A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back - Township rebellion... and nice waterfalls

Township rebellion... and nice waterfalls

A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back

Sam and Alex Fortescue

Tue 18 Jan 2011 18:21

14:28.2N

60:52.5W

St Vincent turned from a tropical backwater into a seething den of gang warfare on our last day. Convinced that we had plumbed the true character of the island on preceeding days, with our trip to Wallalibou Bay where the set for scenes from Pirates of the Caribbean was still in place on the beach, we expected our last afternoon in Chateaubelair to be a case of tranquil waterfall spotting. But when we went onshore with our 'guide', a boy called George (I'm just about to get my tourist permit), we felt as if we were walking through a precarious nomansland between two ragged warring factions.

The town felt pretty desperate, with everyone shouting at everyone else, aggressive mutterings from dark bars and a lot of shady goings-on with machetes in coconut plantations. The smell of ganga was everywhere. George ended up yelling at a group of even younger boys who had rowed out to talk to us the night before, and felt that they had bagged us for touring purposes. There was some scuffling as we passed, on our way up the hill to see a spectacular waterfall.

On the way back, we passed a standoff between two groups of boys, eyeballing each other across the street. An air of delapidation and neglect made it seem that fighting may have been the only real entertainment. In the end, we were relieved to get back onboard Summer Song. As the previous night, we were serenaded by some apallingly inept karaoke from a beackside establishment, that even a locked hatch couldn't entirely eliminate.

The alarm went at midnight, when we reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the fo'c'sle berth to go to sea. It was a bright moonlit night, so finding our way out of the wide bay was not a problem. We had to motor out of the windshadow of the island, but before we knew it there was a solid 20 knots of wind and rising seas. The channel between St Vincent and St Lucia is about 30 miles, and it took six hours of crashing through mountainous waves with gusts of 30 knots plus, heeling at up to 50 degrees before we got into the more sheltered water in the lee of the island. Luckily, we couldn't really see what we were plugging into until dawn. By then we were off Rodney Bay, where we made our landfall after the crossing, and Martinique was only 20 miles away. We enjoyed a couple of misty-eyed moments as we remembered the epic journey in the company of Will and Graham.

The weather still hadn't finished with us, and we had to sail through more squalls before we could even see the outline of Martinique ahead. We reflected on what Andy and Celia would have made of the conditions. On balance, it seems fortunate that they left us before we had the chance to find out.

Naturally enough, the island being one of France's overseas departments, we started to conjure up images of moules frites, steaming cafes au lait and pains au chocolat. Alex counselled caution, in case I was building myself up for culinary disappointment, but to no avail - there's only so much jerk chicken a man can eat. In fact, we could well be in a warmer, more exotic part of the Cote d'Azur. France has gone out of its way to assimilate the island, so even the local waitresses have that delightfully French, what-do-you-want-huh? attitude that characterises the nation's service industries. Moules frites were indeed on the menu, but we indulged ourselves with steak and shellfish, no doubt imported from France at vast cost.

Meanwhile, we're taking our time to sort out a few boat related issues, chief among which is the outboard, which still resolutely refuses to start after its brief dunking two weeks ago. The problem came to a head today when we were rowing in to the shore from our anchorage in the huge Cul-de-sac du Marin on Martinique. The standard tropical wind got up to about 20 knots, which proved near impossible to row against. Then, at a crucial juncture, the skipper foolishly dropped an oar in the drink, obliging First Mate Biffle to leap into the water fully dressed and recover the lost implement. All the locals seem to have zippy engines which they belt around the bay with, often standing up as they go. We (for which read: Alex) on the other hand have been wandering about the town dripping wet since the oar incident.

Editor's note: In reference to the last blog post, please note that we have been surviving very well on the bewildering away of delicious fresh fruit here and are not missing tinned lentils at all.

Rasta in Bequia - the best mangoes yet