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| A view of Admiralty Bay, Bequia from one of our hikes up the hill |
We're sitting well out from town in our usual spot off a bit
of a bluff between the two beautiful beaches: Tony Gibbons Beach and Lower Bay
Beach. It is a great place to watch the
races that will start in two days, and allows us to go snorkeling on the
reef. Those who are Facebook friends
know that I have an article published about the snorkeling published in the
Caribbean Compass for March. You can
download the Compass each month, if you wish. We find it a great read.
While looking for a last thing to do in St. Lucia last week,
and needing some exercise, Brian suggested the four of us take a bus into
Castries and explore the little mountain called Vigie. Vigie is a French word that means lookout,
and in this case the mount stands just at the entrance to Castries Harbour,
providing a great place to control the entrance both for military and traffic
management reasons. The mount has
included a historic lighthouse, a major military presence, cannon and
batteries, and these days, as the entrance goes right by the end of the airport
runway, a radio station that tells ships and sailboats when they can enter port
without interfering with landing planes.
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| The lighthouse at Vigie in Castries, St. Lucia |
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| Brian at Meadow's Battery, which has bolt patterns suggesting it served a number ages of warfare. |
Our bus stopped near the far end of the runway, and we hiked
the length of the airport and on up the hill, stopping to admire old buildings
that presently house coffee shops, government offices, and foreign embassies. At the very top, we found the lighthouse and
got to talk to the radio operator, James, who's distinctive voice we have heard
for years controlling the traffic on VHF radio, channel 16. On our way down, we took a side street just
to extend the hike, and found a fantastic large old ruin that had to be a major
barracks, a cookhouse, and a latrine.
Further on, we found a major battery facing the harbour entrance. After a great exploration of all this, we
retraced our steps and noticed that there was an archives building along the
street. We also noticed (embarrassingly
late) that the other buildings and even the archives were of the exact same architecture
as the amazing ruined barracks. We
marched in, and started asking questions of the attendant. We scored a complete 1945 map of the Vigie
Mount, two well arranged history books, and a file on a well known WWII
submarine attack that sank two ships in harbour. Brian and I poured over our findings,
realizing that most of the buildings were from the mid to late 19th century,
and that the sub attack was well documented, including efforts by the Battery
and lookouts to locate the sub before, during and after the attack and to bring
revenge with no joy. On our way back to
the bus stop, we inadvertently found the war graves in the domestic grave yard,
which included four sailors from each ship sunk by the Germans in the harbour.
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| The former local troops barracks, in ruins |
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| Laurie and Brian engrossed in maps and documents |
Our camera was not up to the chore; so next year we'll
retrace our steps and document the hike properly another article for the
Caribbean Compass.
Our sail from Rodney Bay to Bequia was beautiful, and actually
was done over 3 days with stops in anchorages in Marigot Bay and Canaries along
St. Lucia's west shore. We were joined
by Lorna and Brian, and left Canaries at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, March 15th. No fish, but a lovely sail.
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| On a hike in Marigot, St. Lucia, Dawn pointing out the long windy road that she and Judy Roy walked a few years ago to pick up beer! |
Catching up with Silk Pajamas, who was in harbour was great,
and with them and Lorna and Brian, we did some hiking and a couple of great
meals ashore. One great meal was at The
Fig Tree for their "Fish Friday", which is how we celebrated Lorna's
birthday.
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| Beautiful shot of Lorna and Brian out for dinner for Lorna's birthday! Happy Birthday, Sis! |
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| Lorna and Brian displaying our FOD flag. We listen to Denis every morning by Ham radio to hear how the weather will treat us. This is our 'Friends of Denis' flag. Denis and Arlene fly a simple "D"! |
Have we kept you up to date on our banking problems? We've always been wary of being down here and
losing our credit cards or having them compromised. Well a month ago in Dominica, we were using
an ATM to get some funds when the transaction timed out. Shortly thereafter we discovered that,
although we did not get the funds, our account was debited for the
transaction. It took two visits to the
bank to convince them of the facts, and many nagging emails to get action from
our Canadian bank and the agency responsible for the international transfer (in
this case Visa, we think). Finally, they
told us last Friday that the investigation would take another month, then we'd
get our money refunded. I wrote a letter
insisting that either we were also under investigation or that they had an
awkward business plan to withhold the incorrectly removed funds from our
account for two months. I had some other
rather difficult questions regarding their accounting system and how important
confidence in their systems was. Well,
it turned out that my questions were way harder to answer than it was to give
us the money and shut us up; and within an hour the bank had responded and said
the money would be in the account shortly.
The agent actually apologized for the lag, saying that yesterday's snow
storm had resulted in a power outage.
We said goodbye to Lorna and Brian by having them over for
lunch yesterday, as they were leaving before breakfast this morning, sailing
south for Tyrell Bay, Carriacou. We had
a great hot casserole and a few brews.
We also stopped off at sundown to Kristin and Terry of Silk Pajamas, as
they also were leaving - going north back to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. So, it was quite a day yesterday, and today
we are rather alone, in a crowd of boats.
We'll almost assuredly fall in with someone before the races are over,
and then we also will head south towards Grenada and eventually haulout in
early May.
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| Rock wall that incorporates a wheel from old sugarmill machinery. Notice the green iguana sunning himself on the top. |
TECHNICAL
In Rodney Bay, we continued our upgrading by buying $1000
Canadian of galvanized chain and replacing our older chain which was tending to
fall off the windlass. The Admiral works
the fore-deck during anchoring and weighing anchor and insisted it was time for shiny new chain. We suspect that the gypsy, which is the
molded part of the Italian Goiott windlass which grabs the chain, may be worn, and therefore part of the problem;
but it is presently seized onto the windlass and will not be removed. I have acquired a can of "PB
Blaster" which Ian of Island Water World says is the best product to solve
the problem, and am spraying, tapping, torquing, and pounding on the assembly
daily. And so I dream of freewheeling
gypsies...
The toilet has received more attention. The Admiral said it was pumping hard, and adding more grease and keeping vinegar in the line night after night was not improving things. The hose was partially removed and found to be glisteningly clean. Also clean was the piston - meaning that every time vinegar is used, it may clean out the pipe but also removes all the grease. So, more grease, less vinegar, and the Admiral has to build up her arms. It just is what it is.
