Tortola is a quick stop before heading home so we spent our only full day, today, diving the wreck of the Rhone. It was a large British mail boat which ran into Salt Island in the 1860s and split in two. Its bow half sits in 80’ of water and is covered with coral and teeming with life. The visibility was excellent, the water clear, and the sun beaming blue rays beneath the surface. This was our first wreck dive and we were fortunate to pick one that lets you dive through the hull. It was so much fun to maneuver around the openings and supports, with a moderate amount of spookiness. The air from our tanks filled the top of the hull that created a mirrored ceiling, an odd site underwater. There were enormous lobsters tucked away in dark crevices, the size of chubby two year old children, but much more succulent. I kid you not! Unfortunately it’s a marine park and the dive master was smart enough to not leave us alone with them.

My first thought upon landing on Tortola in the British Virgin Islands was “ooh, gotta have fish and chips”. This was satiated the next day at lunch at Pusser’s Bar & Grill. Good stuff, highly recommended. But this is where we learned about the rum of the same name. It was a 330 year old British Navy secret recipe. Each sailor was given daily rations of Pusser’s Rum to keep the men’s spirits up. It acquired a nickname when the famous Captain Nelson died fighting the battle of Trafalgar. To preserve his body they filled his coffin with the booze. By the time they got back to merry ole England they found that the rum had been drained and dranked by the crew therefore the name Nelson’s Blood. The production was stopped in 1970 and remained a secret until 1979 when the British Navy agreed to a petition to divulge the recipe for limited production.

No, really. The first sign was the oddly high number of chinese restaurants in the capital Roseau. In the downtown area, 5×5 blocks, we saw atleast 5. The second clue was all the comments from the locals consistently telling us that they own almost anything. And the final whammy was the state of the art cricket field the PR of China had donated in the capital, where 90% of the labor are chinese.

Keep in mind that the capital looks like somewhere Sally Struthers would shoot a commercial, open sewers, kids hawking fruit instead of being in school, corrugated aluminum homes, big boat in a trashed lot sitting on cement with a tarp over the top and an access hole punch out on the side, ..the works. And on the outskirts is a massive 10,000 capacity cricket field which is widely believed will never see a cricket game. And the kicker? They are in the process of converting an abandoned resort into a chinese school. Mandareole may be the most inunderstandable dialect ever. The mind wobbles.

On our travel we meet all kinds of people, each with unique stories. Life really is like a box of chocolates, you never know which nut you’re going to get.

Twice on the ferry between FdF and Anse Mitan we ran into a guy who most memorably longed to return to Los Angeles, which always enunciated with a sigh. He originally left metropolitan France as a teen to dodge the country’s military obligation, which we had never heard of prior. Apparently he spent four illegal years in NY and fifteen in LA, only to return to France for the noble reason of spending time with his family after the dissolution of the draft and amnesty to those who fled. He returned to France only to discover that he left his heart in LA. Having left he could not easily reenter and was trying desperately to go back home and to his friends. In our conversations he made numerous references to his depression and breathed a heavy sigh every time he spoke of the US, especially ahh-LA. He felt France was too tight, stifling, while the freedom he absorbed in the states could no longer comfortably fit in the confines of the French border. In fact he was in Martinique because he thought the weather would remind him more of California. He had effeminate gestures and speech that made us think that he would fit very aptly in ahh-LA. We never made proper introductions, but I felt bad because he’s trying to get into the very place we have left but still call home. Meeting people like this reminds me of how fortunate we are and how we often don’t even realize it. That seems to be a pretty common revelation in most of our travels.

We left St. Lucia May 19th for Martinique and John left for home on the 20th. Martinique is a department of France and is very much what you would expect a French island to be like, but friendlier. As civilized and developed as it was, internet was sparse and not entirely reliable. Steve’s already mentioned the keyboard issue. He actually asked the girl at the bar counter if they had a regular keyboard and she replied, “No, this is France.” Fair enough.

Most of our 13 days here were spent walking around the various coastal towns and floating around on our inflatable loungers. We became quite enamored with that latter activity actually. So much so that we lamented each day that we did not get to do so. And miss it terribly now.

One of the towns we visited was Sainte Pierre the original settlement and capital of the island until Mt Pelee exploded in 1902 decimating the town and killing all 30,000 inhabitants, the largest number of casualties by a volcano in that century and since. Well, all except for the guy in the drunk tank who was protected by the thick stone walls of his prison. Apparently he wasn’t necessarily the only survivor, but Barnum circus touted him as such. Makes for a better story without the correction. Sainte Pierre was partially rebuilt and is now a picturesque coastal town with its palm lined beach, brightly colored buildings, and Mt Pelee hovering overhead in the near distance. It was a quiet town with most of the bustling done by the tourists shuttling in their air-conditioned buses from one ruin to the next. We did our own shuffle in the blazing heat and made our away around to the see the remains of the theatre, church, and prison. They appeared to just have left the rubble where they fell and one of the pieces of the church’s arches made a nice recliner.

DAH! Were in Martinique qnd hqve crqppy inet. Qnd the keyboqrds qre qll messed up. Dqmn French! We therefore qbstqin from blogging until ze return to Dominicq next week. Happy mums dqy!

I like driving in foreign places. It’s always interesting to see the rules, attitudes and courtesies in the rest of the world. But no more current or former British protectorates. Right hand drive cars on the left hand side of the road. The left hand driving doesn’t bother me too much. It’s the right hand drive with the stick on the left that’s rough. My biggest problem was the perspective change when expected to now know where the left side of your car is when on a tight mountain road.
And that was the reality both on Dominica and here in St. Lucia. Both countries have windy mountain roads that are sometimes two lanes, but more often less. Both have bonzai taxi-bus drivers screaming through the hills. St. Lucia actually isn’t so bad; I can keep up here. But it’s like a rally race through Dominica.
My real fear has been the open sewers and drainage ditches. Both countries have gaping open ditches or concrete gutters along the road instead of shoulders. It’s a tough choice between the taxi doing a 4 wheel slide around the hairpin and the gutter. Today today we came across a nice example of what happens when you choose poorly. We’ve driven by this spot a bunch of times, so this must have happened yesterday. Sad thing is that this spot has more shoulder than most…

May 13, Dominica

We left just after six in the morning for the trailhead of the Boiling Lake and the Valley of Desolation. The trail started with steps and never really stopped, it only changed directions. I felt like I was in an M.C. Escher poster. From one of the peaks we saw our first glimpse of our goal in the distance. Then it was a long, sharp descent to the Valley of Desolation. The first sign of our nearing proximity wasn’t the smoke plumes but the smell. The sulfur springs were constantly erupting and billowing steam and hot spray into the air. The colors of the earth were a stark contrast of white, green, orange, black, blue and red. The spews were rich with minerals released from the interior of the earth as a result of tremendous pressure under foot. We hopped over steaming streams and dodged scalding vents to make our way across the valley. It was a rocky climb towards the lake and the stench of rotten boiled eggs lead the way. We knew we had arrived before we ever saw the lake by the clouds of steam rising from the crater. The steam created such a thick fog that we actually couldn’t see much of the lake as first. As the wind passed through we finally caught glimpse of the boil in the middle of the lake. It looked like a hot tub for Godzilla and Thomas told us the water temp was 250C and it was 150ft deep, 2nd in size only to one in New Zealand. On the way back we stopped to soak in one of the flowing mineral springs before the arduous journey back. Ugh, my knees are aching just thinking about it.

It’s taking some convincing to get Steve to agree to let me put this on the blog and the constant reassurance that it’s not out of spite or anger has won over his guilt.

The date was May 9th, we were in Dominica and had a pleasant hike to the Middleham falls in the morning. The bus system here is a network of collective vans. We took one to the dive shop and I am standing outside holding onto the van for balance over the open sewer. Just as I am about to ask the driver how much for the ride Steve hops out of the van and slams the door on my hand. My three fingers are trapped at the knuckles, lodged between the panel and closed door. I am in shock that this has actually happened and I can see the look of horror on the other passengers faces. Some of them even rise out of their seats to get a better stare at what the tourists are up to. Steve realizes what’s happened as I yell in pain and he unlatches the door to free me. I’m thinking pain means I can still feel them, and yes, they are still attached. Luckily only the index finger has a deep gash and the others are bruised. Now I can add “you slammed the door on my fingers” to the existing “you left me at the Straits of Magellan” guilt trips.

These are the mountain shrimp to be found in Dominica. The guy we met would dive under and bring them up to Mary at the edge of the pool. Mary’s job was to open his Louis Vitton purse and stuff them inside while making sure none of the other prisoners escaped. She only screamed once.

The waterfall over the pool is pretty spectacular. I would have enjoyed swimming under it a bit more if I wasn’t worried the whole time about having my toes nipped off.

I went diving in Dominica the day before we left. Most diverse coral life that I’ve seen in one spot. There were barrel sponges big enough for me to swim into. I didn’t, of course, because that would be bad. It seems that coral around the world is dying quickly as the oceans are warming up, being polluted, etc. (hippie story at: http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/041106EA.shtml) The coral in Dominica was generally in great shape with brilliant colors, but there were a few fields of lifeless white coral. Very sad if we won’t have much living coral in another 100 years. Here’s a couple big (10-12″) trunkfish I caught snuggling:
Right after diving, Mary, her brother John and I jumped another boat to whalewatch. Turns out that Dominica is home year-round to female sperm and humpback whales. We saw 6 female and calf sperm whales, including one grouping of three that we followed for a good half hour. They get crazy wrinkles on their back with age. We got close enough to one to have the guide prove to Mary it was a 40-50 year old whale, not a giant wrinkled pickle. Here’s another taking a dive:

We jumped over here to St. Lucia on Monday and spent our first day sleeping on a beach at Rodney Bay. The beach has a few resorts on it with jetskis to rent and parasailing boats coming in now and then. But it was reasonably quiet. Until the Fruit Man came calling. You can’t make stuff like this up. It starts with the blowing of the conche. Then you notice a ratty dinghy with all kinds of tattered flags coming right at you. Which is fine, except you’re on a floatie trying to nap and he’s got an outboard and a machette. Anyway, John picked up some mangos just to be funny and they turned out to be some of the best we’ve had.

More of a chicken of the sea than monster of the deep…