S/V L'ORIENT

Crypt with a view Beep, beep.........I'm on a hospital bed with a doctor and nurse nearby and medical device noises all around....."Doctor, his cholesterol is dropping"..........."Nurse, start a cheese IV right away"........I wake up from my dream, but it's not a dream. We have to leave the French Caribbean tomorrow. Six weeks in a wonderful world of baguettes, fresh fish, fruit, diving and hiking are coming to an end. OK, St. Lucia is nice too (our destination) but it has the misfortune of being the island south of Martinique. Despite the exercise we've had, we feel like we've gotten a bit sailing lazy........putting off projects, reading 4-5 hours a day..........in short, suffering from the cruisers affliction of trying to fit 2 hours of work into a 24 hour day. While Kirstin is reading some highbrow revolutionary war thing, I've gotten deep into gangs.......my third book on inner city gang warfare, politics, and business practices. Wi

So, Kirstin likes hiking and I like marital harmony.............so, by Modus Ponens (for our Ukrainian audience with PHDs in Math), I like hiking too. Martinique is blessed (read cursed) with hiking trails everywhere..............and the intrepid cruiser community who is waiting out hurricane season marches all over the island on these paths. It's a 6-7 times daily ritual to meet a European with an indeterminent (yet foreign accent.......remember the hotties in James Bond movies who would swoon when he entered a room and say Oh, Jimmz) where you exchange the one word you both know in French............Bonjour. As you get out of earshot, both couples speculate on the origin of the other couple. Tom/Kirstin- "Could be Swedish or Norwegian, but there's only like 10 million of them and we've seen at least 8 million in Martinique so far" Random Euros- "Americans or Canadians.............but they weren't drinking and it's 10:30 AM so let

It's 6:30 PM two days ago, so of course Kirstin and I are about two cabernets into happy hour on L'ORIENT. All of a sudden a dinghy full of Germans floats by...........vs. motors by, which would have been more expected.  Tom- "Darf ich Ihnen helfen ?" (Can I help you ?) The Germans look confused.........is it more surprising that an American speaks German or that an American is offering help. Germans- "Our outboard is dead......can we have a ride to our boat ?" So, Kirstin and I tow them over to their boat "Pamela", an older but sturdy sloop nearby. Of course they insist on repaying us with drinks....the official legal tender of the Caribbean. Then it gets really weird. We tie up both dinghies to Pamela.......I tie ours, and Norbert ties theirs......Norbert is a bit drunk as is his buddy (also named Norbert). So, after some drinks and interesting conversation, we prepare to leave. As we do, we notice Norbert's dinghy is gone.

Tom's new friend The world economy is probably in better shape than anyone realizes. Why? Because live-aboard cruisers like us are entirely excluded from statistics. For example.......a few days ago we were low on food and needed a new SIM card. The neighbor anchored next to us had just pronounced his outboard dead........which is ideal because we have three spare outboards. Fast forward a few hours and he's got my old outboard and I have 4 kilos of tuna, a new SIM card and 550 euros. Bamm !!! Four kilos of tuna Its a strange community we belong to. We are acquainted with 20-25 boats and most of us are heading south. We have exchanged boat cards (even yachts have these) and we know the basics about each other.. We help other boats where possible and socialize together in kind of a random, haphazard way. The other night we had a Swedish couple onboard who sailed here via the Gambia (yes, the place in Africa). The unifying trait is that everyone is really

St. Pierre has had some seriously bad luck. Gray sand beaches don't remind anyone of Miami Beach. Its not sand anyway, but volcanic ash. Anyone unlucky enough to be here in May of 1902 was incinerated by a volcano (30,000 died in one day....but thinking positively, there were 2 survivors). It was the largest loss of life due to a volcano in the 20th century. The town was known as the Paris of the Caribbean prior to the quake - while a long way from Paris now, it is a both charming and haunting place. We have seen the evidence both above and below water - there are over 12 wrecks in the bay and we have been doing some dives to see them firsthand. By the way, if you prefer your apocalpyses watery, the same town was destroyed by a hurricane in the 1700s. Ruins of the theatre St. Pierre with Mt. Pelee in the back There might be more tourists here save for the hazards of the parks. One notable hike takes you up the mountain and requires you to walk on top of an old stone a