According to our sailing log we have been sailing in and around these tiny islands for just 6 day, seems longer than that.  The islands are in the middle of the chain, between Guadeloupe and St. Barts.  They are steeply mountainous; as we approach they look rather arid and barren compared to the lush tropical islands south of here.  It is not until we venture inland, climbing in altitude that we find the rainforest area.  This rainforest appears different, cool, dark and more wooded with long tangles of air roots and Pathos, what we know as a house plant, growing as a ground cover along with ferns.

We sailed past Montserrat but did not stopped as planned because there had been a volcanic eruption earlier in the month and we did not think that we would be able to get close enough to view the ashen ruined southern portion of the island.  There is a Maritime Exclusion Zone which limits how close a boat can sail along the southern coast as well as regulate land access, enforcing evacuation perimeters for local residents.  Local residents were just being allowed to return to their homes.  We sailed as closely as we dared and took some impressive photos of the devastation.   The southern half of the island is stark and barren; the northern half is lush green and built up with beautiful homes.  The remains of the ruined capital, Plymouth, are a humbling reminder of Mother Nature’s power.

The twin-island nations of St. Kitts and Nevis have steep central mountains covered in rainforest, surrounded by gently sloping fertile land planted primarily in sugar cane.  The sugar cane production has ceased, but the fields and expansive plantations rich in the nation’s history remain for the time being.  African green vervet monkeys can be found in the higher elevations. We saw several while following a path through the tall elfin wooden forest.  They were originally introduced by the French and kept as pets.  We also saw a few in the arms of locals milling around the cruise ship guests offering pictures for dollars. 

We are currently in St. Martin, one of the well-known and often-visited cruise ship ports in the Caribbean.  St. Barts, the chic destination favored as the hot spot for the rich and famous, St. Martin and Anguilla make up the Renaissance Islands.  Unfortunately it may not be a renaissance experience for us because we are stuck in a marina with a week’s worth of boat work to do.  How much of the island we explore after completing our work will depend on our disposition after all of the projects are completed and the bills paid for.

The Leeward Islands are north and west of the Windward Islands on the stepping stones leading us back to the States.  They span 200 miles and include 10 major islands operating as different nations, some with French, some with Dutch and some with British traditions.  According to our cruising guide, The Leeward’s can be subdivided into 3 groups: The Renaissance Islands of St. Martin, St. Bart’s and Anguilla, enjoying an impressive economic and social rebirth; The Islands that Brush the Clouds (don’t you just love that description) a chain of small, steeply mountainous tops of the volcanic chain which include Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts, Statia and Saba and The Islands of Mountains and Mangroves, Dominica, The Saintes, Marie Galante and Guadeloupe (the last 4 being included in the French Antilles grouping as well).

Dominica is a rustic, majestic island of rainforests, waterfalls, rainbows, tropical flowers and natural beauty.  I loved it.  But even more beautiful than the land itself were the people.  I cannot recall a more engaging, warm-hearted group of people.  Speaking the same language always enhances the experience but the spirit of the Dominican people was far greater and apparent than the mere benefit of a shared language.  The day we arrived a large cruise ship was in port so the down town area was teeming with tourists.  Usually that doesn’t appeal to me but I was astonished and overwhelmed with the colorful town and the warmth of the people.  Most of the houses had fresh coats of multi-colored paint with tropical plants suspended, draped and sprouting out of tiny front yard gardens.  The markets spilled out of the shops and onto the streets displaying fruits, vegetables and a variety of handcrafted native items.   My favorite market day was on a Sunday morning, without a cruise ship crowd influencing the local merchant’s activities.  This was a Dominican market for the Dominican folks and it was teeming with an entirely different energy.  Everyone was visiting with each other, many wanted to talk to us about the dogs, pet them and have pictures taken with them.   

We stopped in two locations along the western coast of Dominica, Roseau, the capital, and Portsmouth.  The country does not have a well developed infrastructure for tourism so most of the tour opportunities are handled at the local level.  For a visiting yacht this means that a local guy races out in his panga to greet arriving boats, helps secure a mooring ball and hopefully become the boat’s tour guide.   Our greeter and guide was Poncho, an eager and helpful Rastafarian who assisted us in many ways, probably the most significant being getting the dogs cleared into the country.  When we learned that we were going to have to jump through all the same bureaucratic hoops that we did in St. Lucia to get the dogs cleared into the country we planned to just skip it and leave the next day.  But Poncho happened to be a dog owner and used the vet the customs guy recommended for the clearing in process.  He contacted the vet and provided the transportation to get the clearance accomplished.  We promptly booked a day hike into a waterfall in the rainforest.

For the nature lover this island is supreme.  The rainforest offers unlimited hiking opportunities and numerous stunning waterfalls tumbling off steep mountainsides into lush vegetation.  The rugged topography continues below the sea.  Walls drop farther than you can dive, towering pinnacles rise from the seabed and underwater hot springs bubble forth. 

The trip we took with Poncho was to Victoria Falls.  It is an amazing hike, requiring us to ford the river 5 times, sometimes through waist high water, to the highest falls in Dominica.  We took the dogs, assuring Poncho that they would have no problem with a river hike.  However, we did not know that we would be scrambling over moss-slicken boulders.  Their webbed feet did not help them as much as goat hooves would have.  We had to do a lot of boosting to get them up and over the boulders.  They loved it though, and by the end of the day both of them were much braver and more sure footed.

The water at Victoria Falls is whitish with high sulfur content and reminded me of the glacier runoff of Lake Louise in Canada.  The cold fresh water felt marvelous to me.  I much prefer fresh water to sea water.  Poncho’s uncles live in wood huts at the base of the trail head in a paradisiacal like garden and offer a simple meal of vegetarian Ital food for those who want it.  I am still not clear on what denotes Ital food, but what we had was a lentil and vegetable stew over rice served in calabash gourd bowls with calabash scoopers as spoons.

We took several other incredible hikes without a guide and found some amazing sites.  I think the sheer number of photos we have posted indicate how much we loved this island.

Iles des Saintes is a part of the Guadeloupe Archipelago.  Unlike Guadeloupe, they are small, dry and steep.  We took a hike to the top of one of the peaks and got a stunning view of the Bay of Iles Des Saintes, one of the most beautiful and protected bays in the world.  The town is picture perfect, pristine, colorful and full of life.  While on our hike we watched a sea storm come to land, drenching us in “liquid sunshine.”

We sailed from St. Lucia to Martinique the day after Christmas with great expectations of French wine, French bread and chocolate croissants.   Unfortunately the yachting guide made the island sound more inviting than it actually is and our experience was a bit of a disappointment.  Try as we might, neither one of us were able to warm up to the people or places we visited.  The few coastal villages we stopped at seem down and out, even though their standard of living is supposedly higher than in St. Lucia and everything was ridiculously expensive.  But my main observation is that a general lack of country pride and soul exists. Even though it was New Year’s week, we saw little in the way of local celebration. 

We anchored in one of Martinique’s prime tourist’s area so we could go ashore to celebrate New Year’s Eve and Michael’s birthday.  When I went ashore to see about reservations the woman said no problem, it was a set price of 250 Euro’s PER PERSON!  That is about $350 US each.  My mouth dropped and I tried to retain some sort of dignity as I excused myself saying that I would get back to her with our plans.  We stayed “at home”, made dinner, played some cards and enjoyed the resort’s music and midnight fireworks display.

Just as we were heading north to leave the island we made one last stop and discovered a very interesting place with an even more interesting history, St. Pierre, a town at the foot of the Mt. Pelee volcano, not far from where European settlers wiped out the last of the Carib residents in 1658.  It is said that before the last ones died they uttered horrible curses, invoking the mountain to takes its revenge.  Mt Pelee, in true Caribbean fashion, took its own sweet time, until Ascension Day, the 8^th of May, 1902.

At this time, St Pierre, with a population of 30,000, was known as the Paris of the Caribbean and was the commercial, cultural and social center of Martinique. The volcano gave plenty of warning, minor rumblings began early in April and before dawn on the 2^nd of May a major eruption covered the city with enough ash to kill some birds and animals   so why did people stay?  Governor Mouttet, on the island for less than a year, couldn’t cope with the huge responsibility of evacuating Martinique’s most important city.  He desperately wanted the problem to go away and was encouraged to sit tight with most of the planters and business leaders who would have suffered financial losses if the city were evacuated. A few individuals had the sense to leave, but for the rest the destruction of such an important city was unimaginable.

The end came on May 8^th when the side of the volcano facing St. Pierre glowed red and burst open, releasing a giant fireball of superheated gas that flowed down over the city, releasing more energy than an atomic bomb.  All that remained were smoking ruins.  An estimated 29,933 people burned to death, leaving only two survivors in the town: a cobbler who was in his cellar and a prisoner in a stone cell.  Many ruins still remain so we spent a few hours walking through the town.  It had an errie feeling, like a ghost town with people living in it.  Post-disaster buildings have been built onto old structures, so many of the new buildings share at least one wall with the past.  Two buildings remained distinguishable, the town’s elegant theater and the prison which housed the surviving prisoner.  The buildings shared a thick stone wall.

If you have not traveled extensively in the Caribbean or don’t have a clear picture in your mind of which islands belong to the Windward, Leeward, Lesser or Greater Antilles I hope this map and the following explanation will help you orient yourself to where we are and where we are going.

The West Indies, synonymous with the eastern portion of the Caribbean Islands, sweep in a huge arc, making a bridge of giant-sized stepping stones from Florida to Venezuela.  These islands are called the West Indies because when Christopher Columbus landed here (actually in San Salvador of The Bahamas) in 1492 he believed that he had reached the Indies, in Asia. Once his error was realized, Spain renamed the chain of islands from the Indies to West Indies, delineating them from East Indies of the Far East.   

The West Indies separate the Caribbean Sea from the Atlantic Ocean and are comprised of 3 main groups: the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles.  The Greater Antilles include Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti/ The Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico.  The Lesser Antilles are the much smaller islands to the southeast, where we currently are, and are divided into two groups: the Windward, and the Leeward Islands. 

The Windward Islands make up the southeastern end of the chain, from Martinique in the north to Grenada in the south.  Windward and Leeward are names given to the chain of islands by the British.  They had two concepts in mind: The Windward’s because they are located more windward to the sailing ships arriving in the New World, given that the prevailing trade winds across the Atlantic Ocean blow east to west and, in order for them to get to these southeastern islands from their currently owned Leeward Islands, they had to sail, often beating into the wind.

 We are currently in St. Lucia, near the northern most area of the Windward’s.  These islands are mere tips of a volcanic mountain range that developed along a rift in the Earth’s crust where the Atlantic and Caribbean tectonic plates collided.  The Atlantic side of the islands rises steep and sheer with pounding surf while the Caribbean side has gentle seas and beautiful beaches.

St Lucia is a lush tropical volcanic rainforest island complete with hot sulphur springs venting from two stunning Pitons which erupt skyward straight out of the sea.  The Pitons are in the southwestern end of the island, the opposite end of the high density tourist destinations along the northwestern portion of the island.  The Pitons and surrounding costal region are part of a marine preserve rich in coral gardens and reef fish. 

Anchoring is not permitted, but mooring balls are provided in a variety of locations allowing cruising boats controlled access to the preserve.   We have been anchored in front of an old converted (to beach resort) sugar mill plantation dripping with elegant charm, towering coconut palms and a pristine white sandy beach.  While here we met and spent time with a lovely British family on holiday.  The “kids” Rebecca and Neal, spent an afternoon sailing and snorkeling with us on Aphrodite while their parents remained on land with their darling little 7 month old baby.  This is one of the pleasures of our lifestyle.  We often meet people on land and end up having them join us for a day on Aphrodite, or in one case, in the dinghy, searching for the famous Blue Cave on the Greek island of Kastellorizon.

Our entire family visited St. Lucia 17 years ago, staying predominately in the northern end of the island.   4 of the group who were completing their open water portion of the scuba training made the drive along the coast and through the rainforest every day for a nearly a week.  Upon their completion, the rest of us who were already certified divers joined them for several spectacular dives in the marine preserve along the Piton’s underwater walls.  I remember it being some of the best diving I have ever done anywhere, vibrant colors, dramatic steep to sheer walls alive with coral and sea life.

We have not done any diving this trip.  Sometimes it is better to realize “that you just can’t go back”.  We have done lots of snorkeling though, WITH THE DOGS! We are quite a site… imagine 2 dogs swimming along side of us, Brisa dunking Costa’s head showing her dominance, him coming up with the look of terror on his face and trying to climb up one of our backs, Michael tossing him back into the dinghy, which is tethered to one of us, trailing along behind us, but he doesn’t like being alone in the dinghy so he cries and then jumps back into the water and the whole thing repeats itself.  We learned the dunking trick from Brisa, who used to climb up our backs.  Now we dunk her once and she leaves us alone.  Once Costa is a confident swimmer we will have to do the same with him I imagine.  

Tomorrow we will make our way back to the northern tip of the island, Rodney Bay, crisscrossing our previous tracks along this gentle side of the island.  From here we will cross the passage to Martinique, the French island just north of St. Lucia.  Our plan is to take giant steps north along the stepping stones leading to Florida.  Which islands we shall stop at are as yet undetermined.