A Salty Slice

Quest
Jack and Hannah Ormerod and Lucia, Delphine & Fin
Sun 26 Feb 2017 18:55
Position: 18:22.438N 64:31.949W

Opposite Tortola, across the Sir Francis Drake Channel (trust the British to have a royally endorsed pirate) is Salt Island. Apart from being the place where the RMS Steamship Rhone met its fate, for hundreds of years salt was extracted here. It was an important West Indies' source for Her Majesty’s Navy. Indeed in 1845, one barrel of salt was reported to go for a shilling. 

Salt Island’s busy days are clearly behind her. We anchored by her jetty on Friday afternoon, went ashore and discovered a cluster of houses known as The Settlement lying abandoned. Judging by a single gravestone, it seems one Salt Island stalwart has recently left this place even lonelier. Just behind the beach is a salt evaporation pond; a brown-eyed lake where, along its mulchy edges, you feel you’re dipping your toes into a recently boiled kettle while a crust of salt crystal crunches under your feet like a layer of inverted ice. 

We left feeling Salt Island's history. Its salt pan reminded us of the tall plantation palm trees we saw throughout Grenada’s north coast. Even with the grandest plantation houses reclaimed back into the earth, the plantation palms are left waving like flags in the wind. Here the salt crystallises whether anyone rakes it or not. She may not apply judgement but nature still marks our history.  

Love from Quest and her crew xx