Malua is at
14:44.53N 61:16.68W at Saint Pierre on Martinique on 31/01/2013
I have a very
relaxing day at Grand Anse D'Arlet hanging off a mooring buoy and getting good
access to the Internet but it is time to move north especially if I am to
achieve the goal of lobsters in Maine.
I stopped over at the cat Harlequinn
to drop off a book about the French Canals and to seek some advice about sailing
in the North West of the USA and Canada.
James and Roni may also be on the French canals some day in the future.
I let
go the mooring put up the main with one reef and unfurled the genoa and headed
north across the large bay of Fort-de-France.
There must have been a good current running with me because be fore I knew it I
was doing 9.2 knots over the ground.
Not bad for 20 knots of wind, one reef and a flat sea.
The 12 miles journey to Saint Pierre was over almost before it began.
Saint
Pierre is on the side of the still active volcano of Mont Pelee.
The water is deep right up to the shore so one has to almost drop the hook on
the dry sand of the beach then pull back out to sea.
I found a spot at 6 m about 40 m from the shore and bulled back into 20 m of
water under the keel.
The whole anchoring experience reminds me of the time
in Vanuatu where I anchored in similar circumstances and went to bed.
In the morning the wind was blowing off shore at more than 25 knots.
It howled through the rigging until as I lay in bed the wind stopped and it
became quiet.
I stayed in bed some time before I suspected that something was wrong and I got
up, looked out of the companion way hoping to see the shore a few meters off the
bow and all I could see was the island fading into the distance as Malua drifted
with the wind hence no wind noise and the anchor 45 meters hanging straight down
into 2000 m of ocean.
Saint Pierre was overrun by the lava from the volcano on the 8th May
1902.
The total population of 30,000 was either smothered by ash or buried beneath a
wave of lava running down the mountain side which engulfed the whole town.
Twelve ships where sunk in the harbour.
Two people survives, one a cobbler, the other a man imprisoned for murder left
in his cell until later found and released - with or without a pardon is not
known.
Behind the current town and rising up to the top of the volcano is a
green strip of land now cultivated and producing a good agricultural
output.
Tomorrow Malua moved north to Dominica.
A magical moment on
Malua
