Adventures with David & Gail

Vessel Name: Wildest Dream
Vessel Make/Model: Caliber 47 LRC
Hailing Port: Dallas, Texas
Crew: David & Gail Dodgen
Home Page: http://www.sailblogs.com/member/wildestdream47
15 June 2013 | Dinner Key Marina, Miami, FL
20 May 2013 | Dry Tortugas Nat'l Park, Florida
18 May 2013 | Dry Tortugas, Florida
14 May 2013 | Puerto Isla Mujeres, Q. Roo, Mexico
10 May 2013 | Lighthouse Reef, Belize
05 May 2013 | Guatemala
01 May 2013 | Ram Marina, Rio Dulce, Guatemala
26 April 2013 | Livingston, Guatemala
23 April 2013 | French Harbor, Roatan, Honduras
20 April 2013 | Le Bight, Guanaja, Honduras
18 April 2013 | Vivorillo Cays, Honduras
10 April 2013 | Providencia, Colombia
01 April 2013 | Providencia, Colombia
23 March 2013 | San Andres
22 March 2013 | Off Nene's Marina, San Andres, Colombia
12 March 2013 | Red Frog Marina. Bastimentos
10 March 2013 | Boquete, Chiriqui, Panama
10 March 2013 | Cruiser Casa, Panama City
10 February 2013 | Panama City, Panama
02 February 2013 | Red Frog Marina, Bocas del Toro, Panama
Recent Blog Posts
15 June 2013 | Dinner Key Marina, Miami, FL

My how time flies!

My how time flies! – Well, I must confess to being a little overwhelmed and getting mixed up into the real world pace again faster than expected. Here it is mid-June, we have been back in Miami for almost 3 weeks, back in our house for almost a week, and I have not updated the blog. My sincere apologies! [...]

20 May 2013 | Dry Tortugas Nat'l Park, Florida

Back in the US, kinda!

Back in the US, kinda! - We are on US soil! There is no immigration or customs office out here so there is no way to clear into the US. So we are kinda' illegal aliens! But we are flying our Q flag and no one seems to care. Or maybe they don't know what it means. Anyway, we are getting closer to [...]

18 May 2013 | Dry Tortugas, Florida

Isla and beyond!

Isla and beyond! - We stopped in Isla Mujeres to officially clear into Mexico, wait out some weather and do some provisioning. Actually US immigration really doesn't care about where we started from to reenter the US, and they don't ask for a Zarpe so we could have gone on to Florida without stopping [...]

14 May 2013 | Puerto Isla Mujeres, Q. Roo, Mexico

The last flag!

The last flag! - Having skirted along the outer cays and atolls of Belize, we headed north to Mexico. I went to the flag bag that we have been using for the whole trip to store our courtesy flags for each country and it only had one flag left. It was the Mexico flag. All the others had been used and [...]

10 May 2013 | Lighthouse Reef, Belize

Belize it or not!

Belize it or not! - Sorry. I could not resist! We planned an 18 month trip and we are now into the 18th month so it is time to head home. We have about 800 miles to go with Belize and Mexico yet on the itinerary. We could go nonstop or we could take our time. Or we could stop a few places as we [...]

05 May 2013 | Guatemala

Guate!

Guate! - The ride into Guatemala City, or Guate for short as the locals call it, takes you along the Rio Montagua river valley as it winds is way up to the mountains. The Rio Dulce is at sea level and Guate is at about 6000 ft. so the climb is steep at times. Plus it's mostly a rural two land road [...]

Martinique proper!

02 July 2012 | Fort de France, Martinique
David
Martinique proper! – Well. Just when you think that Columbus had run out of saints to name the islands after, he comes up with another. Even though Martinique is a French island and the name sounds French, the book says that Columbus actually named it after St. Martin on his 4th expedition in 1502. He didn’t know at the time it was already named Madinina – Island of Flowers – by the Caribs. But it wasn’t until the 1600’s that the French set up the first European colony and claimed the island for France. Britain and France had a lot of interest in and fought over the island in the early 1800’s but it has been French ever since.

As for famous people from Martinique, the most known is Josephine de Beauharnais who was born in Trois Ilets and of course became better known as the wife of Napoleon. More about her birthplace later.

As for our trip, we left St. Pierre and headed down the west coast for the short hop to Fort de France, the capitol and main city. Currently, Martinique has about 400,000 residents and almost ¼ live in the city. It’s like any other big city. In fact it looks a lot like Paris but with no river, tall tower, or cathedral in the middle. Well, at least all the signs are in French and there are a lot of Renaults running around!

We anchored in a little area in the port just off the peninsula where the original fort is located and still being used as a military base. It is right in downtown and, as you would expect, the port is a busy place. We also found our friends, Adri and Daryl on Leila, anchored there as well. The cruise ships dock here in high season and the duty free shopping is right there, along with the bus and taxi stands. This being low season there were no ships but it still bustled with music, traffic, a wedding in the park, booths for vendors and the local FM radio station, and people walking everywhere!.

We had the part for our air compressor ordered and shipped ahead to FedEx at the airport being held for pick up. It was a Friday afternoon and we didn’t want to wait until Monday so first thing we grabbed a taxi and took off to find the airport. Piece of cake. The driver knew exactly where the FedEx office was and within 5 minutes we were back in the taxi headed back to town. FYI, we replaced the part and the compressor is working again. Yeah!

Saturday, we wandered around town a little in the morning. It really was a good anchorage except for the ferries going back and forth all day throwing a huge wake as they went by which rolled WD each time. So we were ready to leave maybe sooner than we wanted.

Just across the bay was a little inlet called Trios Ilets (three islands) with the anchorage backed up to a beautiful golf course. We ducked in behind one of the islands and anchored in mud but with good holding. Thank goodness because the winds and rain came which could have put us on the back nine of the course! I don’t like these types of anchorages so we didn’t stay long even though the night might have been the calmest of the entire trip.

Before we left, we took a quick walk around the village and tried to find the Museum for Josephine’s birthplace. Remember? We found an old, unkempt floral garden/pic-nic park and a horse farm but no museum. It was a pleasant walk but we were disappointed.

Next day we went around the point to Anse Mitan to get a better and safer anchorage. This area was one of the first to cater to the tourists and is still a major stopping place. It has a small marina inside a shopping plaza called Creole Village. We spent some time here shop-looking and actually Gail bought a nice water color print of a flower she had seen first in the Botanical Gardens in Deshaies. Also had a good lunch of BBQ ribs and of course some ice cream.

We still wanted to get a feel for the island so we rented a car for the next day and went exploring. First thing we went back to the area where the Museum for Josephine was supposed to be and as the French say “Viola!” there is was. A few hundred yards further than we had gone before. But closed on Mondays! And as the French say “C’est la vie!” Even though she only lived in the house until she was 16, the museum has been dedicated to her life.

On our way out of Trois Ilets, we stopped at the Pottery Village. A factory there makes all sorts of pottery roof shingles and decorative bricks. We did not take the full tour, but could see that it would be interesting. There were also a number of nice craft shops there where Gail enjoyed a quick look.

We went on south to Marin, the home of the largest marina I have ever seen geared almost entirely to sailboats. We had ordered another part for the transmission shifter and it had arrived the day before so we were in luck and picked it up only to find we could not use the old shift handle and so we started another investigation about what to do. Luckily, the old one is still mostly working so this is not critical.

Up the east coast along the banana route. Bananas everywhere! All wrapped in their big blue bags to keep the bugs off. Then we ended up out on the peninsula sticking into the Atlantic and at the ruins of the Chateau Dubuc. I got to thinking that if he were a Duke and his nickname had been Duke, he would have been Duke “Duke” Dubuc! Anyway, probably not.

The ruins were on a hillside overlooking the Atlantic and were well maintained. It had been an active plantation for almost 100 years from the 1670s. This was different than most of the plantations we had seen because the sugar mill had been worked with livestock and not windmills. Also most of the main buildings foundations were still partially there especially the main house.(See photo gallery)

We decided to take a different route back through the mountains which took us back to Fort de France, by the airport and back to Anse Mitan. We had a nice dinner in the Creole Village at a restaurant with good internet.

The next day we planned to move on around the west coast to some little anchorages and then back to Marin and the marina area to re-provision and clear out to St. Lucia. More on that leg in the next blog.
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