The solo around the world yacht race and other sailing related items.
Isle of the prams and natures best show
Pre-dawn we were gone from St. Pierre, bound for Dominique. The passage in the channel was choppy. The previous day we were topping out at 15.4 knots, our fasted to date. Crossing the Martinique channel we were pushing 14 knots. El Gecco loves to go. Given any breeze, she is off, making up for all the frustration I feel in ports trying to get through the job lists. We quickly will be in nine plus knots speed, then climbing up beyond twelve and thirteen. Even in large seas, she goes like a “bat out of hell” and is remarkably dry. Our progress was so fast, we decided to by pass Dominique and push on to The Saints, a group of small islands off Guadeloupe.
Les Saints was never a slave colony and today is a thriving tourist hub. The approaches were scenic right out of a magazine on exotic locations. We anchored late afternoon and went ashore as the last of the tourists were doing their final shopping for a trinket or t-shirt before boarding the final ferry of the evening. Those who were staying were already situated. Slowly as the last outbound ferry departed, the town was returned to the locals and those choosing to spend the night. There were scooters and bicycles, kids playing in the narrow streets. I have re-named The Saints to “the Land of the Pram”. There was something in their water. Where ever I looked, I could see a mother pushing a pram, or an infant on an arm or a pregnant woman. Love was truly in the air. There were so many kids running around having fun. This is a great place to raise a child, as we saw a village raising their children. It was clean and safe. What was really interesting was that I observed a huge number of elderly people, a smaller number of adults in their thirties and forties, and then another huge number of children under 10. There were very few teenagers or people in their twenties. The old ladies had such character. Their faces were worn by years of toil, deeply wrinkle but a smile ready to blossom. One elderly lady came up and stroked Darlene’s hair and they had a conversation of words and gestures, she in French, Darlene in English. Neither understood each others language, but yet they were able to converse about Darlene being beautiful and that the old lady had misplaced her hand bag or purse and had gone looking where she had left it. The atmosphere was wonderful and a place I would highly recommend spending a few days at.
We went ashore in the morning after having a visitor who came to admire El Gecco. Alex was also a racing sailor and had built a boat for the Open 40 class which had been a part of my solo around the world races. We were bonded by our love of the sea and the passion to race, to explore and to travel to distant shores. He spent 6 months sailing the Caribbean on his cruising boat, then moved back to Europe for six months of racing.
Our last walk ashore on the Island of the Prams was to get baguettes and croissants. The morning was as quaint as the evening had been. It was my mothers 85th birthday and I wished that as a gift I was able to beam her over to experience this village and its personality.
At 9:30 am we weighed anchor and was bound for St. Martin and Christmas. Off Guadeloupe we were becalmed for hours. We motored for a short while, but was content to sail at 3 knots for a period not to listen to the engine. Then the wind filled in and we were doing 7-8 knots. Montserrat was on the horizon and I was disappointed at sunset to still be south of the island and not able to see it. Darlene and I sat on the port side on a blanket enjoying the cool evening air. We were gliding to windward of Montserrat talking about not seeing a single light on the southern side. The entire island from our approach was in total darkness. It was a strange feeling as this was how the world was once when men transversed the oceans to new lands. There were no light houses warning of impending disastrous reefs, or lights of homes to give re-assurance that civilization existed on the welcoming shores. It was just darkness. This darkness was caused in 1995 by the eruption of the volcano. There were plenty of warnings and people living in threat of the dangers, were evacuated and that section of the island was turned into a no man’s land, allowing only scientists beyond the exclusion zone in for scientific studies. Initially twelve thousand people lived on the island, but its population has shrunk to about four thousand due to emigration.
Quietly sitting and enjoying our conversation, living in the moment, hopping up every so often to check for shipping or our progress past the dark island, Darlene and I were content. I looked towards the stern quarter at the land, and said to Darlene to look, the clouds hiding the top of the island was lifting and it appeared that there was a major forest fire on the summit. It was glowing red. Then suddenly we became witness to one of nature’s wonders. Never had we personally witnessed such power. We have evacuated for hurricanes. I have watched the seas pound cliffs. We have watched the shooting star shows. But nothing have we witnessed like this, and few humans have seen this first hand either. Never have we been this close to the immense power of nature and got to talk about it. Our lives were not endangered, but we were reminded our fragile life can be in the ultimate powers of Mother Nature. We witnessed a lava spew. The volcano of Montserrat is still active. It has many lava flows and we passed by one of these active locations and all the elements were aligned. The clouds lifted. It was darkness. We sailed close to the shore about a mile or so away and at the right moment Darlene and I looked up a valley to see the boiling red hot molten volcanic earth spewed up and the lava spilling over the side and down. It was a brief glimpse and then hidden by the mountain as we sailed on by. All I can say is “Wowwww!!!”