The last few days have alternated between monotony and blur. We left Young Island, made our water run, and headed north to Wallilabou Bay to clear out with customs. This is where the Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed and much of the set still remains, looking even more rustic and rundown after years of weathering. The weather report was looking pretty sketch - 35 knot winds and lots of rain - so we decided to wait until morning to head north when the weather had slacked off. It was a rainy humid day but we tried to make the most of it. We pulled on our rain jackets and headed ashore. We wandered through the movie set ruins for a bit then hiked up the road a piece to see a waterfall. It was a pleasant walk through the countryside although we quickly abandoned the idea of wearing jackets and had them tied around our waists. Despite the constant gentle rain, it was still far too warm to have so much skin covered. Later we met the couple on the boat next to us who were traveling through the Caribbean for five months. We sat and had a spot of rum with them at the little pirate cafe on shore. They had an incredible story of a dolphin sighting with groups of 50 or more in every direction. One group in particular were swimming all in formation, shoulder to shoulder, in a line about 50 feet long and maybe 30 strong and swimming at a heading straight towards the beam of the boat. The line of dolphins stretched past the length of their boat in either direction, and as it reached the boat the dolphins for whom the boat would be an obstruction dove as one under the boat so that the whole formation bowed down in a great curve and then came back up again on the other side without even slowing. They continued on like they were on a mission to somewhere and not in the least bit interested in humans today. It would be so incredible to see such a thing. They were in awe. They were running around the boat trying to find a camera but it was just so overwhelming. There were dolphins everywhere. I'm so envious. What an experience that must have been. We've seen far too few dolphins so far on this journey.
The next morning dawned quite lovely and we made our getaway. It was a long hot sail to St Lucia. Raised the mainsail by myself for the second time. I'm terribly slow, because the sails weighs quite a bit more than me. Normally you use your body weight jumping up and hauling down on the line until it gets too difficult, then cranking it the rest of the way with the winch. But my body weight runs out of steam about 4 feet from the top. So it's a long cranking session that leaves my arms like jello and sweat pouring off my face. Sam offered to let me drive and he could raise the sail. He's very sweetly chivalrous. "But it only makes sense," he said, "I'm a lot bigger than you." Whatever I lack in size, I need to make up for in arm strength and speed. I don't want to be getting jobs on boats just because I'm a girl, and a pleasant distraction for the "sailors" to look at. I want to get a job because I can DO the job. He backed off with his hands warding off my diatribe. "Raise away, sailor girl," wth a grin on his face, "you can do it every time if you want. We've got all the time in the world."
That night we stopped in Marigot Bay at the northern end of St Lucia. It was a very quaint little protected harbor. It's a long narrow cut that bends around a curve and supposedly an entire fleet of British ships once hid in this harbor with coconut palm fronds tacked to their masts and the French that pursued them sailed right on by. We got the dinghy all put together and then ran out of steam. It had been a long hot sail and we had baked ourselves in the sun all day. But we HAD gone to the trouble of putting the dinghy together... So we wandered into town and tried the local Piton beer and were assailed by a woman who insisted on stealing the mic from the band and singing her own drunken rendition of some unintelligible song. We were told by the people at the next table that she had been going from bar to bar subjecting everyone to her caterwauling. There was also a rather bizarre trio which appeared to be a couple and their teenage daughter on vacation together. They all looked exactly alike, rather horsey looking, with blonde hair and glasses. They could have been genetically replicated from each other asexually. The daughter was wearing a rather sluttish red dress and sprawled across the pool table as if on display, smiling widely so her braces gleamed. All three of them were incredibly drunk and dancing about in a very robotic and discordant fashion. Suddenly in the middle of the song they linked arms and went skipping off together down the lane, like they were off to see the wizard, the father waving their room key about frenetically. It was quite disturbing. The rest of the harbor was pretty tame after that.
In the morning I got my first chance to tie the boat up to a dock as an official crew member while we got fuel. It went quite well and we said goodbye to St Lucia and pointed towards Martinique. We were on a a mission to Dominica and these were just pit stops, not real visits. I raised the sail again, and this time I got it almost two feet higher before I had to start cranking. Baby steps, but steps nonetheless. When we got away from the lee of St Lucia we picked up some good solid wind and managed to go continuously between 7.9 and 8.6 knots for about four hours - nearly top speed for this boat. It was quite exhilarating and we were passing all the boats who had hugged the shoreline. Since we had speed working in our favor we made a beeline for St Pierre, the northernmost anchorage on Martinique. As I looked back behind us, there was a huge cloud settled over St Lucia, and ahead another one crouched over Martinique. Everywhere else it was bright sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. It is such a strange phenomena to be able to see the weather so clearly.
As we passed along the length of Martinique I was able to point out all the towns and landmarks for Sam, well-known now from my time spent there. Later in the day as the wind started to die down we were getting bored and stir crazy. We started tying knots in all the extra lines - practicing bowlines, bowlines on a bight, clove hitches, rolling clove hitches, reef knots and becket bends. Pretty soon the cockpit was a web of lines tied across and back and through and to each other. But tied securely....
After that we started climbing up in the rigging and standing on the boom leaning back against the sail while under way. This whole time we're sailing 7 knots with the boat on autopilot and no one in the cockpit.
Eventually we turned on the stereo and played some random cd's that some girl in Bequia had lent to them. One disc labeled "oldies" was full of really cheesy 80's songs. So we blasted this crazy music for the last bit of our sail, miming the most passionate moments in Meatloaf's "I Would Do Anything For Love - But I Won't Do That" as we sailed into the French harbor of St Pierre. We dropped anchor in 60 feet of water and it bit on the first try. I felt very professional - or at least very lucky. It was my first real solo succesful anchor drop.
St Pierre was the "Paris of the Caribbean" at the turn of the century. Then in 1902, Mt Pelee chose her moment to revenge the extermination of her native Carib people by erupting and destroying the whole city and killing 30,000 people instantly. There were only 2 survivors. You can see the remnants of this destruction in the architecture of the town as most people used the one standing wall left after this cataclysm and built 3 new walls to go with it. So, the whole town is riddled with this mixture of old and new construction, lending a slightly eerie historical feel to the town - or a sense of having survived and carried on but with a badge of remembrance. As if the looming peak forever swathed in clouds weren't reminder enough. We ate some yummy crepes for dinner. This was our last pit stop along the way. Next stop Dominica!
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