It will not take us a long time to come from the Maroni river to Le Marin in La Martinique : wind and current with us, a clean hull, in a few days we enter the bay of Le Marin were hundreds, if not thousands of sailing boats of all kind come together,in the marinas, in the ancorages ” huricane hole”, everywhere….Hopefully we went here only to do what we couldn’t do before : the paintings and varnish below deck. We take the oportunity to admire the yoles running in the trades, wonderfull sailing boats run by extraordinary sailors, was it in regata or with the family.
We went to the veterinary to sterelize Iris, we don’t want to have a litter of puppies as a crew !
We will leave La Martinique after the anchorage of Trois Ilets, contemplating the Diamant rock on the way. La Montagne Pelée, for her own, will stay hiden in the clouds.
The trade winds are vigourous and push us up to Portsmouth, in the Dominica island. Poor Dominica, devastated by the huricane Maria. It’s like the vegetation had been smashed with a chain saw…At night, while at anchor, two fishing boats brake their mooring chain and one of them enter in collision with us. The bow sprit will resist, but went 2 millimetrers back, not hurted, but scared. The two fugitives will be picked up back the following day, after one night playing the gost ships.
We enjoyed much Deshaies, a well sheltered bay in the North West of the La Guadeloupe. Here Iris will make real walks and every evening the dolphins enter the anchorage, the kids play with them, when it’s not the turtles who are wandering.
We could have stayed more, but there is still a long way to go….
Santa Cruz de Barahona will be our call in the Dominican Republic. What a difference with the West Indies ! Here it’s Africa, the streets bustle of people, the “conchos”, moto taxis weave their way, loaded as well by the corpulent mamy as by bunch of bananas or by the bloody veal just cutted in pieces ! It’s a commercial port, with big cargo ships loading sugar or anything else, wich don’t prevent the lamentins, mother and child, to wander around, with just the snout out of the water, when the weather is calm. We could also, and fortunately, replace our main alternator, which had broken down when leaving the Guadeloupe. Fernando, the port oarsman, will help us for a lot of things, the shoeshiner will have his material stolen, we will savor the grilled fish at night at the Club Nautico El Manati ( lamentin in spanish).
More to the west, it is at l’Ile à Vaches, in Haïti, that we will stop. We didn’t thought to do it, and however, what a call. It’s poor, for sure, Haïti is one of the poorest country in the world. But we are welcomed with a smile, in good french, we visit the village of Caye Coq with the young ones, they show us the Community Center, were, in spite of the needs they make paintings, art and crafts. The kids come regularly with their dugouts to see if we don’t have some useless staff to give, then we give. More there is their fishing boats, perfect sailing boats we met in open sea, engineless but with a huge sail. We are lucky to be here a day of regata, it’s simply wonderfull.
When leaving l’Ile à Vaches we will though for a long time of these people who have nothing, who welcomed us, who look us passing by, us the french who didn’t have helped them much, not to say more, since they became the first black Republic in the world.
