After a rolly evening at anchor, with the wind against current effect causingTrilogy to toss back and forth, Trilogy settled to a gentle rock throughout the night. We headed ashore to explore D’Arlet, but no sooner had we tied up the tender than we were on a local bus heading back to Diamant Bay, to visit the Anse Cafford Memorial.
The story goes like this: 8 April 1830 (exactly 148 years ago, as I write) a ship anchored in Cafford Cove, which is considered a dangerous part of the coast. This was observed from shore, but given the huge swell, there was no way to warn the captain except by signals that were not needed. At 23:00 the ship foundered and sinister cries shattered the silence. Immediately slaves were deployed to help with a rescue and witnessed a large number of people in the raging sea and others clutching the mast. At dawn the next day, 46 dead bodies were retrieved and 86 ‘captives’ were saved, who were all Africans. The memorial is in memory of those unknown victims of the slave trade and in celebration of human brotherhood. Set on the cliff above the cove, 15 sculptured forlorn figures stand sentinel, heads bowed, facing the sea. A graphic of a similar ship to the one that sunk depicting the way slaves were shackled shoulder to shoulder below decks with no more than a body length to rest in, was a shocking reminder of the inhumane treatment slaves suffered even before they reached the cane fields.
From here we walked down the road to the cafe on the beach. It was around 11:00 and we all settled into Ernest cafe, right on the beach, happily sipping some cooling drinks. This was such a perfect setting, we decided to miss the 12 noon bus back to town and stay a while soaking up the magnificent atmosphere of the French rustic cafe, filled with art posters from Paris galleries and a refreshing sea breeze wafting through the open shuttered windows. The restaurant served meals from midday and so, we found ourselves being treated to a delicious French cuisine lunch, cooked for us by Ernest. It took us a while to realise that a man sitting on the cafe verandah in a soft pink shirt and cream trousers in his 60’s, was in fact Ernest. He later donned an apron and told us he was honoured to cook for visitors from a land so far away! One of the gems of travel!
We headed off down the road to the next bus stop, working up quite a sweat in the process. We calculated the bus would arrive on the hour, but that came and went and we started to wonder if a bus would come. We spoke in our best French to some young boys who said ‘only bus AM’! It was Saturday and maybe the French take a different approach to their weekend services. A group conference was called and the decision was to walk back to Ernest and ask if he could call a taxi. He was very obliging and tried many friends and eventually a guy arrived to take us back to D’Arlet. He headed off in the wrong direction for some kilometres which was a bit unnerving, but eventually he turned and made a Uturn and we all were relieved. It seems that there is some rule about the direction of traffic flow after noon on Saturday.
Back at Les Anses D’Arlet, the sun was shining and the white sand beach was quite crowded. For those of us wearing a swimsuit, a cooling swim was next on the agenda, but as there was no change facility available, some of us had to wait. The little village which has a picturesque church at the end of the jetty has magnificent mountains towering behind it with the foothills a lush green. All shops were closed and the town was otherwise quiet. On return to Trilogy we all had another swim and the skipper decided we would stay the night. More rock ‘n roll and more evangelical French babble was the evening’s entertainment while we enjoyed a second small meal of leftover lasagne. After our wonderful day, we were more than content.
Not long after breakfast, we motored away from L’Anse D’Arlet to Anse Dufour, a picturesque small fishing village with a white sandy beach and lots of pretty bougainvillia blossoms. Being Sunday, there were plenty of locals already on the beach, but the snorkelling is what was beckoning us. We headed across the bay and followed a series of sharp drop offs which was home to a myriad of fish and coral. One cave formation had a large school of small fish hanging about in its narrowest section which provided lots of fascination and photographic moments. Later swimming to shore, we walked the beach and took in the scene. We noticed at midday the beach almost cleared and it we presumed they had all headed for the beach front restaurant. We settled for a tasty ham and salad wrap followed by a bit of free time in the afternoon. More swimming but this time the stingers had been stirred up by multiple small craft churning the water. One dive boat full of snorkellers shocked us by ‘dumping’ the novice snorkellers in the middle of the bay before the anchor was set. Then the anchor was not laid out properly and the boat was drifting through the middle of the snorkellers. We knew where the good coral was in the bay and these day trippers had clearly not been told where to go, as they were only seeing the grassy seabed where they stayed. We became alarmed as the boat continued to drift towards us and the engine had not been started on the dive boat. We all arrived on deck clutching our fenders to protect Trilogy should a collision occur. Thankfully it didn’t but we did not rest easy until all the fledgling snorkellers were back on board and the boat departed, with us staring in dismay. The day ended with the usual sundowners in the cockpit followed by a tasty chicken and vegetable with rice dish, thanks to Caroline.
The day dawned and it was the skipper’s birthday. Peter had organised a H-a-p-p-y B-i-r-t-h-d-a-y song to start the day and put a smile on the dial. Our planning had been to move to Fort de France for a special lunch but the skipper overruled this plan, saying he did not want to be in a ‘city’ and would rather remain in Anse Dufour. We prepared a cooked breakfast of baked Spanish eggs, but we could only imagine sipping the French champagne! Peter had prepared two loaves of bread for baking and by morning tea time we were tucking into delicious fresh wholemeal bread. The local fishermen were busy casting their nets and we got a close up view of the process. Two small boats work together, firstly by doing fast wide circles of their proposed area to net. Then dried reeds are dropped on the surface (presumably for burley) then the nets are laid out in the circular pattern and the second boat is holding the start point. Once laid out, they start to haul the nets in, firstly pulling out and tossing back any fish too small. After a while one man gets in the water to herd the fish away from the gap and another beats the surface with a long stick, before the final retrieval of the catch. From what we had seen, there were not many good sized fish in the bay, so what we saw was that the catch consisted of a load of hand span size fish, which felt quite sad and wrong!
The skipper mounted a dinghy expedition along the coast to explore the next few bays and to snorkel our way back along the interesting looking sections. The water was clear and the snorkelling excellent but the dreaded stingers were still around. We had worked out that the floating weed was probably the source of the stingers, which we could at least do our best to avoid. We watched a turtle dive deeply to a large ‘chimney pot’ coral and appear to rub itself back and forth along the top edge and feed on the internal surface. Squid were also spotted swimming in formation and numerous schools of different sized fish were happily grazing on the coral drop offs.
Peter had used his best French to make a dinner booking at the beach side restaurant. He reported that he had either booked for 7 people at 6 or 6 people at 7! Late in the afternoon, a local fisherman came alongside and speaking only French, made it somehow clear to those on board that he wanted us to move as he would be fishing the bay at night. We recalled that the pilot had warned that you need to be prepared to move if asked to by the fishermen. The skipper was off on a long snorkel and by the time he got back, the light was falling and it was a nuisance to have to relocate, especially as our dinner lans were in Anse Dufour. We lifted the anchor and were fortunate enough to find a suitable spot to anchor in Anse Noir, the bay next door. Before long we were all in the tender and making our way to the jetty. No sooner had we locked the tender chain than a huge shower of rain appeared from nowhere. We had a steep set of stair to climb in order to get back across the headland to Anse Dufour and with torches and rain gear to pull out, we all got quite wet. That wasn’t the end of the problems...the restaurant was closed and the woman that Peter had spoken to earlier in the day, just shook her head at him! After checking Google Maps for alternate restaurants and finding none, with our tails between our legs we retraced our steps to the jetty and back to Trilogy. We can only presume she had seen Trilogy disappear from the bay and decided to close for the day!
With no birthday dinner sitting ready for us to eat back on Trilogy, there was a last minute inspiration of salmon cakes served with a lettuce and avocado salad and garlic and rosemary pita bread. Copious wine with good cheer, made a fitting birthday dinner and we all agreed that it was probably better than the restaurant would have served...but we’ll never know!