Back to France, or at least the french islands

We are finally back to a french island. We've been down in the Grenadines and St Lucia for four months. Today we got to Martinique. I went into town today and got two croissant and a baguette. I have no idea how the french make the croissants and baguettes but they make fantastic pastries. We have had baguettes and croissants in the Grenadines and St Lucia but they really suck compared to the ones you get on a french island. It also doesn’t matter where you go on a french island, what town you're are in, any bakery you go to has delicious baguettes and croissants. That coupled with the fact that wine is also delicious and cheap makes these the best islands for food and drink.

One other good thing on the french islands is the price of red meat. We haven’t had much red meat down in the Grenadines and St Lucia. I think we sprang for rib eyes once and t-bones once. We had sirloin twice.  Not much for 4 months. But now that we are on a french island we can get rib eyes and t-bones for 22 euros a kilogram. Which is about 10 bucks a pound. I’m looking forward to that.

Lexie and Max think the crabs taste the same on the french islands and they are probably right.


I wrote that when we got to Martinique but never got a chance to post it. We are in Les Saints now. We made it up here in one day from Martinique, That's about 70 knots. We were doing about 8 knots most of the time,  except when we were by Dominique then we lost the wind and were only doing 5 knots. But it was a good sail.

Today we rented a scooter and went around the island.  We checked out several beaches and also Fort Napoleon. This fort is really well preserved. It has a museum inside the main building, which had alot of displays but they were all in french which I can not read very well.


We have turkey for tomorrow and we have some friends to share it with so we are planing on a happy thanksgiving.

                                                           A sunset in Martinique

                                                       Max and Lexie hunting crabs

                                                        Fort of France Martinique
                                                

                                    The volcano that wiped out  St Pierre Martinique in 1902

  
                                                  A club Med cruise boat in Les Saints

St. Lucia-2nd time around

Last week we were heading out to the bay to anchor for a couple of nights until we had a good weather window to head to Martinique.  But while out there Wes noticed that the solar wasn't charging our batteries.  Not good.  So we ended up heading back into the marina.  They have an electrical business in the marina and we asked them if they could come out and look at our solar system.  Wes was pretty sure it was the controller after getting zapped a few times but he wanted them to confirm it.  The gentleman said he would come out as long as it wasn't raining because he really couldn't check it if the sun wasn't shining.  But of course it rained and was cloudy the next day, which was Friday.  He finally came out on Saturday morning and confirmed it was the controller, which was only about 15 months old.  Wes talked to Alex who installed our solar and he also talked to another guy on the dock who had the same unit and they both said to call Outback (the company we purchased the unit from)  first thing Monday because they are really good to work with.   Wes was on the phone as soon as they were open and sure enough the guy said it was under warranty and he would get a new unit sent out right away.  Yay, finally something worked in our favor. 

While we were waiting for the new controller we decided to rent a car and tour the island. The island is fairly big at a little over 238 square miles and a population of a little over 173 thousand.  There is one main road that the majority of the way around the island and it gets really congested with each town you get to.  We were actually stopped for a while in Castries which is the capital and a very busy city.  It's different from the other islands where the road doesn't follow along the coast so if you want to get to the water or a beach, you had to know which side road to take.  We went through the rainforest, to the piton's, and the sulphur springs where the volcano is which is like a miniature Yellowstone park without old faithful.  We were going to go to the waterfalls but they wouldn't let the dogs go so we skipped that but we took them on a nice long hike which they seemed to enjoy.

We received the controller late Friday, which was a lot quicker than we expected and Wes got it installed today.  We will probably head to Martinique on Monday, depending on the wind and weather. 

The town of Castries with the Pitons in the back

Oh the smell of sulfur

 

The lighthouse on the South end of the island

There are a lot of cliffs on the island and only a few beaches

Heading North

On the 27th we started heading North.  Hurricane season has just about ended and luckily it was a very quiet one in the Caribbean this year.  Before we left St. Vincent I wanted to visit a couple of spots that we hadn't been to yet.  We stopped in Wallilabou which has a fairly deep bay so we had to get a mooring ball and then one of the boat boys came out and tied the stern to the pylons on the dock.  Wallilabou became a popular spot because in 2003 they filmed part of Pirates of the Caribbean here and there are still quite a few props that were left from the shooting.  The restaurant was there prior to filming and they built around it the building where Elizabeth's father worked.  They built the dock where the ships would leave from and the courtyard still had the hanging rope where they tried to hang Jack Sparrow.  There were a lot of the wooden caskets all over the place which were the ones that they would throw overboard.
Then we headed up to Chateaubelair for one night and on the 29th we sailed up to St. Lucia.  We checked into Soufriere which is on the SW end of the island.  We already had the pet permit approved from the vet there so we thought it would be fairly easy to get the dogs checked in.  But the vet couldn't come out to check them until the next morning so the poor dogs were quarantined to the boat again for 24 hours.  They seem to be getting use to it though.  Soufriere is right at the base of the Pitons which are two fairly steep hills.  After we took the dogs in for a walk we decided to head up to Rodney Bay which is on the north end of the island.  They have a very nice marina there and its pretty reasonable so we decided to stay there a few days.  It's nice because you can dinghy to a huge shopping area with tons of restaurants, grocery stores and a casino.
It feels good to start heading north and getting out of the Grenadines.  Don't get me wrong, the Grenadines are beautiful but after three months you pretty much have seen everything and then some.

St Vincent:

Lexie was looking in the crab holes again-can you tell?

 

 

The Pitons on St. Lucia

Our Grenada Excersion

Today we are back in Bequia after a couple of crazy weeks.  On the 10th we found out that my sister in law was in the hospital and she wasn't doing too well.   She had been fighting COPD for the past 3-4 years and her lungs were finally giving out.  She passed away on Sunday and Wes said that I needed to go home.  There was no way that we could both go home with the dogs.  So Wes said that he would stay on the boat and I should fly home  We got my airline ticket leaving out of Grenada on Wednesday.  So the plan was for us to sail over to Carriacou (which is part of Grenada) then I would take the ferry over to Grenada spend the night in a luxurious hotel (haha) and catch my flight in the morning.  But customs/immigration had a different idea.   So we forgot to check out at Union Island before we headed over to Carriacou, just a little oversight.  We thought if he was just dropping me off that we didn't need to check in and out.  But the officer proceeded to explain to me that there is a $10,000 fine for not checking out of the country when we leave.  I asked him if we could just sail on back to Union Island, which was only about 5 miles across the bay and he adamantly said no because we had already set foot in Grenada.  He just started yelling at me and said I should know better and I just lost it. I started crying and said that I was just trying to get back for my sister in laws funeral.  I think he actually felt sorry for me.  He never said sorry but he let me go and I was able to catch a cab to the hotel and relax.
I made it home, and the service was very nice.  It was good to see everyone but I am really tired of going home for funerals.  It would be nice to go home for a wedding or a baby or something happy-No more funerals.
Wes rented a car so he could pick me up at the airport, which was really nice since my flight didn't get in until 10:30pm.  We had the car for the next day so we decided to tour the island.  We were going to hike the volcano on St. Vincent and we headed on up. But when we were about 1/3 of the way up we ran into a group of locals with machete's.  We got little nervous so we decided to head back down and ran into a big group of locals with several machete's.  We made it down to the base and asked the guide what the machete's were all about and he said that they grow marijuana on the North side of the volcano and they were just going up to cut some.  OK we felt pretty silly but he said they were harmless and we were completely safe.   
Now we are waiting to hear from the vet in St. Lucia that it is ok to bring the dogs into their country,  We have been trying to get an export certificate from St Vincent but that is not an easy task.

Some pictures of our tour of St. Vincent:

Our Visit to Petit St. Vincent

On Wednesday we decided to head over to Petit St. Vincent and anchor for the night then head over to Petit Martinique.  We found a nice place to anchor and there was no one else around.  The island is private and has a very nice resort with 22 cottages that can be rented out for around $1,500-$2,500 per night (we of course stayed on the boat).  The place was pretty much closed for the slow season and not many people were around other than workers getting things ready for the busy season.  So we took the dogs into the beach and enjoyed the beautiful island for a while.
When we headed back to the boat we saw a storm was coming in but we had no idea that it was going to bring 45 mph winds and a downpour.  We sure were't expecting it to be this wicked and none of the weather apps that we have said anything about it.  But we made it through without our anchor even slipping and Thursday morning we headed over to Petit Martinique for gas and water.  When we asked the lady at the marina about the storm she said those come up all the time.  Wow, I don't care to experience that again.  I'm just glad we were anchored and not out in the open water when it came up.

 

One of the cottages 

The dogs doing what they do best-chasing crabs

 The storm:

The beautiful sky after the storm

The great crab hunters

When we first got to the Caribbean we would take the dogs for walks along the beach. They would sniff around and walk with us. If a crab ran across the beach they would chase it. I remember the first time they encountered a crab (September 2014, in the Bahamas) They had it surrounded for about 15 minutes but couldn't decided what to do with it. They would get it in their mouth but then the crab must have pinched them so they would let it go. The crab eventually ran to the water and the chase was over.

Fast forward to today. Now the dogs get on the beach and they do there business. Then it's all crab hunting. For a while they didn't even care where I was, they would run off chasing crabs. ( I did fix that). Lexie sniffs every whole on the beach and checks it for crabs. Max checks out all the rocky places on the beach for crabs. They now spend 99% of their time on the beach hunting for crabs.

I'm not sure what they would do now on shore if they didn't have crabs to chase.

                                                           Lexie looking for some crabs

                                                       Max and Lexie looking for crabs

                                                     Lexie sniffing some holes for crabs