Thursday morning  14 April, 2011

We are on the way and the crew is settling in getting to know each other. Leo and David both Canadians are sharing the fore cabin.  Carl (Sweden) and Genevieve  (Canada)are  newlyweds and previously tall ship crew. They have been living on the beach in St Lucia sampling the typical Rasta life for the past couple of months and are now settled in the port side cabin.  

We left St Lucia on the 11^th for a short day sail to Martinique. As we docked in the harbour Le Marine, the rain hit us with vengeance; the rain kept up for the whole evening and continued to the next day.

After a breakfast meeting we came to a democratic decision to remain and tour the island. David rented a car, a nice red little five seat Seat Ibiza; we are six. A few boat cushions stuffed in the boot of the car solved the seating issue, Carl drew the short straw and crawled into the boot.  The first port of call was Fort de France, capital of the island where we spent a couple of hours.  We continued north, towards the mountains, a beautiful climb that took us through thick green rainforest. It was raining pretty much the whole day, except when we were in the rainforest. Humid and extremely verdant, the rainforest is an amazing place. We spotted green lizards and a bright orange land crab, the size of large burger that quickly scuttled away into its cave under one of the big tree trunks.

A tour of the Depaz a steam driven Rum distillery was next on the list, beautifully located just at the point of Mount Pellier with its fearsome looking volcano with smoke surrounding it’s seventeen hundred something meter top (highest point of the island). It has been running since 1651 with a break after the 1902 eruption of Mt Pellier which wiped out the whole town of St Pierre (capital up to this point) and 30000 people. We got a view of the oldest steam engine on the island, an old paddle wheel from the 1700’s, a 50 year old rubber tree with a circumference of 20 meters and huge old impressive mango trees. With rum and a salty tall ship sailor in the trunk (!!) we headed back to the boat to get cracking with the growing “to do-list;, shopping, sewing, stowing etc.
A nice dinner in the marina in the evening rounded off a pleasant day.

We left for Dominica on Wednesday morning, still raining but warm.  We passed in between Diamond Rock and the mainland and got a beautiful view of this “Darth Vader” looking rock, which its vivid history.  At some point when the Frenchs and the Engish were fighting over these islands, the English installed 20 sailors and four cannons on this 175 meter tall top (a feature which you can only admire). From this strategic point the French ships were bombarded. However, the French came up with a cunning plan and a couple of ships filled with rum was intentionally wrecked on the rock by the French. The next morning the drunken English sailors were kicked out and the French conquered the rock.

The wind picked up to about 20 knots and we cruised on nicely, doing about 7-8 knots in NE winds. We all had a turn on the wheel to get the feeling of Siri Ros, which indeed is a nice one. She is a sound and steady vessel that moves through the water with dignity and pride.
“It was a great sail today”, was just heard in the saloon, where skipper Liz together with Leo and Genevieve are cooking some nice scenting fish dish.
We are moored at a buoy outside Roseau in Dominica, where a Rasta-man came to “guide us” into our spot, in true Caribbean style: “I’ll be right with you”.  He eventually showed up long after we had rummage in the dark and eventually managed to tie the boat to the one single buoy that was still available.   The excuse for his late arrival;  “hey, Pancho was busy cooking a sauce”.

Pancho with his brightly colourer boat with an enormous engine, has taken a few of the crew snorkelling with the promise of underwater Sulphur Springs, where air leaks out on the ocean floor and creating a feeling of  swimming in champagne.

Best wishes to you all from all on Siri Ros.