Video - Valley of Desolation

I put this short video together from clips I took while we were in the valley.  Amazing blend of steam, noise, boiling water, sulphur, coming up out of the ground.  the surface of the valley was even warm to the touch.

Valley of Desolation and Boiling Lake

We left SeaCats home at about 7:30 am Sunday morning along with a boat neighbor Gretchen headed for The Valley of Desolation and Boiling Lake.  We drove up toward the Trois Piton Forest, parked the van and started out on our 20 mile trek.

We walked for what seemed like forever, in and out of rain clouds, and began smelling Sulfur.  At this point we had been going uphill for more than 2.5 hours.  The clouds moved out for awhile and we caught a glimpse of the fumes/steam coming up off Boiling Lake.

 

We continued our Trek and after about another hour we entered the Valley of Desolation.  Steam, fumaroles, Sulphur, sounds of boiling water.  In the background we could also see the steam rising from Boiling Lake.

 

 

 We explored the floor of the valley and were amazed at the different colors, heat and smell.

This is a boiling vent with a coating of sulphur along the sides of the vent.  I took some short video clips while we were in the valley and will try to add them to the blog.  The sounds were incredible!

When all of a sudden appeared out of nowhere "MUD MAN".  He took the women captive, gave them a facial, served us fumarole boiled eggs, then let us go!

Set the Captives Free!

We continued our walk and finally made it to Boiling Lake.  When the wind was not blowing we were in a standing outdoor Sauna. 

 Boiling Lake

The steam and smell were incredible making it very hard to get a picture of the boiling portion of the lake.  I took some short video clips while we were in the valley and will try to add them to the blog.

We are now rested, have most of the mud off of us and our clothes and are on massive doses of Advil!

Trip to Dominica

We are now on a mooring off Roseau - about 50 ft from shore and the mooring is in 100 ft of water - watch that dropoff folks.

We had a good trip over and took a few early morning pictures of Mt Pelee' with no cloud cover on the top. 

Also on tap for tomorrow at 0700 is an all day hike with SeaCat to Boiling Lake and Valley of Desolation.  If I survive will post some photos after I recover...............

Mooring in Martinique

We spent last night, 11 Jan 2013 on a mooring at Grande Anse D’Arlet.  We had heard that the moorings had been installed but had no personal experience till yesterday.  The mooring filed was nicely laid out  with plenty of swing room between moorings.  It looked like there might be more than 50 mooring on the North side of the Bay and probably half that many on the South side.  Many people were still anchoring up close to the town dock area and that is just as onfused as before.

The mooring are good sized but do not include a pennant and are not easily lifted out of the water so that you can attaché your own.  We pulled up along side our mooring and Lesley leaned out of the stbd side gate and attached a line then walked it up to the bow.

We watched another boat come in after we were settled in and they did not have such good fortune.  The Captain drove the boat up so the lady on board could pick up the mooring at the bow.  She got the boat hook on the mooring then tried to lift the mooring ball.  You could see her surprise when she could not bring the ball up.  Then the Captain came up and tried to help, still not line on the ball.  The lady then started trying to hold the mooring ball as the boat was blowing back off it.  She could not longer hold the boat hook so off it went into the bay.  The Captain then motored around in a small circle and came up short of the mooring and the  lady then played out some anchor chain.  The boat hook was drifting away and the boat was dragging down on anchor!  A fellow on a US flagged Cabo Rico 42 got into his dinghy and went over and saved the day.  Picked up the boat hook and passed it back then took a line and motored the dinghy up where he attached it to the mooring ball.  The boat then motored back up to the mooring where the lady was finally able to secure the boat to the mooring.

We figure that watching boats attempting to moor may be a local form of entertainment – sure was for us.

The mooring filed is nice and for now is free but there were many free mooring but with many more boats still at anchor.

We’re underway now headed for Roseau, Dominica.  

Today in Marin

We went ashore late this morning so that we could pick up a few boat items in the local chandlery, have lunch at a local Turkish place and stope by the stores on the way back to the boat for some wine shopping.

Our wine cellar is starting to get a distinct French look - sort of like Gregs!

Bon Apetite!

Yoles again

Each year while we are anchored near Le Marin, Martinique we see lots of local Yoles out on the water.  Most of them are single sail versions so when we saw this double sail version go by I could not resist taking a few photos.

The crew hikes out on small boards to compensate for heel - the technique looks similar to the log boats out of Oxford, MD.

The boat does not have a tiller or keel but is steered with a large stern oar.

When you watch the boats underway the crew on the hiking boards are all over the place

Martinique

We haven’t had decent WiFi since getting here so this is a consolidated post covering several days.

We finished up replacing the standing rigging (except for the fore stays) while we were in Rodney Bay Marina. It was nice to have completed that project finally.  When we left St Lucia on Tuesday there were 3 IP’s in the Marina – 2 38’s and a 37.  I borrowed a cordless drill from the folks onboard 38 Oceana and owe them a drink – they plan to move over to Martinique so hope to bump into them again.

1 Jan 2013

Our trip over from Martinique was great – started out motoring – sailed some – then motored on in to St Anne.  While we were motoring we had an unusual vibration in the drive train so suspect that the prop may have excessive growth already – will check it out later.  We arrived late in the afternoon on Jan 2^nd so anchored and had dinner – Church’s fried chicken (from St Lucia), home made coleslaw, and steamed basmati rice.  Really hit the spot.

2 Jan

I took the dingy in to the Captainiere Office and completed clearance and then stopped at Leader Price for some wine, Goats du Roam, a baguette and some lettuce.  Got back to the boat and some folks that we met 2 years ago here stopped by to say hi and invite us in to play dominoes tomorrow?  We had leftover pressure cooker pot roast with potatoes and carrots and sliced baguette with butter.

3 Jan

I checked the prop shaft alignment, adjusted the packing gland, checked transmission fluid and motor mounts and everything is OK.  Put the dive skin on and got out the long hose/scuba tank and dove on the bottom of the boat.  Lots of barnacles on the prop and weed shoe and scraped them clean.  Will check the drive train out when we move in a couple of days.  Went ashore and played Mexican train with 3 other couples.  Lots of fun as we had noted played dominoes in a very long time.

4 Jan

We decided to try out the prop/shaft and see if the noise/vibration issue had been resolved.  Picked up anchor and motored around some at higher than normal RPM.  Drive train is now fine and no unusual noise or vibration.  We reanchored and I was able to get a marginal WiFi signal from shore but just as we got comfortable a French boat came in and anchored on top of us.  We picked up anchor and decided to go ahead and move in closer to Marin so that we could do some shopping and also go ashore for lunch (Mussels at Mango Bay).

5 Jan

The chart extract image shows where we are anchored (we are the only boat here) and we have an easy dinghy ride in to town running behind the reef and along some mangroves.   

We are anchored at the Green Boat but now having a beverage ashore at the Mango Bay in Le Marin.  The rains stopped for awhile this morning so we were able to do some shopping and Lesley is now doing some Skype calls.

Windguru now shows that the weather will improve late next week so we plan to move up to Fort de France late next week then scoot on up to Roseau Dominica where I will be working on a WiFi access point.