We awake every morning to the sound of the town bell ringing
out the hour. Sometimes we make an
early trip into the township for “un Bagette et deux cafe crème”. We stroll the quaint main street, with
its many fruit and vege stalls and suss out what we might need to go with our
bagette for lunch.
One morning we make our way to the beautiful 56ft classic
yacht to our new friend Susie whose personality is reflected in the yachts name
“Spirited Lady”. Gary is here to
help with her Raymarine navigation instruments, but I am here to play with her
two wonderful Spaniels and chat with the two Finish girls who are crewing on
the boat for a few months. Gary
manages to fix the instrument issues and we are invited back for happy hour
that night.
We make our way into the town mid afternoon to get ourselves
a bottle of the French wine to take along with us to happy hour. The French islands in the Caribbean
have interesting opening hours, in the morning from 7 until 1ish, then opening
again at 4ish til late. We think
we have timed our trip right, at about 4.30 but hadn’t allowed for the fact
that it was Sunday and the shops don’t open again for the afternoon.
We make our way to the Spirited Lady not quite empty handed,
only a few cans of Coke Zero, which are surprisingly well received by the
Finish girls. We have a wonderful
night talking boats, living aboard, pets and hurricanes. We decide to take the girls’ advice and
head to the Pizza place for dinner that night. The girls’ had been there the night before and had rave
reviews. We are asked to attempt
to tell the pizza lady that we were sent by the three women who had visited the
previous night and thought the pizza was wonderful. Gary considers how he might say this in French. He comes up with “Trois Frem, Tres
Bein”. We all laugh at how this
could be taken much the wrong way.
Another morning, we decide to visit the Jardin Botanique
(Botanical Gardens). After a
failed attempt in bad French to ask the free shuttle to pick us up (it never
arrived), we decide to walk. It
was only 1.5km, how hard could it be?
Well, straight uphill in the sauna that is the Caribbean, with a chest
cold, it wasn’t the best idea. But
we made it, me only barely coughing and spluttering. The walk up wasn’t all bad, I found a little ginger
kitten under a car by the side of the road. I attempted to coax it out, but it was too interested in
chasing it’s imaginary friend under the car. I tried with my best pleading eyes to ask Gary to let me
keep it, but he cold-heartedly said no, and we left the little kitten to
continue its adventures.
The Botanical Gardens weren’t too bad either. As well as beautiful flowers, rock
pools and waterfalls, there was also the odd bird.
One morning, after our cafe crème, we headed up the river
into the forest to attempt to find the waterfalls and rock pools. We find many beautiful pools along the
rushing river, but none that fit the guide book’s description. We bathe in a pool under the rainforest
awning nonetheless. It could have
easily been New Zealand, apart from the heat. Gary attempts again the following day and after a further
hour up the gorge than we had first attempted, he thinks he found it.
No comments:
Post a Comment