CABRITS HIKE

The day looked like rain but we decided to go for a hike on the Prince Rupert Headland. It is called Cabrits and is home to Fort Shirley and the Douglas Battery. I being British carried my umbrella.

The locals told us that the dock was destroyed in the hurricane so we hiked round from the PAYS dock which had been rebuilt since Maria. As we got close we could see that the dock was indeed ruined and that there would be no electricity with the poles down and the wires touching.

As always we paid our money to one lady and had our tickets punched by a second. Got to keep the employment going. I sat outside while Gaye had a look around the small museum. I marveled that the museum had kept it's roof intact while the adjacent ferry terminal was stripped of it's roof tiles. We started up the cobbled road to the gap in the wall protecting the fort.

I always feel history tapping on my shoulder as I make this hike.

Maybe it is the ghosts of the many hundreds of slaves who toiled to build this place. Cutting the stones by hand and burning the coral to get lime mortar. Look at the perfection of this block made so square with no tools beyond a hammer chisel and a square.

Maybe it is the ghost of the French admiral who was on the losing end of the major sea battle which took place in the channel to the North of Dominica. This battle is reckoned to have decided who controlled the worlds seas for the next 150 years.

Maybe it is the ghosts of all the British soldiers who were sent here to man the batteries and forts. Wearing unsuitable woolen clothes and eating a diet bereft of any fresh fruit or vegetables they succumbed to various fevers or scurvy.

However it seems that we were being escorted and protected from any unfriendly spirits as we were surrounded by clouds of white butterflies as we climbed the overgrown cobbled trail that leads to the parade ground then down to the Douglas battery. When I say clouds I mean clouds, every step seemed to raise another hundred or so. It was a pretty surreal experience.

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DOMINICA

I am crouching down near the Catholic church beside a white house in Plymouth Dominica with the lappie on my knees. Post hurricane Maria this is the only spot in Plymouth that has a wifi connection. I suspect that I will not be able to add any pictures. Hurricane Maria really did an number on the poorest of the East Caribbean states and while the recovery has started things are still a mess.

We left St Pierre in Martinique to the sight of a magnificent double rainbow and we arrived in Prince Rupert bay Dominica to the sight of another magnificent double rainbow. Did we have rain on the way up Yes we did but as Jan says “ NO RAIN NO RAINBOWS. “

It was an eventful trip.

We saw more flying fish on this one inter island passage than I saw in the last 12 months.

We solved the burning question of what a tropic bird does with its long tail feathers when it is floating in the sea. Answer; it holds them up in a beautiful arc.

Gaye, who has sharp eyes, spotted a minke whale off Roseau, it stayed on the surface and blew every 10 seconds or so. Maybe 25 ft long.

Whales are difficult to photograph unless you get lucky with a lobtail so you will have to take my word that the little black blob is the dorsal fin of a minke.

Our last event was the starter motor which we had repaired in Martinique failed us again. This time on passage. Gaye got a quick lesson on anchoring under sail while I worked Elephants Child round the headland and into a good spot in the anchorage. I was thankful that she tacks easily under main alone even when ghosting along at 1 knot and even more thankful that Gaye took it in her stride.

Just to cap a difficult day we found out that our second water tank is dry. Instead of lasting us 3 weeks we are getting about ten days so we have a leak somewhere.

As Captain Fatty Goodlander says “ Cruising is just boat maintenance in exotic locations. “

We have a new starter motor on order from the USA and it is coming priority shipping. The Fedex lady said maybe Monday. When I get back to Grenada I will see if Al Bernadine can fix the old one to give us a spare. Or Perhaps just get a spare off EBAY.

I will jug some water out the boat so that we can see where the leak is. I suspect that it may be the accumulator tank. It is mild steel I think. Plastic for the next one.

We cleared in and then had a walk around the Plymouth sea front taking in the damage that was done by hurricane Maria. Despite it being 4 months since the hurricanes passage many of the buildings that had lost their roofs are still open to the elements. Many of the others are covered by temporary tarpaulins.

Even some of the vehicles sport a blue plastic roof. Others are displaying all manner of dents, owies and broken glass. Some have no windows left at all.

Most of the country needs to be rewired and they need a shedload of new electricity poles. The electricity grid is limping along with many still waiting to be reconnected. A glance at the mess left behind suggests that phone lines and cable TV connections need serious attention as well.

I tried to get my Digicel data dongle connected but the expert lady at the Digicel shop just shook her head. However Gaye was able to get her smart phone to work its smart magic and we have data again courtesy of Digicel. I hate being without access to weather information.

I will finish with some of the pictures taken while we enjoyed our sundowner G&Ts.

Pictures to come when I get a better connection probably in the Saintes

MARTINIQUE to DOMINICA

Tuesday 23 should see us off to Dominica after a few beautiful days in St Pierre.

STARTING TROUBLES and GRANDE ANSE D'ARLET

Well it has been an eventful couple of weeks on the boat front. It started in St Lucia when the lead to the starter motor developed a high resistance where it met the battery terminal. This generated enough heat to melt the terminal out of the battery case and set the insulation on fire. Fortuntly I was on my way into the battery compartment, saw the fire, picked up the powder fire extinquisher but before I unleashed it I thought back to the unholy mess a powder fire extinguisher makes and tried a cup of water. That did the trick.

New battery and a new terminal on the starer lead soon saw us back in business and I sailed up to Martinique. .

Gaye arrived and the first time we tried to start the engine the starter motor made a funny noise and the engine did not turn. I did some diagnostics expecting to find a problem relating to the work I had just done but I soon identified a problem with the pre engaged mechanism. This meant removing the starter. Now I had done this once before and it is a b******* of a job. So I tried to find a yound fit mechanic who could do the work but everybody was booked for many days.

So it was on with my big boy pants and out with the tools.

With starter in hand the next job was to get it to the starter repair man. No he did not offer a collection service so it was a case of hiring a car and setting off to deliver the starter.. I got lost, hopelessly gloriously completely lost. So I am not proud and I asked a police man. No he did not now where Mr Repair man was nor did his colleagues. So I thought commit a murder on the repair mans workshop and you will get away with it as the police can't find it. I found a very nice man in the mayors office who knew where the repair man was, he also drove there with us following.

A week later the starter was fixed, [you know island time.] I refitted it and we were back in business.

Glad to leave Cul de Sac de Marin after 12 days we headed round to my favorite anchorage Grand Anse D'Arlet.

We got the hook down saw our first turtle and enjoyed our sundowner with the rather splendid sight of a 5 masted windjammer silhouetted against the setting sun.

The next day offered a chance to try out my latest underwater camera which Gaye had kindly bought all the way from Australia.

Camera works well.

I spotted this in Marin at the floating dry dock. As it is a locally registered boat it is likely to be a local OOPS.

Gaye is spoiling Dizzy rotten with cat treats.

ONLY IN AMERICA

After weeks of speculation, controversial former Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced he will run for Senate in Arizona.

A Republican, Arpaio, 85, is an ally of President Trump. The president pardoned Arpaio in August 2017 after he was found guilty of criminal contempt for denying a judge’s order to stop traffic patrols that allegedly targeted immigrants.

“I have a lot to offer. I’m a big supporter of President Trump,” Arpaio said in an interview with the Washington Examiner. “I’m going to have to work hard; you don’t take anything for granted. But I would not be doing this if I thought that I could not win. I’m not here to get my name in the paper, I get that every day, anyway.”

I see him as a sensible man who worked the system.

Pink pajamas for the inmates.

Tents for cells.

No stimulating drinks, no coffee, no tea, no coke etc.

Initially no TV but the supreme court decided that was a breach of prisoners rights so Joe gave them 2 religious channels, the weather channel and a cartoon channel.

When applying the laws on illegal immigrants on the Mexican border he went after people who looked Mexican. Good idea?

Yup he reintroduced the chain gang.


I liked Sheriff Joe.