A Tale of Two Chemists: Back in Saint-Pierre

Back in Saint-Pierre

Thursday 29th February - Saturday 2nd March 2024

We had a good sail up from Anse Chaudiere to Saint-Pierre with winds of 10-14 knots on the beam. We were also fortunate to be able to pick up a mooring fairly close to the dock. Saint-Pierre makes an excellent point of departure for our next leg back up to Dominica, but it’s also a nice place to be and there were new things that we still wanted to do.

On Friday we walked up to the Center for Discovery of Earth Science and this turned out to be a fascinating museum. Firstly, the building itself is designed and built to withstand a severe earthquake, with the upper level floor supported on six pillars that have neoprene “para-seismic” or “laminated” bearings between them and the reinforced concrete floor, to reduce vibration. The building design also helps with hurricane resistance, where high winds causes lateral displacement. There was fabulous 20ft square aerial photographic mounted on the floor that you could walk around. We loved looking at the places we had visited and the detail was such that you could see individual yachts at anchor. It gave you great feel for the geography as whole. Perhaps the real highlight was a 50 minute documentary film about volcanic activity in the Caribbean and how our understanding of volcanism has evolved since the 1902 eruption of Mt Pelee. It outlined a more modern interpretation of how ~ 28,000 people came to be killed within minutes when the newly formed cone exploded laterally, releasing super-heated gases, rocks and dust. There had been significant volcanic activity leading up to the catastrophic eruption of May 8th, but nobody knew how to interpret what was happening. Many of the people gathered in Saint-Pierre had come in from the countryside because they thought any volcanic material would flow down valleys and they would be safe in town. It is now believed that the initial blast raised temperatures in the town to 200-250oC and bombarded it with rocks, small and large. A subsequent fire in the town, fueled by wooden roofing materials, window frames, furniture and rum supplies, raised temperatures to 1000oC and caused any remaining roofs to collapse. To my eye the photographs and the film generated by Thomas Edison’s team, look remarkably similar to Hiroshima after the atomic bomb. There was in fact an even larger eruption in August, that destroyed the adjacent town of Morne Rouge, but the loss of life was less (1000 people) because of lower population. Towards the end of the end of the documentary they showed footage of the Montserrat eruption that has been going on now for almost 30 years and has turned half the island, including the capital city of Plymouth, into no-go zone. This particular eruption developed over a much slower time period allowing evacuation to take place, but any notion that this is a temporary situation appears to be misguided. The final segment of the documentary touched on “Kick’em Jenny”, an active subterranean volcano off Grenada. This is an an area with maritime exclusion zone (of variable size depending on current status). We were already aware of this, but will take extra care to avoid the area as a rapid gas evolution is possible that reduce the buoyancy of the boat and sinks it! At the current rate of growth this volcano will generate a new Caribbean island within our children’s generation.

Today, Saturday, we set off on an entirely different adventure. We took the bus up to Morne Rouge and then switched to a second bus to take us to the start of the “Trail of the Jesuits”. We do not know the history behind this trail, but it runs through some beautiful and atmospheric rain forest. We had read it was a trail of two halves; the first part being mostly flat, and the second being steeply down hill to a river and suspension bridge. In fact it was quite muddy and very slippery so when we got to the steep descent, we didn’t go too far before turning back, and we never made it to the river. However, we did really enjoy the 4 hours we spent wandering through the rain forest, and taking the buses is always entertaining!

Mike