- Mariposa Voyage -

February 2015 : Saint Lucie to the Dominic

Saint Lucia 01/31/15 to 02/06/15

We arrive from Cariacou at Saint Lucie. The sailing conditions are great.

Then we approach Saint Lucie with its two pitons.

We stay in Marigot bay, it is a very quiet place.
Loïc's parents came a week in Saint Lucie with some friends. They bring us good stuffs from France (champagne, sausages, cookies...).

They visit the island on their own while we are "at school" and they join us in the afternoon. We stay in this bay because it is quiet and a nice place. We spend a good time with them.
We spend a day sailing next to the pitons to admire them from the sea side.

Maël is the cowboy of the dinghy...
it has been quite a long time we are sailing...

Martinique - 02/07/15 to 02/18/15

We leave St Lucia for the Martinique. We leave in the early morning while the kids are still sleeping in order to arrive with the day light at destination.
At the "anse à l'âne", close to Fort de France, we meet Pief and Malulu (Lolo's parents) who are coming on board for a week. It is their first time on a sail boat.

For us, in Martinique we met a lot of people.
First we spend time with our old friends, Caro and Eric, who live there. It is so funny to be in a house with a lot of space, a huge bathroom, a big bed not moving....
We learned how to use the "bwa-lélé" to make a real "ti-punch" !

Pief and Malulu get used quickly to our way of life even if the first day is really rainy and there was a lot of swells at a mooring one day.

They follow our rythm with the school, the kitchen (Malulu made homemade noddles), the shower in the sea, the navigation, when we look for spare parts for the boat...

...and the meetings with the other boats Méléos, Sev'on Seas and Pti Ket because Martinique is a "big place" for the sailing boat.

There are a lot of stores and supermarkets : back to the civilisation !
We enjoy simple things like yogurt, cheese, ham...
And also we see the carnaval !

And Louise shows us her baking skills !

The Dominica - 02/19/15 to 02/25/15

At 6am, we leave our mooring at Grande Anse d'Arlet for the Dominica.
We know that Méléos, Pti Ket and Sev'on Seas are going on the same place the same day but they are leaving from Saint Pierre.

There is some wind, but it depens if there are hills or valleys around the island letting the wind blow. So we have to be really carefull.
In the Dominica canal, we are not protected by the island anymore. So the swells and the wind become stronger. We sail fast. The kids lay down. After a while they go inside because we have some breakers coming even in the cockpit!!! It is our fist time.

Then we arrive close to the coast of the Dominica and everything calms down again.
At the mooring in front of Roseau, we find our 3 friends boat arriving also.

Moments of friendship

The day after our arrival, the men are going for the clearances. Loïc is picking up Yann, Flo-flo and Aïnha, arriving from shuttle from Guadeloupe.
During this time, the moms are playing their teacher role and they are opening and closing the windows depending on the rain.
At the end of this grey morning, moms and kids are gathering on Mariposa. Then the dads and the visitors arrive and it is a improvised barbecue where everybody is bringing something to share. W-Alter joins us in the afternoon. The kids play in the water, the parents too and this "party" finishes at night.
24 persons on Mariposa never seen !!!

A few days after, Méléos organise a crepe party for the 5 boats. 24 eggs and 2 kg of flour, it means a big amount a crepes! Fortunately Pti Ket helps them to prepare the crepes.
After eating all the crepes, the 9 kiks, on "their" own boat, play game cards (Dixit, Loup Garou...). And the beautiful night finishes with Florence's ukulele on the adult's boat.

And the solidarity with our mooring neighbours is welcome.
Quentin helps us to resolve our 12V problem (really useful to charge our electronics and to get light at night !). During this time, the kids are studing....

Field trips

From Roseau, we go for a day trip on the south part of the island the 5 boats together, so it means 14 adults and 10 kids.
First stop at the south end to enjoy the view and have a foot bath in the natural "bubble bath". The bubbles come from the volcanic activities nearby.

Then we go back on our mini-buses (one for the kids and one for the adults of course !) and follow the road inside the island with some stops for a bath in the hot waters, seeing waterfalls in a really green landscape, having a lunch in a small restaurant in the middle of the vegetation.

Then everybody is sailing north to Portsmouth.
For this navigation, some kids are exchanging their place. Everybody is happy!
It is time to celebrate Louise's birthday with her friends! During the navigation on Mariposa, Louise, Aïnhoa and Cléo are backing : a chocolate cake, a banana cake and grisinis. At night everybody is gathering. Some handmade presents are given like bracelets, drawings, scrapbooking, pictures... Louise is really happy. And also the kids are having some sleepover. It is really a party time!!!

An afternoon, we go with a motor boat, the 24 of us, to discover the mangrove... and Calypso's house!

Then, some friends boat are leaving for the Guadeloupe. With W-Alter we stay a day more in order to visit the indian territory.

Some history.
Several centuries before us, the Arawaks were living in the Caraibean Islands. These people were really pacefull. They seemed to have invented the "red".
This quiet life was suddenly broken by the Caraïbes people in the XII. The Caraïbes were strong warriors.
Then the Caraïbes could have lived like this for ever with some Arawacks around if, in Europe, some navigators wouldn't discover the world...

In the XVII, the Caraïbes of the Dominica fight back really hard the English and the French.
Years after, the Dominica became English then French and the Caraïbes are setteled in the interior of the island and then parked in a reserve.

Dany, the guide of the day is really cool and makes several stops: where the 128 years old woman lived, a hibiscus flower for each girl, some coffee beans and flowers...

Dany offers us some "cassava" bread made by the indians with manioc and coco. Freshly backed it is delicious!
Then we stop in a reconstitution of an old indian village. In Caraïbe, Dominica was called Waitukubuli.
And Kubuli is the name of the local beer!

We also see a coco fabric. And Dany explains us how to open a coco without any tool. Impressive!