy on Halcyon Days for a visit but they had already headed up to Martinique but we did manage to have a Sunday brunch at the local sailing club which was very good and got to spend some time with Arlene and Dennis onTigerLily, and Carolyn and Rick on Windbourne. These Canadian boats have been out for years and are valuable resources always whittling mountains down to mole hills helping the newer cruisers when asked for advice. Finally we decided on Tuesday to head up to Martinique along with Encantada and Gladys. We were also hoping to rendezvous with Watermark who had dropped off their daughter and partner in Grenada and were going to do a straight jump to Le Marin.

The trip across was good, a little lumpy till past the northern tip and then, a little wind and little motoring. Once there we worked our way past St. Anne and up into the lagoon where we anchored in the same area by the mangroves where we have been for the last three seasons since first coming here with Ticketoo. The lagoon in the past had a reputation as a good hurricane hole but now the huge fleet calling this port home makes that a little dubious. A lot of boats would be unattended during a major storm especially the large charter trade vessels and would probably turn the anchorage into a pinball machine with ricocheting vessels. In fact one morning I had left to grab us a fresh baguette and while gone Deb had to get the fenders and boat pole ready when an unmanned charter boat just in front of us a bit to our port dragged down just missing Sea Cycle before being stopped by another boaters anchor line. Never the less if you are in need of a calm water port for rigging or to disable your engine, this is the place. Last year we dealt with a nagging rigging issue and it is here we do our oil changes and go over the engine. The entire port of Le Marin is made for cruisers with great services including garbage disposal, bunkers for used oil, battery drop offs and great provisioning. There are a number of great restaurants here and Saturday nights we fell in to the habit of eating at the barbeque right across from the main marina where we had a couple of great nights with Tiger Lily, Watermark, Gladys, Richard Cory and Droukit Cronie. This is as far north as we sailed last year and again this year we decided to make it our northern terminus, to mainly enjoy all the mod cons of the island. The next island north is Dominica and while it is the most rugged and naturally beautiful of the island chain there are only two good anchorages and one of those is a mooring site because of the depth which falls straight off. Next up the chain would be the Saints and Guadeloupe but by then you are putting yourself in a rush mode and who needs it. We had three weeks here before having to be in St. Lucia to pick up childhood friends Gary and Nellie and then Nathan our oldest son two weeks later in Grenada so we were looking forward to some great sailing down the chain. Watermark finally showed up after a long but tiring run and pulled into the lagoon beside us to tidy up for a few days before heading out to the beach to join Encantada and Never Never Land. Encantada hired a mini bus and we all headed up the east coast doing the St. Clement Rum distillery where the habitation house is finally renovated and they have a great collection of old charts back to the
sixteenth century and finally driving half way up the coast to Tartane for a great lunch before getting lost on our way back through the central part of the island trying to avoid the rush hour in Fort Du France. Yes, they have a rush hour and actually have a modern highway with all the usual box stores and car dealers, in fact we saw a BMW dealer near the airport. Martinique and Guadeloupe along with half of St. Marten are all considered part of France and as such enjoy a level of prosperity unknown to the other mostly former British islands. Kathleen and Geoff wanted to try and climb Mt. Pelee while here so we rented a car using my out of date driving license. We had a good ride up the windward side but when we got to the mountain it was shrouded in fog but the girls were real troopers and decided to give it a shot so we started the ascent. The last eruption of this volcano happened at
the turn of the twentieth century and wiped out the town of St. Pierre once known as the Paris of the Caribbean. Just a note the explosion was one of the many propagandas used to sway American public sentiment as a deciding factor used in the final choice of the route for the Panama Canal with proponents of the old French dig using it to show the folly of building the proposed new American route through Nicaragua which was reputed to be riddled with volcanoes which turned out after the fact to be a fraud but was enough of a scare to let Roosevelt have his way in purchasing the old French dig and then secretly funding the Panamian revolt of separation from Colombia. Halfway up the climb we aborted the expedition when a trail worker came rolling down an old lava slope out of the mists. Realizing even if we made it to the top we wouldn’t see anything we headed back down to the car.
After filling up on the great food provisioning on offer we mopped up the last few boat chores and finally moved out to the beach at St. Annes where we met up with Silver Seas another boat from our first year out and had a quick visit. From the beach we spent the next day sailing down wind out towards Diamond rock to practise using our new whisker pole and iron out the bugs of setting it up off of the new mast track. While beating back up wind towards Diamond Rock we happened on a power boat signalling us for help. Turned out they had run out of fuel. What we had was brand new boaters, brand new boat, three adults, three children and not a life jacket or radio between them with a squall approaching. After giving them the last of our straight gasoline which we carry for our dinghy motor and our generator we still couldn’t get the engine to start and finally we called into Gladys who called the Gendarmes who got a fishing boat to tow them in. Finally with two days to go before we were due to be in St. Lucia we had a weather window and pulled the hook and set off to St. Lucia at eight am, having a terrific run crossing the twenty two miles arriving at a few minutes after eleven am. A very fast trip for Sea Cycle considering we had two reefs in the main and a partially rolled jib. Gladys bearing full canvass, left after us and beat us in, just a great sail.
To be continued....