Our last day in Dominica, the kids had plans for the beach. The five of them packed food and drinks, their machetes for coconut water, materials to make shade, a vhf radio (their hailing name was ‘kids on the beach’) and off they went in the dinghy.
Roy loves to climb coconut trees and the coconut is a good place to use the machete. But that was it for Dominica, we had a great day at sea on Sunday. As usual we motored for an hour, because the winds are light in the morning and the island blocks the trades. Once we passed the end of the island the wind picked up to 25kts and Makai flew the 25 miles to Guadeloupe at 8 kts. Then we spent the rest of the day in flat waters alternating sailing and motoring depending on the wind. The land made such crazy wind patterns that we managed to all points of sail (360 degree wind shifts) on our way north. Our plan is to head for Deshaies at the top of the island and then over the next week back track to the Saintes. Why this crazy plan? Because of Birthday Parties. Feb 6 Genny turns 10 and Feb 7 Shane turns 10. Since Shane’s boat, Orion, is on a different schedule than us, we decided to do a little back tracking.
Finally, Roy has decided to get serious with fishing. First order of business is to clean out the tackle box. He put all the lures designed to catch a whale in a ziplock for later and made a list of things to shop for.
Of course this town doesn’t have any place that sells fishing gear, so like most cruisers, he made do with his rust little fake fish, it worked. We had fish for dinner! We also made plans with Wind Shepherd, Ginny and John, to come teach us about fishing and the Virgin Islands. John spent quite a long time with Roy and even brought him a few lures to us get started. Thanks!
I’ve been pushing the kids to get through with school work quickly so we can see the sights. Every morning the roosters start squawking just before the sun comes up. Here’s one of those squawky yet beautiful birds.
In Martinique and along the coast in Guadeloupe we can see these mausoleum cemeteries. I was interested in checking the mausoleums out because we saw them in New Orleans in November.
There is a web site about the New Orleans mausoleums that gives some great history on this burial style. Of course in New Orleans above ground burial is practical because the water table is high, digging just a few feet down produces a mud puddle. The mausoleum burial style came from the Mediterranean region of Europe where the rocky land made digging difficult and building a better idea. Since the Spanish and French “creoles”, which means colonists, populated the Caribbean as well as New Orleans, that’s why we see these interesting cities of the dead.
After dragging the kids up the hill to the cemetery, we got to rock hop along the river. We could have spent the day there building dams and swimming in the pools.
The walk back along the path is all jungle.
Who needs playgrounds when you have banyan trees. The kids spent quite a bit of time swinging from the new growth.
Everyone had to improve on their showmanship each time it was their turn.
Luckily no one remembered Tarzan, the sound of the jungle came from the birds and not three little Tarzans.
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Even though we are extremely limited with French, our little knowledge of Spanish helps us with some of the words. When we see jambon et frommage, everyone gets excited for Ham and Cheese sandwiches. Unlike Mexico where it just costs a few pesos to spend the day at a pallapa eating tacos and beer, lunch paid for by Euros is too expensive for us, I’ve been dreaming for a lunch at a cafe, so we stopped for a few pastries. We had another affordable and tasty meal at the beach the other day. While everyone was having fun in the sand and splashing around at the beach, I ran over to the grocery store and picked up a baguette, cheese, ice cream bars, a few sodas and beers. Everything but the ice cream is price controlled. I can’t find any documentation of this fact, but I’ve been told that bread, meat, cheese and alcohol are a deal in the French Islands.
The next day we went up to the Jardin Botanique De Deshaies. Check out the link for more pictures and information. Marie took a picture of every plant, so I spent the morning whittling our pictures down to the ones posted here.
We had a great time at the botanical gardens. Koi fish are always entertaining. Fifty cents for a little cup of fish food kept the kids entertained for a half hour.
Right after the Koi pond is the lorikeet forest. At home you buy a little cup of nectar for $3 and the birds ignore you. Here, the nectar is fifty cents and the birds are fighting over it as the nectar is being dispensed from the machine.
This whole experience was exciting, yet a little Alfred Hitchcock -ish.
When the lorikeets were behaving themselves the experience was pleasant.
But when they’re swarming all over you it’s a bit creepy.
The rest of the park was a beautiful stroll along windy paths. Around every bend was some beautiful exotic plant.
Photo ops everywhere.
At the end of the day we met with friends. Ginny and John came and shared all kinds of great information on the Virgin Islands and fishing. We also met Steve.
Eric is on a Leopard Cat forum which people with our kind of boat share information. Yesterday Eric saw a thread where someone asked about dive compressors, another guy said Makai has one, the first guy asked where Makai is, and then Steve said Makai is anchored in the bay right here in front of my house. Wow, this is a small world. So we invited Steve out the boat for a tour. He’s comparison shopping on Leopard Catamarans. Steve treated us to Guadeloupe rum, limes and sugar drinks. His Uncle married into the family Rhum Bologne distillery family. We’ve been noticing this ‘agricultural’ rum at the last few islands. Agricultural rum is made by fermenting the sugar cane where as the normal industrial rum is made with molasses which is a by product of sugar production.
