AU REVOIR MARTINIQUE ..............

What a fantastic celebration ........... What a spectacle of colour ....... Five wonderful days of a cultural event that is not geared for tourists but is simply a time-honoured tradition of celebrating freedom ....... There was no down-side, for we never saw any drunkeness, no real indecent behaviour and there appeared to be a complete absence of the 'gendarmes' .... Then again one of us is a little short-sighted ...... Never saw any of that in the distance either ....... This show is highly recommended if your eardrums can take a beating ........ For they certainly know how to beat a drum to death ......



Those two smiling spectators are the better-looking crew members, Christie and Bev, of the yacht "AMOEBA" (The beginning of life), a no-less beautiful staysail wish-bone schooner out of Nova Scotia Canada, that was built of ferro-cement with paistaking precision by the skipper's late father ..... Truly a beautiful yacht as of course are mother and daughter, who knowingly posed for Laurie's paparazzi photo ..........



We plan on seeing more of them as we are both heading for ANTIGUA to see the Classic yachting event held each year in April ........ That's Skipper John Bryson on deck and crew members Joey and Jamie are somewhere else, maybe ....



We have sailed fifty miles back North again to Dominica and marvel at the mountainous terrain ... (Do a double click on the photo below to sharpen the image) ......



Green hills and rainfall also make great vegies, and in no time at all we hit the fruit market in Portsmouth, and overload ourselves with all the good stuff ......... And we are not the only ones, for look at all the coconuts already cut up for juice, and the manual sugar-cane squeezer hard at work ............



We bought a couple of cucumbers that were larger than the little old lady's face and then sat down in the open air roadside clinic for a quick blood-pressure test ........ This type of living is exceptionally stressful ......... Obviously the results may not show this .......... These ladies in yellow are doctors-in-training who attend the ROSS UNIVERSITY on the island of Dominica ....... What a great way to do your medical study .......



But look at the fruit haul that we brought back on board..... Tomatoes, bananas, some lady-fingers, cucumbers, cabbage, carrots, pumpkin, dasheen (a type of taro), limes, grapefruit and bell peppers ....... Now throw in a couple of lobsters from a local fisherman and you are living fresh and living large, or should that be 'good' ....... The down-side is that you end up with lots of change in your pocket which in this case is from three different monetary systems ........ That's not a downside at all, is it ...........