Friday, January 11, 2008

Ogling the Caribbean from the "Eyes Of The World" by a Chain Flaker in Training

Jim's Comment: Another guest blog from my Uncle Steve

VHF Radio: "Eyes of the World, Eyes of the World switch 14"

My first adventure in the Lesser Antilles began when my America Eagle ATR72 TURBOPROP (travelling panache to give the illusion of experience) flight from San Juan landed in front of a solitary building that looked very much like Aunt Pearl’s cinder block house in the mountains of south central Pennsylvania. So this is Melville Hall (the name of the airport in Dominica) I thought.

I then arranged with Fred (I dunno, short for Freddo?) my taxi driver to take me to the police station in Portsmouth explaining to Fred that I wasn’t a parole violator or otherwise wanted but instead my nephew had instructed me to meet him there as the easiest destination in Portsmouth that could be described without a chance of confusion.


This trip of an hour that required crossing the mountainous northern neck of Dominica from west to east allowed me to view the beautiful natural beauty of Dominica



The Sisserou Parrot, probably the oldest species of Amazon parrot in the world, is protected and it is found only in Dominica.

The plant honored as the National Flower is a wild one known scientifically as Sabina Carinalis, commonly known as Carib Wood or Bois Caribe, it was legislated as the National Flower in 1978.

and at the same time the devastation wrought by hurricane Dean, the third most intense Atlantic hurricane (tropical cyclone in the Caribbean) ever to make landfall.

It also gave me a perspective of the poverty of the island that does not have the beaches that are so necessary to develop the beach resorts that attract so many tourists’ dollars to the Caribbean.

Interestingly in spite of its poverty the Dominicans (the people of Dominica not the Republic nor the order) have an excellent longevity.



"To us, she is the oldest person in the World, Elizabeth "Pampo" Israel, Born: January 27, 1875!"

Arriving in Portsmouth my expectations based on the many different Portsmouths I have visited in the English speaking world were let down to find a very third world looking town. (But then again Dominica is Creole French speaking.) Fred pulled up to the police station, which as far as I was concerned could have just as well been a bar, and there was Jim sitting outside.

Jim’s timing introduced one of the many skills of Jim and Rick had honed on the sea and on the land in the Caribbean, i.e. being able to calculate the timing of a series of events which could easily be interrupted by all kinds of variables, such as the weather, inefficiency, animals on the road etc.

Jim then with a fluidity of motion (which also became typical of so many series of actions that Jim and Rick performed from sailing to cooking to cleaning out the plumbing [the most fluid of all], gave me a hug, took my bags, pointed me in a direction to walk with him to the dingy, lowered himself in the dingy, positioned the dingy so I could lower my bags and then myself into the dingy (at the best angle to prevent me from falling in the water in despite my clumsiness), start the outboard, head for the Eyes, position the dingy so that I could step onto the Eyes and lift my bags to me. All of the above actions involving the dingy introduced me to a very important dimension of the sailing life, that being the “dingy.” As a result I am contemplating making my fame and fortune by writing (after more dingy research) the definitive book on dingydom,

especially since I have been told that my idiosyncrasies are well suited for such a topic. For intellectual property protection reasons I am putting Jim, Rick, Margit and Chris on notice of my intentions to also cover “dogs in dingydom.” (Margit and Chris are the extremely talented and charming friends of Jim and Rick who are sailing their own single-aluminum- hull [sailing penache to give the illusion of experience])

Once on Eyes my trip in Dominica paced that of Sue’s as she has described it in her blog and picks up again in Martinique.

Sue’s and Sam’s last day on the Eyes was spent in St. Pierre which was destroyed by Mont Pelée’s infamous eruption in 1902 in the worst volcanic disaster of the 20th Century when the eruption caused about 26,000 to 36,000 casualties in St Pierre including people from neighboring villages who had taken refuge in the supposedly safe city, except for one man, a prisoner by the name of Louis-Auguste Sylbaris who was protected by the walls of his solitary confinement (how’s that for irony or maybe masonry), who survived. He later toured the world with the Barnum and Bailey Circus.
So naturally Jim, Rick, Sue, Sam, Margit, Chris and I decided to risk the wrath of the volcanic god of Mont Pelée by climbing the last 1,000 feet of altitude of the Mont. Even though such risk may have been satiated by his emotional outburst of over ninety years ago, the risk may have been exacerbated by Chris, Margit, Sue and Sam picking carrots growing from its slopes which could have been considered by said god tantamount to pulling ear hair out of his ear. (It’s this ear hair thing which tipped the scale in favor of my designating the deity as male rather than a female). By the way, the carrots ended up into the best carrot soup I have ever had and was prepared by Margit.

However after about climbing about 400 feet of altitude towards the peak we ran into a somewhat bedraggled French speaking hiker coming down the Mont who gesticulated that he had tried to get to the peak but was frustrated by a “you can’t see your hand in front of your face” and “it was very cold up there” gestures, so we turned around so as to eat carrots another day.

The next day after visiting Fort de France, Martinique’s largest city and capital- Jim, Margit and I drove Sue and Sam to the airport outside of St. Pierre for their return to the U.S. Driving to and from the environs of Fort de France (as well as St. Pierre) I was impressed that if I didn’t know better I could have easily been outside any small prosperous city in many countries (you could tell by the Costco store).

The contrast between the third world of culture Dominica and the first world culture of Martinique presented the familiar tension between the close to the earth simplicity of the third world and the modernity of the first world. The contrast was heightened by the fact that Dominica and Martinique and neighboring islands no more than twenty-six miles apart.

The modernity and wealth of Martinique was exemplified by the trip to the Galleria in Le Lamentin outside of St. Pierre by Jim, Rick and I for a typical upscale experience of grocery shopping (exemplified by fashionably dressed customers, e.g. women shopping in high heels),


compared to the open market buy what’s available experience in Dominica and a breadth of selection in the Martinique grocery store from foie gras to designer clothes.

Back on the Eyes I encountered trouble with my head (not as in headache but as in my bowl runneth over).

Sue mentioned that I love telling the story thereby co-opting me from telling it here but also saving you from the scatological details.

Suffice it to say that I was on one hand admiring of Jim’s and Rick’s efforts, as they each took turns of forty-five minutes to an hour in the water at night with a flashlight in their mouth trying to snake out the plumbing blow out valves at the water line of the Eyes as they treaded water with their legs with nothing to hold on to and with the best prospect of their labors being a shower of black water. But on the other hand I was trepidacious that my turn was coming next. Finally Rick decided to take the plumbing in the head apart and clean up the mess afterwards.

So you think sailing is romantic. It should be noted that it seemed that either Jim or Rick or both were involved in an arduous or complex job of maintenance every day I was on the Eyes. In performing such maintenance each seemed to be fully knowledgeable and competent to take the Eyes completely apart and put it together again. All of this in addition to their sailing and cooking skills while participating in their state-side businesses and being excellent hosts at the same time. For me of all the wonder I beheld on the trip, this was the most memorable.

This sentiment brings me prematurely to end my description of my wonderful, beautiful and adventurous sailing trip on the Eyes because of all the beauty, adventure and good times that occurred until the trip ended, the above sentiment is the salient note to end with.

I departed the Eyes leaving something behind (which evidently is yet to be found) so as to have an excuse to return to the “world of the Eyes.”

VHF Radio: "Switching back to Channel 16"

“Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world,
The heart has its beaches, its homeland and thoughts of its own.
Wake now, discover that you are the song that the mornin brings,
But the heart has its seasons, its evenins and songs of its own.“
(Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter - 1973)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

good morning dudes. I'm really into shoes and I have been searching for that particular make. The prices seeking the velcros were approximately 180 pounds on every site. But finally I base this location selling them as a remedy for half price. I really like these [url=http://www.shoesempire.com]prada sneakers[/url]. I will probably purchase them. what can you say about it?

Anonymous said...

you arе tгuly a јust гight wеbmаsteг.
The site loadіng pace is incrеdiblе.
It ѕoгt оf feеls thаt уοu
are ԁoing any unique tгicκ.

Moгеovеr, The сontents aгe masterwork.
you've performed a excellent job on this subject!

Also visit my webpage: csebiz.com

Anonymous said...

all the time i usеԁ to read ѕmаller articleѕ that as well сleаr their mоtіve,
and that is also hapρening with this artiсle which I am геading
now.

Feel free tο visit my blog - vistaprint coupon code

Anonymous said...

Can I simply ѕay whаt а гeliеf
tο diѕcοver somebody that actually knows whаt
they aгe tаlking about online. Yοu ԁefіnіtely
κnow how tо bring an isѕue to light and make it
important. A lot morе рeoрle really nеed to checκ this
out anԁ unԁerstanԁ this siԁe οf the story.
It's surprising you aren't morе popular givеn that уou mоst ceгtаinlу posseѕs the gift.



Hеrе іs my wеbsite ... raspberry ketone

Anonymous said...

I гeally love уouг sitе.. Vеry nicе сolorѕ & thеme.
Did you build this website yοurself? Please reρly bacκ as Ӏ'm trying to create my very own site and would like to learn where you got this from or what the theme is called. Appreciate it!

My web-site; frontier internet

Anonymous said...

It's very simple to find out any topic on web as compared to textbooks, as I found this paragraph at this website.

My webpage: frontier internet service outages