Wake Up and Smell the Guano

After an unchar- acteristically smooth, comfortable sail of 5 hours from Rodney Bay, St. Lucia, we arrived down island at the fishing village of Soufriere. There are many Soufriere place names in the Caribbean islands — it means “sulfur” in French - a testimony to their volcanic origins. Soufriere, St. Lucia happens to have one of the most distinctive landmarks in the Caribbean for a backdrop — the twin pitons looming over a large bay.
These jagged peaks rise nearly straight up from the water’s edge to over 2500 ft. Likewise water depth drops off from 15 ft. at spitting distance from shore to 600 ft. a stone’s throw away.

We picked up a mooring ball, available for a small fee, since anchoring was not permitted (or very practical) in this area which turned out to be a protected national marine reserve. Luckily for us this meant great snorkeling and swimming right from the boat with thousands of tropical fish scooting around as if we were floating in a giant aquarium. 50 ft. away from our boat a vertical rock wall with clinging shrubs rose to about 100 ft. With breakers hitting the rocks so close to us, especially at night when they sounded a little too close, we glanced nervously in that direction for the first day or so. Fortunately our mooring was snug with short strong rope and a solid anchoring in the sea bottom. A scenic bonus was a spontaneous waterfall that materialized next to us during and after every rain.
Just forward of our boat on shore was a remarkable geologic formation. A fissure split the 100 ft. high wall from top to bottom creating a soaring A-shaped cave. We would sometimes notice a faint urea-type scent in the air, but assumed it came from the outskirts of town. Not so. Now and then a small guide boat filled with tourists from a nearby resort would slowly motor up to the cave entrance. People would peer up into the dark chasm and snap photos. After a few days we realized we had moored next to a local spectacle called the Bat Cave. The odor that occasionally wafted past us was the byproduct of hundreds of bats roosting during the day. Our consolation was that all these squeaking creatures probably kept the mosquitoes to a minimum at night after they fluttered out of the cave at sunset. So another ecology lesson aboard the Debonair about nature’s connections: scenic landscape, intriguing cave, strange smell, bats galore, insect control. At least these bats were not of the vampire variety, I think.

We are spending a very pleasant couple of weeks in Martinique, anchored in the capitol, Fort-de- France, which is a very large and bustling city. It is also a very old city, settled in the 1600s by the French. It was fought over by the British and the French in the 1800s, and is now a departement of France (the equivalent of one of our states). We realize that Martinique and Guadeloupe are very similar to Hawaii for Americans - an overseas tropical destination on home soil for the French. We see tourists from France here in Martinique. France also subsidizes the islands here, and it shows in the infrastructure of a modern bus system, good roads, a drinkable water system, and other outward signs.
We helped our friend Sue on Enee Marie deliver her boat about 10 miles down the coast to a boatyard, where she will leave it for hurricane season while she and her husband go to Chicago. We had some adventures getting back to our boat after the delivery - from Marin, about 30 kilometers away by road, collective taxis are supposed to run until 5:30 every afternoon, but we couldn't find any. So, for the first time, we hitchhiked back, and were picked up by several wonderful Martiniquans, the last one who sought us out to deliver us directly to our dinghy dock.
We also had a package delivered to us at the FedEx office, at the airport. Our water jugs from Reliance had all failed with cracks in their seams. Larry found the telephone number of a vice president of the Canadian-based company, who was very interested in our problems. She found mistakes in their manufacturing process and wanted to replace our jugs, free of charge - almost unheard-of for a company to stand behind its products in this way! Kudos to Reliance.
We also have had a very good time walking around the city, seeing all the French shops, walking to the suburb of Schoelcher for a large supermarket (they call it a Hyper Marche), and visiting tourist sites in town. We've developed quite a liking for French bread of all types, from baguettes to pain complet (whole wheat), pain compagne (country bread), pain de cereales (multi-grain), batard aux noix (bread with walnuts). We will miss the French bread, French cheese, and French mustard, among other culinary delights available here.
We will be sailing on to St. Lucia and St. Vincent in the next couple of weeks, as we make our way south for hurricane season.

Many of the Caribbean island nations have colorful flags. Here is Dominica's.
I'm not sure if the parrot shown in the center has a special meaning for Dominicans. Maybe it's their national bird, although when we toured the island, not a single one of these vivid creatures flew by. In fact there are more wild parrots noticeable in the Hyde Park area on the south side of Chicago, near the Museum of Science and Industry. How they got there is another story.

As the country's emblem, a parrot does not quite project the bold, inspiring image that nations seem to prefer, a la the American eagle. You can't seriously picture a platoon of Dominican soldiers marching bravely into battle under the banner of the happy parrot. But then imagining Dominica at war isn't easy either, with St. Kitts? Martinique(France)? over bananas? tourist attractions? For the record, a symbolic force of Dominican troops was sent in support of the U.S. invasion of neighboring Grenada back in 1983. In appreciation, the United States increased its foreign aid to Dominica which helped build the fine paved roads all over the island.

Dominica's gentle flag could be a good thing though, toning down the usual aggressive, nationalistic tendencies and replacing them with an unpretentious, let's-enjoy-the-moment island attitude. Besides, parrots are not only attractive birds but no doubt feisty as well as renown for their verbal talents, compatibility and unexpected intelligence. Not a bad national mascot after all.



We spent about a week and a half on the island of Dominica, most of it anchored at the northern town of Portsmouth, and just one night at the capital city of Roseau. We took an island tour with another couple, Bill and Sue from Unchained, given by one of the tour guides named Alexis. He was a good guide, took us to the Emerald Pool, over to the Atlantic side of the
island, through the Carib territory, and back. The tour was set up by the other couple; we would use a different tour guide, probably Martin on Providence if we had to do it over - Alexis was good, but he tried to overcharge us at the end. The quoted price before the trip, to Bill and Sue, was $135 US, and at the end he wanted $200 US - pretty sleazy way to give himself a $70 tip. We talked him down to $140 total.
We did enjoy Dominica very much, including the open-air vegetable market in Portsmouth on Saturday morning, and the fish and vegetable market in Roseau. Dominica is a significantly poorer country than others we have seen in the eastern Caribbean, but the people are friendly and the public buses are efficient and cheap.
Now we are in Martinique as we make our way south for hurricane season.