NORDLYS - Life in paradise goes on

Life in paradise goes on

NORDLYS

David and Annette Ridout

Thu 22 Jan 2009 19:32

Wind and rain, sun and sand,

life goes on in paradise.

14:33N 61:03W

Fort de France

Martinique

22nd January 2009

I remembered a lot about the Caribbean from our visits in 2001/2 but one of the aspects of life this year which I do not remember from earlier times is the huge amount of rain. Every day it has rained, often heavily. Some rain is very welcome, the boat is rarely caked in salt for instance and water can be collected, especially for drinking, but endless rain can become a bit of a nuisance. So far it has just not got to this stage. The other aspect of sailing life here we do remember and is proving to be very true this year is the simple fact that the sailing here is actually not that good. Between the islands it blows like hell and up the lee sides one has to motor for much of the time. Nordlys has spent a lot of her sailing with the sails reefed and rolled respectively, the sheets hard in, or almost so, and the boat at a severe angle of heel with over twenty five knots across the deck. Regular squalls produce stinging rain and forty knots of wind. I say this not to grumble but so that those of you who are tucked up by a roaring fire, windows banging to the spatter of driven rain and with the outside temperature just above freezing, can realise that it is not just you who are battling the elements. No, I do not expect sympathy and I do know that I will not get it.

From St Lucia we sailed up to Marin in Martinique where after a few days we picked up two happy but very pale and pasty travel weary Norwegians. Gunnar and Tove are a lovely couple who we originally met in the Marquesas as they sailed their Swan 44 around the world. Much cruising in company, touring round New Zealand in our Toyota plus a lovely visit to Norway this summer has cemented the friendship. We took them south to St Lucia so that I could pick up a new pump for the watermaker. Gunnar has the same model in his boat so it was hardly surprising that when we fired it up there were few leaks and only some very minor problems. How good it was to do a somewhat complex job with someone who knew the system. A night anchored off St Pierre, the old capital of Martinique and we then bashed our way through squalls to Dominica, anchoring in the northern town of Portsmouth.

To go to Dominica is something that many of us should do, especially in these fraught times. The people are happy, proud of their island and mostly very poor. It does one good to be faced with a Rasta type gentleman paddling an ancient surf board and seated on an old fuel tank that is glued to same. He sells fruit and veg and tells us with obvious delight that there are five women to every man in Dominica and that he aspires to a launch with an outboard. He has not heard of the stock market, falling house prices nor the ratio of the pound to the dollar.

On one day we took a tour of the island and saw the obvious rich diversity of plant life that this beautiful and mostly unspoilt place enjoys. Now those of you who are good at history will know that these islands were inhabited by the Arawaks. Apparently a peaceful and non warlike tribe. Then the Carib Indians came up from South America and killed off these people. One hundred and fifty years later white man arrived and basically killed off the Caribs. We have visited the cliff site in Grenada where the last Caribs jumped to their deaths while being shot at by French troops. However on Dominica there are approximately three and a half thousand of these Indians left. They have the right to an area of the island which is run semi autonomously. The Carib men are allowed negro women but a Carrib woman is not allowed a negro man. Unfair perhaps but it is an attempt to keep the race alive. They are physically very different from those who are descended from African slaves. In features they are not dissimilar from the Kuna Indians of San Blas. It has to be said that driving through their territory one sees a lot of surly faces and few smiles. There are exceptions and a fun time was had at an old lady's stall. There was certainly no trace of physical aggression which over the last few hundred years has no doubt been beaten out of them.

Another motor/bash/motor and we were back in the anchorage of Anse Mitan, a short ferry ride from Fort de France, the present day capital of Martinique. Our friends have departed and our livers are due a rest. This lasted one day until we met a pair of delightful Germans with a penchant for rum. Excellent and interesting company they come from San Francisco but are going back to run a family business in Germany. One worry is that I have discovered two of our lower shrouds to be suffering a broken strand. This means that three out of the four that were made in Trinidad on our way out have now gone. Luckily they can be replaced here and new ones are being made in a day. All looks well further aloft. The whole question of when to renew rigging is a very difficult one. Gunnar's Swan had crossed the Atlantic six times before he sailed it on an Atlantic circuit, then around the world. He has never renewed the original rigging. I did and have now had three failures of the replaced wire.

So good friends, stay tucked up by your fires while we bash north again, first to Dominica then to the Saints and Guadalupe for the arrival of Annette's cousin and her husband on the 4th February.

Happy times

David and Annette