Caribbean Journal

• Mar 18 - 19, 2005
• Mar 20, 2005
• Mar 21 - 23, 2005
• Mar 24, 2005
• Mar 25, 2005
• Mar 26, 2005

March 20, 2005

Fort Louis

Another day has started. Early this morning, I walked up the hill at the end of the beach promenade to see Fort Louis. The signs give a history of the fort including an underhanded attack by the British, which was valiantly repulsed by the French defenders and mopped up with the local Dutch garrison. the attack was over coffee. Speaking of which, I haven't seen a single Starbucks on the island.

After reconnoitering the fort, I came back and had a wonderfully crispy palmier at a patisserie along the promenade. The view from the fort gives you a much better idea about this part of the island. The island has several large salt ponds and marshes, which are quite evident when seen from the fort. The climate here is hot. The hills are mostly desert scrub, although some of them are high enough to capture rain in clouds. The temperature is very hot at midday, but moderate the rest of the time.

View from Fort Louis

At one o'clock, I signed up to go on a "regatta." The boats are 12 metres. Should be fun as long as I don't have to work. We have to pack and be out of the room by noon. Alex is coming in sometime today. He and I are assigned to the same cabin.

The cocktail party was fun. I ran into a lot of returning cruisers including Bob and Steve. I had dinner with Gary, Jim, Tim, Richard, and Jack. The food was pretty lamentable. Still, with all the guys, a good time was had by all. Jack is George's friend. I'm writing down as many people's names as I can so that I remember who they are, but it's really difficult weaving them all into the narrative.

Lee and I are all checked out. He's a very pleasant fellow. He's going to the beach today, while I'm going on the boat sail.He and I took a nice walk around Marigot this morning. He was looking for bottled water. I wanted to go back to the Internet Cafe, but it appeared to be closed. I don't really guess that I have anything that interesting to add.

Regatta. Here we are under sail. I'm the speck in the gray tank top about 2/3s of the way back on the boat. Photo is courtesy of Destin.

Well, the regatta race was a hoot - even better because our yacht won. We were sailing the Canada-2, and we actually had to do some work! Michael was my partner, and we were the main grinders. It required short spurts of furious energy. I had a blast. I also bought souvenirs for all the boys. Got that out of the way....

Happy all greased up with SPF