From Dominica, through Martinique and on to St-Lucia

Despite all the great times we were having in Guadeloupe, we soon needed to continue our travels southward. By the time Easter weekend rolled around we were out of propane for cooking. Unfortunately we couldn’t refill the propane in Guadeloupe, therefore we had to sail to Dominica to do so. On our first visit to Dominica, with the Plourdes family, the island captured our hearts, so we were only too happy to have the opportunity to return and tackle some uncompleted hikes.

Dominica, The Emerald Gem

Although Dominica is not wealthy the people are very friendly and it has some of the most spectacular nature sites we have seen. For the active and adventurous there are a variety of hiking trails of differing difficulty that tour the island, from a walk in the park to full on climb-hiking. Additionally, there are a slew of destination sites, each one offering something exciting to see and experience. On our first visit we jumped from cliffs into a pool of fresh clear water, bathed at the bottom of a waterfall composed of two waterfalls one heated and one cold, and swam in a gorge that formed a natural whirlpool sending us round in circles. On this return visit we decided we wanted to experience the Boiling Lake hike.

The Boiling Lake is a candidate for a UNESCO world heritage site. It is essentially a large lake (~100m across) of boiling water, heated below by the escaping gases from the volcano. The hike is a challenging requiring us at times to climb on all fours up cliffs and repel down ropes on the other side. We walked up and down hundreds of steps, built from wood logs for the convenience of the tourist (frankly I don’t believe they made the hike any easier). We were lead through spectacular scenery including mountain top ridges and the Valley of Desolation, where we stepped over streams of grey colored mineral water heated from the volcano below. In some places we could see little pools of boiling water where we we could boil an egg if we so desired. Three and a half hours later we arrived at the Boiling Lake, we pulled out our lunch and reaped the reward of the sight of the lake, approximately 50 ft below us, in a vigorous boil. Once done our lunch it was time to do the return hike, this time rewarded by a swim in the Titou Gorge at the bottom.

Dominica is a natural beauty, with so much to see and do and many hard working islanders working to establish the island as an eco tourism location. What I appreciated about the locals is that they knew what a gem they have, which showed by the way they loved and cared for their island to maintain its pristine and beauty. Unfortunately though hurricane Maria delivered them a hard blow in September of 2017. A lot of people lost their homes and were forced to live in shelters for sometimes over a year while their homes are being rebuilt, if they were so lucky. Listening to their stories of enduring the hurricane was heart wrenching. I heard from several sources that the locals were used to hurricanes and normally it was nothing to be concerned about, so when Maria hit, they had not realized fury of what was coming. Now, many of them hope never to see another hurricane again.

From Dominica we had a choice, sail north back to Guadeloupe, as we felt the propane situation had cut our time there shorter than we liked, or continue south to Martinique. In the end we decided to continue south to make for a more leisurely sail down to St-Lucia where we were to meet Eryk’s sister’s family mid-May.

Martinique

Martinique offered its own beauties and adventures, with the added bonus of being back on a French island where we again had access to amazing baguettes, chocolate croissants and delicious cheeses. Our first stop was in picturesque St-Pierre, with the beautiful greenery of the Soufrière volcano set as backdrop to the blue waters of the anchorage. St-Pierre proved to be a very interesting stop, as we discovered it’s rich history. The story goes that as the French colonists killed off the last of the Carib people that were native to the island, the last dying Caribs cursed them. The curse took a couple hundred years to materialize, but it did to maximum effect. On Ascension Day in 1902 the volcano erupted and in seconds wiped the town and its 30 thousand inhabitants off the map. At the time St Pierre was known as the Paris of the Caribbean where plantations of sugar cane on the fertile soil of the volcano were booming. Now the town of St-Pierre has a much smaller population, many buildings are worn and in the need of a face lift, but the town still has a charm to it. At places you can walk among some of the ruins of the volcanic eruption of 1902. In one spot you can see the remains of Ludger Sylbaris’ jail cell. Ludger was one of only a few survivors of the eruption and was saved by the thick walls and poor air circulation of his jail cell. Later he toured with the Barnum and Bailey circus as “The Man Who Lived Through Doomsday”.

St-Pierre also had a beautiful rum distillery we were able to walk through on a self-guided tour and sample some the rum.

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Ambitiously the same day we also decided to do the walk along the slave canal, which was build by slaves to bring water to the plantations. The canal followed the contour of the mountains, sometimes hundreds of feet above the ground below, which made for a picturesque and frightening adventure.

Next we were on to Fort-of-France where we were taken aback by the size of the modern city, complete with modern electric city buses. The best part of Fort-of-France was the children’s playground located right beside the anchorage, where we spent many afternoons and met another cruising family with two boys. Together with our two boys the four of them spent many afternoons running through the playground, swinging on the rope swing or playing basketball. Unfortunately though, the anchorage was tucked between the old fort and the ferry docks, which made for an uncomfortable and tight anchorage with boats cramped in tightly and a day full of ferry waves hitting and rocking our boat. Tired of all the ferry waves and now buddied with our new friends from ‘No Stress’ we moved across the large inlet to the sweet little resort town in Anse Mitan.

In Anse Mitan all the kids had a fabulous time jumping off the ferry dock, playing on the beach, wrestling on the paddle board and visiting the make believe chocolate island, where they got to make real hot chocolate. From there we all moved on to Marin, which was a anchorage just outside of a small town more or less dedicated to boat work, we picked up a few supplies and quickly moved on to another beautiful resort town located right next to Marin, St-Anne.

Here the kids resumed their afternoon play dates on the beach while the adults continued with small boat projects and sipped a beer or rum drink from the comfort of the shade of the palm trees in the late afternoons. Unfortunately, all this fun had to come to an end, ‘No Stress’ moved to Marin to start some larger boat work and we were moving on to St-Lucia to meet up with Eryk’s sister.

On to St-Lucia

The sail to St-Lucia was a beautiful sail with 18 to 20 knot winds and waves aft of the beam so we were able to let SeaSparrow do her thing as we flew by some other boats doing the same passage. Once in St-Lucia we wrapped up some school work and cleaned up the boat and got ready for the arrival of the next set of visitors and a whole new set of adventures.