Day one of a new year and we were going to do three countries, gather three new pins between us and use five different modes of transport.
Trusty Alvin was ready and waiting to load us into the back of his pick-up at 945 for a quick spin to Bequia airport. Tiny airport but the queue of 10 before us took an age to check in, Check-in girl on extreme Caribbean time. So much so, that when it came to us we were rushed through as all the others were on a Barbados public flight, we were off to St. Lucia and the tiny SVG plane was waiting for us, having just landed from St. Vincent,
The plane was tiny, "it's a bloody elastic band job" said Gill, as we saw the minute yellow propeller job on the tarmac. There were already 4 people aboard, we had the two seats right behind the pilot. So exciting. Pilot programmed his tom-tom and away we go, with a warning about a bumpy take off, Gill went white!
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| Our elastic band job Bequia to St Lucia |
Fab, sporty little take off, see video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yu-ywVTkqy0&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL and notice the pilot steady himself by touching the ceiling, Bequia looked beautiful from above, it had been a fun week and we sorry to leave. It was a 30 min flight, quite a bit of cloud and gill most perturbed that the pilot appeared to be scribbling a shopping list rather than looking where we were going, For a fair part of the journey, there was a rainbow below us and far off in the distance.
All too quickly the Pitons of St.Lucia came into view and the landing strip at Henowarra airport. This takes wide-bodied flights from Europe but the runway looked tiny. Gill had landed here on a BA flight many years back.
The six of us were the only ones at the airport and we were escorted through passports and customs in record time. New pin for Ant!!! So what next?
We had landed in the very south of St. Lucia and the ferry to Martinique left from Castries in the north. Bloody bank holiday, no buses to speak off, and we didn't even know if the ferry was running as the website in French was ambiguous to say the least. No choice but to get a taxi and head north which we duly did.
We are quickly coming to the conclusion that all of these islands look the same, green, tropical, bananas, ice cream coloured houses on stilts. the journey north was comfortable if uneventful and damage from recent hurricane Tomas appeared to be limited to some landslides along the road.
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| buying tickets at the ferry port in st Lucia |
To our delight, there was movement at the ferry port and yes the ferry (l'express des iles) was running, but not for three hours, but hey, what's three hours between friends. We were starving by now and so walked into Castries to kill time and get food. We had seen someone with a Dominos pizza box, so we found a little child and asked him the way. With a cocky shout of "come" he lead us all the way there and appeared delighted with his tip. Nice kid, hope he does well.
By the time we got back to the ferry it was heaving with passengers, so we joined the melee and queued for ages for immigration and then a most ludicrous and time consuming bag search looking for explosives????? Why?? Jobsworths, it took forever.
Anyway, mode of transport four was a hydrofoil for the 70 minute jaunt to Martinique. Again, quite sporty, lots of spray, Gill is getting her seas legs but some way to go. It is great to be going island to island and seeing them up ahead as the old one fades away, really brings the map of the Lesser Antilles to life. So predictably Martinique soon appeared on the horizon. Its a much larger island than either of the ones we've been to so far, so Fort de France looked huge as we approached. New pins for both, hurrah,
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| on board the ferry |
Chaos of course at the ferry terminal, so we just sat on the stairs and waited for the hubbub to subside. We are getting into the Caribbean vibe too.
Fort de France infrastructure much grander and European than anything we've seen to date, but we will explore tomorrow as its now dark.
The last of the transport modes was a taxi hailed on the street to bring us to our last minute desperate youth hostel on a new housing estate in the suburbs of Fort de France. Just checked an app and it turns out that in ten hours of travel we have covered 100 miles! Real caribbean time.
Finally, It is unfair to judge Martinique on what we've seen so far, we hope that there is gold at the end of today's rainbow.
