The ST Lucia Log: Part Four
THURSDAY
A long day of adventure ahead! The Martinique Splendor awaited us, a 1200hp catamaran ready to take us to a lovely French island where I couldn’t talk to any of the natives at all!
An hour and a half trip out of St Lucia, during which I freely admit my stomache wasn’t the happiest. Could have been the waves, could have been the tuna sandwiches I ate for breakfast (seriously, not like there were a lot of options on the boat), but I survived. It was kinda amusing listening to Captain Lolo chat with the port authorities to get permission to dock.
A quick jaunt around another duty free and I found a suitably large, moderately loud shirt to wear. It’s too big, truth be told, but it’s still a pretty fun shirt, and will work well as an overshirt. On to Fort-de-France!
This was a much nicer downtown to wander around than Castries. The Market was much less claustrophobic, the people were just as friendly (even if none of them spoke English), it was just a much nicer environment overall. Saw a very nice cathedral, a very cool library, and a statue of the guy who Martinique credits with many, many philanthropic acts including the establishing of the library and having a great hand in abolishing slavery.
The statue was of this gent (whose name escapes me right now) and apparently depicted an actual situation where he broke the shackles off of a young slave girl. Our guide continued the story to tell how the gent was punished by the girl’s “owner”, who cut off his hand, thus the reason the statue was missing it’s left hand. Now here, I’m thinking our guide was bending the truth a little. For a start, the statue was supposedly of when he liberated the girl - but he would have had both hands then. Also the wrist where the hand was missing was pretty rough, more a sign of breakage than deliberately carved that way.
Still, made for a touching story.
Martinique also yielded the first custard slice I’ve eaten in over 7 years. MMmm nummy.
The boat then took us to a secluded cove for lunch, swimming, and snorkeling. The lunch was decent, the swimming very refreshing, the snorkeling nothing in comparison to Tuesday’s. Lots of sea urchins, less fish, less coral. When the most interesting thing to see while snorkeling is the fan pattern made by the ropes and chains of anchored boats on the sea floor while the boats above bobbed in the waves, it says something.
The next stop was the highlight of the trip for me - HMS Diamond Rock. A huge rock off from the shore, which, despite being within metaphorical spitting distance of French Martinique, is still British territory.
Apparently, way back when, the British winched dozens of cannons up on top of this 300-ft high monolith, and then from their position up there, bombarded the French ships trying to sail into Fort-de-France. The French returned fire, and there a massive chunks of the rock that were blown away by French cannon fire - I’m already fascinated by most of the rock faces and such that I’ve seen here, but this - this was astounding. Apparently there are still cannonballs being found by divers under the rock, and to this day British naval vessels salute the rock when they go past.
The French eventually got tired of trying to shake the British cannons off the rock, so apparently they floated a lot of rum barrels up to the base of the rock. The British troops ran low on food and supplies, found the barrels, got royally drunk, and surrendered.
No idea if this is really how it went down, but it’s the story we were told.
The rest of the trip home was very rough - massive swells lifted the boat up and down like a rollercoaster for over an hour as we ploughed our way through the waves back to St Lucia.
We were visited briefly by some of the local dolphins, who apparently have pink bellies. I took a bucketload of shots, but being the inferior photographer I am, I ended up with about 80 photos of water and half a dozen or so of dolphins. Still, I’m happy I got any of them at all.
A very full day of fun in the end, a nice quiet dinner, and to bed. For tomorrow? I (finally) Geocache!
Sundry Thurday Pics:
Adrian, the quintessential English gentleman, and our trusty companion for the excursion.
Fort Rodney, which I visited on Friday - pics in the next update!
Another shot of Fort Rodney
"For that natural windblown look, we recommend a cruise!"
Elsa, one of the crew of the Martinique Splendor, who could ascend to the upper deck without spilling a drop from an open cup for you if you asked for a drink.
Apparently Martinique has a "Batcave" too - the one on the right.
In English? Cocoa! In French? Cacao!
Tangerine samples are a good thing. I'll point out, that's not a local's hand. One of our fellow tourists, a lovely woman from England, held it for me, since she had much nicer hands than I do.
Fresh pineapples in the market
Happy policeman!
Jeremy, one of the tour guides, who just happened to be Canadian
Sign at the library. I have no idea what it means! Whoo! Well, I have a theory...
Funky crack in the masonry
Spiral staircase in the library
When I saw this place, all I could think of was "Pizza Planet" from Toy Story
A wire crucifix in the cathedral - very groovy.
Statues in Martinique's Cathedral:
Windows in Martinique's Cathedral:
Martinique's curbs were pretty low, so apparently blue knobby things stop cards barging into the stores.
See? Pretty blue and knobby.
Razorwire???
Dolphins! (*splish splish*)
A couple of Martinique locks...
Even pay toilets sound sophisticated in French.
See, Tamara? I WAS thinking of you!
My lovely wife...
HMS Diamond Rock:
I admit there's a lot of pics here, but heck, I was fascinated by the obliterated rockface.
A long day of adventure ahead! The Martinique Splendor awaited us, a 1200hp catamaran ready to take us to a lovely French island where I couldn’t talk to any of the natives at all!
An hour and a half trip out of St Lucia, during which I freely admit my stomache wasn’t the happiest. Could have been the waves, could have been the tuna sandwiches I ate for breakfast (seriously, not like there were a lot of options on the boat), but I survived. It was kinda amusing listening to Captain Lolo chat with the port authorities to get permission to dock.
A quick jaunt around another duty free and I found a suitably large, moderately loud shirt to wear. It’s too big, truth be told, but it’s still a pretty fun shirt, and will work well as an overshirt. On to Fort-de-France!
This was a much nicer downtown to wander around than Castries. The Market was much less claustrophobic, the people were just as friendly (even if none of them spoke English), it was just a much nicer environment overall. Saw a very nice cathedral, a very cool library, and a statue of the guy who Martinique credits with many, many philanthropic acts including the establishing of the library and having a great hand in abolishing slavery.
The statue was of this gent (whose name escapes me right now) and apparently depicted an actual situation where he broke the shackles off of a young slave girl. Our guide continued the story to tell how the gent was punished by the girl’s “owner”, who cut off his hand, thus the reason the statue was missing it’s left hand. Now here, I’m thinking our guide was bending the truth a little. For a start, the statue was supposedly of when he liberated the girl - but he would have had both hands then. Also the wrist where the hand was missing was pretty rough, more a sign of breakage than deliberately carved that way.
Still, made for a touching story.
Martinique also yielded the first custard slice I’ve eaten in over 7 years. MMmm nummy.
The boat then took us to a secluded cove for lunch, swimming, and snorkeling. The lunch was decent, the swimming very refreshing, the snorkeling nothing in comparison to Tuesday’s. Lots of sea urchins, less fish, less coral. When the most interesting thing to see while snorkeling is the fan pattern made by the ropes and chains of anchored boats on the sea floor while the boats above bobbed in the waves, it says something.
The next stop was the highlight of the trip for me - HMS Diamond Rock. A huge rock off from the shore, which, despite being within metaphorical spitting distance of French Martinique, is still British territory.
Apparently, way back when, the British winched dozens of cannons up on top of this 300-ft high monolith, and then from their position up there, bombarded the French ships trying to sail into Fort-de-France. The French returned fire, and there a massive chunks of the rock that were blown away by French cannon fire - I’m already fascinated by most of the rock faces and such that I’ve seen here, but this - this was astounding. Apparently there are still cannonballs being found by divers under the rock, and to this day British naval vessels salute the rock when they go past.
The French eventually got tired of trying to shake the British cannons off the rock, so apparently they floated a lot of rum barrels up to the base of the rock. The British troops ran low on food and supplies, found the barrels, got royally drunk, and surrendered.
No idea if this is really how it went down, but it’s the story we were told.
The rest of the trip home was very rough - massive swells lifted the boat up and down like a rollercoaster for over an hour as we ploughed our way through the waves back to St Lucia.
We were visited briefly by some of the local dolphins, who apparently have pink bellies. I took a bucketload of shots, but being the inferior photographer I am, I ended up with about 80 photos of water and half a dozen or so of dolphins. Still, I’m happy I got any of them at all.
A very full day of fun in the end, a nice quiet dinner, and to bed. For tomorrow? I (finally) Geocache!
Sundry Thurday Pics:
Adrian, the quintessential English gentleman, and our trusty companion for the excursion.
Fort Rodney, which I visited on Friday - pics in the next update!
Another shot of Fort Rodney
"For that natural windblown look, we recommend a cruise!"
Elsa, one of the crew of the Martinique Splendor, who could ascend to the upper deck without spilling a drop from an open cup for you if you asked for a drink.
Apparently Martinique has a "Batcave" too - the one on the right.
In English? Cocoa! In French? Cacao!
Tangerine samples are a good thing. I'll point out, that's not a local's hand. One of our fellow tourists, a lovely woman from England, held it for me, since she had much nicer hands than I do.
Fresh pineapples in the market
Happy policeman!
Jeremy, one of the tour guides, who just happened to be Canadian
Sign at the library. I have no idea what it means! Whoo! Well, I have a theory...
Funky crack in the masonry
Spiral staircase in the library
When I saw this place, all I could think of was "Pizza Planet" from Toy Story
A wire crucifix in the cathedral - very groovy.
Statues in Martinique's Cathedral:
Windows in Martinique's Cathedral:
Martinique's curbs were pretty low, so apparently blue knobby things stop cards barging into the stores.
See? Pretty blue and knobby.
Razorwire???
Dolphins! (*splish splish*)
A couple of Martinique locks...
Even pay toilets sound sophisticated in French.
See, Tamara? I WAS thinking of you!
My lovely wife...
HMS Diamond Rock:
I admit there's a lot of pics here, but heck, I was fascinated by the obliterated rockface.