A Tale of Two Chemists: A ridge approaches ... Friday 2nd March to 4th March

A ridge approaches

Friday 2^nd March to 4^th March

The SSB provided us with the weather forecast (Chris Parker). It seemed that a trough would pass over the region on Friday. Then a cold front or ridge was approaching the Caribbean. This would bring winds with a westerly component (SW or W) on Sunday. A quick study of the map suggested that the best anchorage for westerly winds would be at Trois Ilets—across the bay from Fort de France. This little area didn’t seem likely to accommodate all the boats in the area. We certainly didn’t want to be the last boat in trying to find room to anchor. So Friday morning we set off to the north along the coast. Our heading was very nearly right into the wind so that we put up the reefed main but motor-sailed. Once we arrived we spent a little time looking at the different areas to anchor. While it’s quite protected, the area also seems to have a lot of shallow water. We saw 8 feet on the depth sounder more than once before finding a good spot to anchor. The weather continued to bring frequent showers until the late afternoon. At that point, we got the engine on the dinghy and went to town.

Trois Ilets is an attractive town with many older buildings (with fish scale roof tiles). We walked up to the tourist bureau, arriving with excellent timing (15 minutes before closing). A very helpful woman gave us advice and leaflets AND a tide table! We also found the bakery and returned to the boat with a Boule Nature.

Saturday morning found us loading up the dinghy with backpacks, bikes, photo and computer equipment. A trip to the “cyber base” got us connected to Wifi after various hiccups. By the time we left the top floor of the library, it was about 11 am. We got back on our bikes and set off for Anse Mitan, a town on the other side of the peninsula that we had hoped to visit by boat. According to our guide book the distance should only be about 1.5 to 2 miles. What the guide-book didn’t reveal was how hilly those couple of miles are. Our bike riding was restricted to the flat or down-hill sections, we just pushed the bikes up the hills, slowly.

Anse Mitan is a busy sea-side town on a Saturday. We were hot and tired and a bit disoriented upon arrival. So we did what any thinking person would and found somewhere for lunch. Mike declared his ‘seafood salad’ lunch to be the best lunch he’s had in the Caribbean. I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed my salad of tuna and sausage. One of the amazing things at the restaurant was to see people smoking at the tables. I was saying to Mike that I think it’s more than 30 years in the US since smoking in restaurants was banned. Now that I think that over maybe 30 years ago was the era of non-smoking sections.... Not quite sure when the ban went into effect.

After lunch we wandered along the waterfront—some of it beach and some rocky. Finally we had to face the cycle back. All I can say is it was somewhat cooler on the way back, which in a way made it easier. We got back to the dighy dock and packed away bikes and camera gear. Once on the boat, everything had to be stowed away. Then came the reward—a swim from the boat followed by a laze in the cockpit. Dinner of left overs supplemented by grilled cheese sandwiches was eaten while watching the last episode of Season 1 of “Game of Thrones”.

Sunday morning was nearly windless and quite hot by 8 am. We decided to take a dinghy trip to an area of mangroves near a pottery place (the source of the fish scale tiles). Our trip soon got quite exciting as we encountered many areas of quite shallow water. While it had been our intention to try to dinghy into the mangroves, we decided to land on the dock at the pottery place and have a walk around. We found huge stacks of some kind of blocks for construction. I guess you would have to compare them to cinder blocks in that they had channels through them. The bright red color of the blocks was a great foil to many lizards basking on the surfaces. Hopefully, Mike will have a few photos to illuminate the nature of these blocks—presumably used for construction. We saw many styles of roofing tiles but only a few of the fish scale sort. On the site were many shops selling gifts, clothing, jewelry all aimed at the tourist market. After checking out most of the area we climbed back into the dinghy. I’m not sure if we just weren’t paying attention of if we came back by a better route but we never slowed down for shallow water. Lunch and a swim filled my afternoon. Mike managed to remove the water-line weeds while I had my post-lunch nap.

At the moment, there is bread in the oven and the engine is running (for the fridge). So as you can imagine, it’s not exactly lovely and cool below. It’s time to put an end to the blog and get into the cockpit for some air.

Gloria