A Walk on the Wild Side

A Walk on the Wild Side

Friday 17^th and Saturday 18^th February, 2024

Our guide describes it as an “extraordinary walk along the Canal de Beauregard.  Built by slaves in 1760, this canal brought water around a steep mountain to supply the distilleries of St. Pierre.  The canal is fairly level, often shady, and easy, but you must have a head for heights for you walk along the outer canal wall, about 18 inches wide.  The panoramic views are often dizzyingly precipitous.”  Naturally it seemed like a “must do” to us.  There was the small problem of almost no information about how to get to the start.  This is where the web is a great help.

Looking at the location of the “recommended” start of the walk, we thought we should hire a car.  We were remarkably unsuccessful. One place was not open the first three times we visited. Finally, they were open, but had no cars for Saturday.  We probably could have got a car from the only other car rental in town but we balked at the price, 70 euros/day!  Our only option seemed to be the bus.  Here we felt somewhat handicapped by our rudimentary French.  Quizzing the bus driver wasn’t exactly reassuring.  Initially, she denied that she went to the Canal.  After showing the name of nearest town, she agreed that the route went there.  It is always good to start an exciting adventure with a little extra uncertainty.  

The bus dropped us off in the town in question, quite a way up into the hills.  Google maps suggested that a half-mile walk would take us to the bottom end of the canal (when has Google maps ever been wrong?) To our dismay, that half-mile walk was steeply downhill (a joy for the return trip!).  However, we did arrive at a fenced-off area with signs saying no pedestrians allowed, suggesting risk of serious injury.  We actually knew the walk was officially closed, but we weren’t the first people to go through the broken section of the fence! 

The canal was smaller than I expected, perhaps three feet wide with a couple feet of water flowing through.  It might be described as an aqueduct elsewhere. The canal wall was narrow and broken up in places.  Some sections were certainly what Mike would call “airy”.  I didn’t feel that my balance was all that great, but we persisted with Mike carrying my pack on the outward leg.  For some sections, water was pouring over the canal wall.  In other areas, something like sandbags had been laid along the top of the wall.  As they were actually filled with dirt and saturated with water, they provided an unnervingly squidgy surface for walking.  Did I forget to mention that we met about four parties of people coming in the opposite direction?  Mostly we stopped on sections of real ground to let people pass.  One party we met along an extensive exposed section.  These young women were nice enough to back up quite a long way to let us through.  

Once we arrived at the far end of the canal, we breathed a sigh of relief.  Unfortunately, it’s an “out and back” walk so we had to face it all again!  Fortified by lunch, we set off on the return journey.  This time I managed to carry my backpack, as well as move along at a better pace.  I might even have looked at the view once or twice! Soon we were back where we started.  That half-mile was just as steep going up-hill.  Once we arrived at the bus stop, we checked the wait time for another bus.  As far as we could tell it wasn’t due for another 40 minutes, so we decided to walk down to the main road and back to St. Pierre.  According to my phone (can you trust that thing?), we had walked over 9 miles, in temperatures of 85oF (30oC). We were a tad tired and a little overheated. Thank goodness for the swim after returning to the boat.

This morning, we went to shore for a speedy provisioning trip and then departed to Fort de France.  A couple hours of motor-sailing got us to the anchorage.  Once again, we had some difficulty getting the anchor to set.  It’s been pretty crowded most places we have been to and I suspect that the more open areas, which we gravitate towards because there is more swinging room, tend to reflect where the bottom is rocky rather than sand. Eventually another boat pulled up anchor and left and we were able to get settled. We seem to be in a good position with regard to the many boats anchored here.  So far we are in the same spot according to our anchor alarm. 

I’m thinking that we are still a bit tired out from yesterday’s adventures, as we have spent the afternoon hanging out onboard.

Gloria

14 35.921 N, 61 04.117 W

The amazing Canal de Beauregard walk. The views were astonishing.

You walk along the 18 inch wide wall. Thankfully, many sections had some shade. 

In some sections the water was overflowing the retaining wall ... you just had to walk through it. This photo in B&W.

Gloria on the return journey ... (minus her glasses for the photo, to avoid flare from the fill-in flash)

Another set of building shots taken over the past week ... "Les portes do Sainte-Pierre"

Ditto

This is the ship that was washed ashore just south of Sainte-Pierre. A reminder of what can happen if you end up on a lee shore and your anchor system fails

A tiny lizard (anole), photographed on the hills behind Saint-Pierre. I'm trying to put together a set of lizard shots and am working on get different angles, rather than just side head shots.