From Ste. Anne, Martinique

Act III is happily anchored at Ste. Anne, Martinique. on the south coast. Martinique has by far the highest standard of living of its neighbors, with half the annual income provided by France. We drove to volcano Pelee, in the north, and encountered real traffic on real highways and passed real super-stores, with not a single goat on any road. Cheese, wine, bread--all the food, actually--and clothing are exquisite, and French is slowly returning to the top of the language heap in my brain.

Paul Shumway and Mary Beth Lambert, crew-par-excellence and our mules for electronics and drugs (Rx), flew to meet us in St. Lucia in late November. We cruised south to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, particularly enjoying Tobago Cays, where we swam with turtles. Thanksgiving dinner was dorado sushi that Paul caught--manfully landing it aboard while Bill tried to slow the boat, which spiked up to 10.5 kts. while flying our spinnaker--and frothy fruit daiquiris decorated with umbrella straws that Mary Beth brought with them. Special homemade brownies sent us off on a holiday parade around the deck singing "Iko, Iko". Paul brought his travel guitar and serenaded us many evenings.

St. Vincent is a poor island whose largest agricultural export is ganja--you can see the plants alternating with bananas trees as you sail along the coast. Many cruisers and our guide book recommend caution when stopping in St. Vincent harbors, explaining how to avoid hassles from the local boat boys who approach your boat several miles out and want to sell you stuff, or pay them to use shabby moorings, or pay them to protect your boat from other locals. Chateaubelaire was singled out a place to lock everything up and think twice about leaving your boat untended. Since Hurricane Tomas recently wreaked havoc on the crops of northern St. Vincent--making locals even more desperate, we were wary when we put our anchor down in the stunningly beautiful anchorage, even more alert for trouble since we were the only boat present. Immediately a small kayak left shore and headed toward us. Uh oh.

Well, we can personally report on the current situation in Chateaubelaire, St. Vincent: George, 15 and small for his age, greets your vessel, floats around and chats you up for 1/2 hour, does not ask for anything but accepts a coke, leaves you alone then returns the next morning to bring you bananas and asks you to sign his journal, in which he's collecting the names of all the boats that visit. That's it. Pretty scary.

We unwittingly created an official incident in St. Lucia when we dropped Paul and Mary Beth off in a town near the airport at the south of the island, to save them a long expensive taxi ride from our intended destination of Rodney Bay in the north. P & MB had no problem checking in and out with Customs and Immigration (C&I) at the airport, but when Bill and I came to C&I at Rodney Bay, with our papers from St. Vincent showing we had left with 4 persons, they immediately seized Act III and our passports, because a vessel is not supposed to discharge any crew until all have cleared in together. The Customs boat very publicly escorted us in from the anchorage to the marina, where we were famous while we stayed for 5 days (at their expense), waiting to hear our fate...the offense is punishable up to $5,000. Each day we were told by the local Rodney Bay Customs man that we would have information the next day (we're quite sure the local office was scheming to secretly get us to pay money to them directly). Eventually we were instructed to taxi to the main office 10 miles away and meet with a superior official, who was extremely fair and reasonable. It was clear to him that we had intended no harm so he gave us a short lecture on the regulations, and sent us on our way with no fine. When we returned to our local office to get our passports back, the female Immigration officer, who knew the entire story and who had seen us come to the office every day, slammed our passports onto her desk and growled that she was refusing us entry. Huh? She cut off our explanations with "You must leave immediately!" and yelled again at Bill when he finally said, OK, if you'll give us our passports we'll go. "YOU don't tell ME what to do. I'LL tell YOU when I'm finished. YOU sit down over there." The other officers in the room only looked at the wall or the backs of their hands as she ranted away. She (Agent 601) was the most rude public official we have ever come across--ever. So we left (not immediately...it was late in the day and somewhat unsafe to arrive at a new harbor after dark. Agent 601 didn't care when we expressed this concern, but also didn't look for us in the anchorage that night, maybe because Immigration's boat was owned by the marina and the marina manager was firmly, angrily on our side.)

When we spent some time at the anchorage in Rodney Bay, St Lucia, awaiting Paul and Mary Beth, we found it a charming place. Two weeks later, Agent 601 made it much less charming: she needs to be transferred to a non-public position. One thing we ate in St. Lucia that we've not seen anywhere else is stuffed boxfish, from a woman selling roasted goodies from her grill on the street. The boxfish is split on the belly side, filled with a fish and bread stuffing, and a few morsels of tender white boxfish near the spine were a delicious surprise. Another great experience we had at Pigeon Island State Park, Rodney Bay--before we became undesirable aliens--was finding an outstanding jazz group, InXS, who play a regular Sunday night gig at Jambe de Bois (Wooden Leg) Restaurant. When the band leader, Ricardo, disscovered Bill was a drummer, Ricardo insisted that Bill "bless his drums" by sitting in. Ricardo called for the tune, Stella by Starlight, which Ricardo renamed "Heidi By Starlight," and when Bill did not embarass himself or Ricardo on that number, a second tune was insisted on. Ricardo claimed Bill as his soul brother, and we were disappointed that Agent 601 required us to leave on a Saturday before we could share another night with InXS.

The holidays here in Martinique (where we easily handled the self-check-in by computer and no fees) are celebrated with lots of fireworks and music; the sounds travel well across the water and keep us entertained aboard (sometimes with great groaning on karaoke night)s. And when our neighbors dinghy home in the evening, our whole house rocks and rolls. Hope that doesn't happen in your neighborhood.

We wish all our famiy and friends a new year full of health, laughter and love.
Pictures: http://picasaweb.google.com/heidiberger2/StLuciaToTobagoCaysWithPabloAndMacbeth#