Alibi on the move Again

St. George's Harbor - Windjammer Mandalay at anchor

Cutty, our Island tour guide

Ann & Darrell at the waterfall

Who has a monkey on her back!?!?

Didn't know bamboo was so strong

Nutmeg, one of the spices of the spice Island

Rum Distillery

Wow, that's powerful stuff!

Carriacou was the first stop.  A very nice day sail of about 8 hours!  It was good not to be going far because we had some kinks to work out after sitting in one place for over three months.  This is a lovely place!!  We came REAL close to seeing some friends who have their boat in Key Largo.  They had stopped there on a Windjammer sail – sorry we missed you, Marty and Louise!

            We were at Sandy Island, just off Hillsborough, Carriacou.  While there, we enjoyed some great snorkeling.  Darrell was the party planner when he invited the whole anchorage to a beach party.  We roasted hot dogs, chicken, kielbasa, fish and had all the trimmings.  We even had a musician.  What a fun time!!  The next night, we had an evening get-together with some other boats we met in Grenada (Darrell’s friends from Volleyball). 

            The next stop was Petite Martinique for rest and cheap beer.  It is the first place I have ever seen where your cases of beer are delivered by tractor bucket to the dock!  When we left there, we were gone for one hour and our main halyard broke (IN the eye splice)!

            SOOOO, once again, Darrell was up the mast!  This was one of many trips since we replaced the coaxial antenna wire for our VHF radio while we were in Grenada.  Our logbook reads:  Up the mast, down in the bilge, up the mast, down in the bilge, up the mast, …….hahaha!  At least the halyard didn’t break with him on it!!!!  Weather finally cooperated and we were able to leave there – after Miss Roxy got us kicked off a beach!

            Twenty-four hours later, we landed at Martinique again.  Le Marin is a very protected anchorage with LOTS of sailboats!  A few days there was enough (Thanksgiving included) so we moved to St. Anne (Great name).  We love the town and anchorage.  Much less crowded and pretty water.  While we were in Le Marin, we took Roxy to the vet for her annual shots – she got a pet passport and it’s in French!

            These French islands are challenging me to rapidly improve my French!  We so enjoy the culture.  Baguettes are quite nice!  We tried something here called accras – kinda like fritters. 

            We are waiting on our friends and buddy boats – Wayward Wind (Dave & Linda) and Celtic Rover (Bruce & Jan).  They are enjoying the Grenadines  -  a stop we had to miss because of the dog.  We really enjoy travelling in their company!

            We spent a few days in St. Pierre on the north west coast of Martinique with the above boats.  They will never trust Darrell to plan any shore excursions again!  WE all decided we wanted to see Mount Pelée up close – more history in a bit.  So we boarded the bus.  We departed the bus and began a hike up toward the mountain – a LONG hike.  We were a few kilometers from the summit when we all decided we had had enough uphill climbing.  So we returned to the bus stop.  After several minutes (about 40), we decided to start walking in the direction of St. Pierre and catch the bus as it came by.  MANY minutes into the trip, we had not seen any busses.  We kept walking (at least it was downhill).  Finally one of our group had had enough exercise – he decided to go call a taxi at a local house.  A few minutes later, we were all loading into a man’s van and being taken the rest of the way down the mountain.  It seems that the busses don’t run in the afternoon – lol!  We tallied the distances and think we probably walked about 15-18 kilometers – YOU do the math! 

            We left there on Friday night for a 15-16 hour sail to Iles Des Saintes (Guadeloupe).  A nice night sail with the full moon BUT we had a few squalls to contend with.  One on each end of the island Dominica.  We were pretty tired after the overnight sail so we rested most of yesterday.  Today, Darrell has been fixing some things on Wayward Wind and Roxy and I have been taking care of business.  We enjoyed a brief SKYPE session with Jessica, Craig, and Lyric at lunchtime.  They are coming to Puerto Rico in January – reason we are making tracks north to meet them! 

            Anyway for the history of St. Pierre:  It was the hub of the islands at the turn of the century with a population of 33,000 and considered the Paris of the Caribbean.  In 1902, the volcano erupted and killed the entire city but one man who was in a prison cell and one man on a boat.  Several boats in the harbor were also sunk.  The gaseous blast froze folks in their tracks.  Many had been encouraged not to leave for multiple political reasons – sad.  Now, only about 3,000 people reside there and the volcano is expected to erupt again sometime in the next 100 years.  I would have to think twice about staying there!