Atlantic Island Voyage: Martinique to Dominica 1999

12 February 1999

West of Martinique, heading for Dominica

The Caribbean way of life has apparently affected me as well; it looks like my last log entry was over a month ago. Despite the hubris of declaring our arrival in Tobago 2 days in advance, we did in fact arrive without incident, and it was a spectacular landfall. The northeastern end of the island is high and dramatic, but even more impressive was the presence of something we hadn't seen since leaving Flores: luxuriant vegetation, everywhere. Amazing what a little rainfall can do for a place. We cleared customs in Scarborough, a charming little port town, with colorful buildings straggling up steep hills and loud Calypso, steel drum, church music and Reggae blaring from various places at all hours. Scarborough is also home to the first Kentucky Fried Chicken we have seen since Farmington, as well as the nastiest set of Immigration officers on the planet. We were pleasantly surprised to find old friends from earlier in the trip here, with whom we did a great rainforest hike and nightly sessions at the Kingswell Inn Pub. We caught up on sleep as well, and restocked the larder with a stunning array of fresh fruits, some of which we'd never heard of.

Joel helped our friend Roland, on Luna Azul, sail his boat down to Store Bay at the southern end of the island, and got some nice video footage of Tammy Norie sailing in convoy. Roland had been stuck in Scarborough for a month with engine troubles and needed a change of scene. Store Bay is the only conventionally touristy part of the island, with a long stretch of white sand beach and numerous hotels. We stayed a couple of days to do some snorkeling, and had a fabulous turkey dinner aboard, courtesy of Roland.

Next we worked our way up the north coast, against wind and current, to Man of War Bay and the town of Charlotteville. This is the NW corner of Tobago, and a different world. Charlotteville is a tiny, picturesque fishing village nestled into a deep cut in the mountains and surrounded by rain forest. Great hiking all around, lots of interesting birds. Then on to Anse Bateau Bay, where we planned to rendezvous with Connie. This is a tiny bay at the northeast corner of the island, completely exposed to the trade winds but protected from the swell by a string of reefs and small islands. While waiting for Connie to arrive, we went into dive camp mode; Shifra got her Open Water Diver certification, and Joel and I did the Advanced Open Water course. This is said to be one of the great diving spots of the world, and we would be inclined to agree: thriving coral reefs, the largest brain coral in the Caribbean, teeming fish life, and a fair sampling of exotics, like Shifra's manta ray. We each did about 8 dives, and lots of snorkeling and free diving from the boat. Joel worked on his lobster-hunting skills. We had a great visit with Connie, who in addition to her delightful self brought a prodigious package of essential supplies, like books, Monty Python CD's, tapes of This American Life, and the latest issues of Funny Times. Enough stuff to keep us laughing for months, which we need to keep us from becoming some kind of floating encounter group. We had rented a car for Connie's visit, which allowed us to check out some other rainforest and waterfall hikes, not to mention a few beaches and restaurants. This was a healthy change from our steady diet of fish life. Left to fend (and cook) for ourselves once again, I abandoned ship and went shopping in Trinidad, for solar panels and the like.Then we popped down to Scarborough to clear customs. In Scarborough, we met up with more friends unexpectedly: Ziggy and Bimbo on La Dengue, en route to Carnival in Trinidad; our Norwegian friend Stein on Alva, en route north from Brazil; and Ariel 4, a Swedish family with 3 sons making a 3-year circumnavigation. These were all boats we had spent time with in Madeira and Gomera, but had not expected to encounter again. After a final celebration at the Kings Well Inn, we moved on to Grenada.

Originally, we had planned to go to Carnival in Trinidad, but decided against it. The music and costumes are supposed to be fabulous, but we kept hearing about what a dangerous unpleasant place Port-of-Spain is, and the prospect of being in a crowded anchorage with 1,000 other boats, for the privilege of roaming the streets with hordes of drunken revelers just didn't seem like our cup of tea on closer reflection.

We had a pleasant overnight run 80 miles to Grenada, where we hoped to haul the boat and do a little bottom painting. That din't work out, but we did get our propane tanks refilled, and now we are moving on to Dominica to meet our friends Bill and Felicity from home. While some would be horrified at our casual passing by of the Grenadines, St. Lucia and Martinique itself, we are drawn to a different sort of island. Dominica, like Tobago, has spectacular mountains and rain forest, great diving, and a minimal tourist industry because of the lack of good beaches and protected harbors. The guidebooks describe it, in their patronizing way, as an "ecotourist destination", or sometimes they just say it is "primitive".

So, we primitives here on our scruffy little wooden boat are thrashing northward at the moment, reefed down and close-hauled into a 20-knot northeasterly wind, bound toward Roseau, island of Dominica, which is 60 miles distant. Mt. Pelee at the northern end of Martinique is standing sentinal on the northeastern horizon as the Pitons of St. Lucia slip below the eastern horizon. Shifra is on watch, playing her clarinet, the dolphins visit from time to time, and a manta somewhere is waiting for us to scratch his ears.

MR

Atlantic Island Voyage: January 1999

Captain's Log
0200 hours, 9 January 1999

Mike, navigating

Position is 11d34m north, 59d31m west by a very satisfactory fix using the moon, Capella and Canopus. Conditions are the best they have been for celestial navigation, with seas running not more than 10 feet, perfectly clear skies, and a half moon giving enough light for a clear horizon, but not so much as to blank out the stars. The stars are a bit different down at this latitude: Polaris is very low on the horizon, and we can see both the Southern Cross and Canopus, neither of which is ever visible in Maine. This fix is consistent with yesterdays sun fix, and within 2 miles of our GPS, and puts us 57 miles west of Tobago, in good position for a mid-day landfall today, which is ideal. And a very welcome landfall it will be, although it is almost sad to watch the glass run out on this best of all possible passages, 2200 miles in 14 days, with a steady wind all the way and the proverbial flowing sheet, no significant gear failures and no injuries. Almost too good to be true; no doubt something nasty is waiting for us in Scarborough, which is where we will go to clear customs.

This run has been an interesting laboratory for observing our adaptation to motion. There was no gentle transition this time: we went immediately into steep 15-20 foot seas and 30 knot winds, which moderated only in the second week. We experienced the usual spectrum of nausea and more or less difficulty spending time below at first, which is always the case. But I was particularly struck by the more subtle effects of motion this time, not very original observations I am sure, but fascinating to contemplate nonetheless. There are other physical effects besides nausea; headache is common, as is lassitude, both in the sense of sleepiness and in the sense of great mental effort being required for tasks which are normally easy. Sleep is more fragmented and less restorative, with all of us needing more daytime sleep in the first few days. One is more susceptible to fear, and to a sense of feeling overwhelmed by it all and unable to cope with new challenges. These are particularly poignant impairments in weather conditions where frightening things occur, and crises requiring masterful coping and quick action are likely to arise. Other fairly subtle psychological effects occur, including a sort of deadening of the higher human traits: sense of humor is strikingly diminished, as is the capacity for pleasure and delight, and for creative or imaginative thought. The parallel with clinical depression is irresistible. The best description I can come up with to describe the entire constellation of changes would be "dogged coping". To be sure, some of this is purely physical challenge. For example, to heat up and then eat a can of soup in a seaway, without flinging it all over the boat or yourself, and without grievous bodily injury, is a kind of epic gymnastic feat, not unlike what the ancient Irish warriors had to pass through to join Cuchulain's band (minus the requirement to memorize poetry).

The motion-induced changes come into sharper relief as we begin to emerge into our normal states of function. The nausea improves, to be sure, but far more than that. One begins to hear spontaneous laughter again, flashes of wit. The log entries become funnier and more articulate. Appetite improves, and the food both gets and seems much better, not just fuel, as if a Norwegian palate had become French overnight. Undone tasks start to be tended to in an increasingly brisk fashion. And one begins to hear phrases like "Hey, we should try ..... sometime"; imagination returning, like spring. It is so much like what people describe as they emerge from depression or chronic illness, there must be some neurochemistry in common, although the time frame is far more compressed. Perhaps it is just that motion, like any other stress, has an depressive effect on mental function, but one that most people can adapt to and overcome in a matter of days.

And more than overcome. Perversely, motion itself can become a source of pleasure. Take the case of Bernard Moitessier, the famous French singlehander. After sailing once around the world in the Globe race, well ahead of the other competitors, he amazed the world by forgoing the prize and continuing on for another 10,000 miles to Tahiti, most of it in the rough seas of the high southern latitudes. In part, he did this because he loved the sensation of constant motion; he described a kind of hypnotic joy, and dreaded ending it by going ashore. Any lessons here? Probably not, just some random reflections from a mind reawakening to what passes for normality aboard this here barky. I hope you all have a week that is moving, but not too moving. 

MR