A Tale of Two Chemists: It goes both ways ... Sunday 11th March 2018

It goes both ways ... Sunday 11th March 2018

Our trip north from fort de France to Saint-Pierre was overshadowed by the tragic events later that afternoon, but in fact, we did have a terrific sail. The winds were robust, blowing 20-25 knots from the east and occasionally gusting to 32 knots, but because we were in the lee of Martinique the seas were relatively flat. We only used a partially furled genoa and still were making 7 knots or more. It was good short trip for building confidence. As we approached closer to the coast at Saint-Pierre the winds subsided and we anchored in relatively flat waters about 100 yards from shore.

We spent Sunday wandering around the zoo in Saint Pierre. This is actually an old plantation estate, partially destroyed by the eruption of Mt Pelee in 1902 and subsequently re-fashioned as a sort of botanical gardens. More recently they added the animal / zoo component to bring in more visitors and to be honest we didn’t have very high expectations. However, it turned out to be quite lovely. The gardens are beautiful and you walk around much of the property on elevated boardwalks. We were particularly attracted to the butterfly and aviary sections (see photos below). In the end we spent almost four hours wandering around (including a stop for lunch) and by the time we left there wasn’t much time left to see anything else, so we decided to delay our departure to Dominica until early Tuesday morning and spend an extra day in Saint Pierre. It is a beautiful location and reasonably flat anchorage and after a hot day wandering around it was wonderful to come back to Cotinga and go for a swim in the ocean. This has sort of become our evening routine – swim followed by fresh water shower on deck, then “sundowners” and cook dinner once it gets dark. In the evening we mostly read or work on photos, and more recently, we have been watching “Game of Thrones” on the laptop.

Over breakfast this morning we were discussing how to have a conversation in French with the boat anchored next to ours to let them know that our anchor is probably directly below their boat, which could be a problem when we come to leave early tomorrow morning (Tuesday). In fact, if we had looked carefully we might have noticed that the boat is registered in Florida and so a French translation isn’t likely to be needed! However, I mention this conversation because of a troubling development in Gloria’s personality. As some of you may know, Gloria has always been into puns (sigh) and this affliction has now taken a turn for the worse with the emergence of nautical puns. We were trying to figure out how to ask the Floridian boat whether they be around tomorrow morning if we have a problem? Gloria’s suggestion ... “Can we ketch yawl later?” ... groan. That’s as far as I dare go telling tales on Gloria, except that I do want to mention she had third helpings of salad the other day. Not exactly earth shattering gossip, and whilst I’d love to write up all the “dirt” on her, I can’t because she could then retaliate by documenting all my indiscretions! It goes both ways as they say.

Mike