L’amour de la mer… 05/03/2022

Travelled into the depths of the bay earlier this week, to get fuel and water and to see a rigging specialist. The bay of St Anne goes around a point, and then becomes narrower as it heads inland. This is known as the Cul-de-sac du Marin, with the town of Marin at its head. The distance by sea from St Anne is just over 3 nautical miles, about 3.5 land miles. It’s not the easiest to navigate because there are reefs all over the place, and sometimes the channels between them are quite narrow, so it’s a case of watching closely exactly where you’re going. These reefs have claimed many victims over the years.

After getting fuel and water, we anchored just southwest of Marin. I went ashore for something to eat in the evening – and found myself being joined by a very lively group of French people. This included two older Frenchmen who owned boats. We communicated surprisingly well, considering that both of them spoke no more than a few words of English, and I do not speak French, although I understand a fair bit, having worked with French people for over a decade. They were very happy that Manuka is a French boat and – interestingly – were very complimentary about her being a Dufour, saying enthusiastically that I had chosen well. The atmosphere was classically French – the older of the two proposed a toast to “L’amour de la mer” – the love of the sea. It’s really nice to find that you can get on so well with people through a shared love – isn’t this inspirational at a time when people are attacking those who are in effect their cousins? One feels a duty to promote fellow-feeling, our shared humanity, and the things that unite us.

The rigging problem is at least diagnosed. The roller furler, which controls the foresail, had jammed (fortunately with the sail furled up – if it had jammed at sea, with the sail out, I would have had a real problem). The head of the rigging company asked me to come in so he could take a look and get an idea of what was needed. I must admit that I was a bit apprehensive: I thought that the problem might be something very easily rectified and I would end up looking a bit of a fool. Fortunately this wasn’t the case – he had as little success in unjamming it as I had! (Although of course this is actually bad news, because I now have to replace it!). He was very informative – we agreed that the furler must be the original that came with the boat, and he was surprised that it had lasted as long as 14 years, saying that 8-10 years is normal. Apparently the ball bearings inside it have rusted and seized up. It will be two weeks before he can fit me in, but at least I know it’s going to be fixed. On the plus side, Martinique has a very good reputation for boat repairs. The French are known for their technical competence – a number of people in Grenada (Americans, Brits and Canadians, not French people) said if you need something done, get it done in Martinique, they’re the most reliable. So anyway, that’s that.

Having sorted that out, returned to St Anne and again managed to anchor in a prime spot, as close as possible to the dinghy dock. There wasn’t much space and it took three tries to get the anchor and chain in the perfect place – made more difficult by wind and a fairly strong current, making the boat swing in a fairly large arc. But the third attempt worked well – no danger of hitting any neighbouring boats, and the anchor appearing to hold well. (This I always check carefully – once the boat has settled well to anchor, I write down the exact position, to one-thousandths of a minute of latitude and longitude, about 1.8 metres, and then periodically check it again over the next couple of hours for any evidence of the anchor dragging. Thereafter, just visually comparing my position to the boats around me generally suffices). 

Apart from the anchorage being very attractive, and having a lovely beach ashore, where i swim most days, there is a coastal path leading down to the southeasterly tip of the island. This is about 5 miles away by the winding path, and from which you can see the mountains of St Lucia, about 25 miles off to the south. The path is beautiful, because coastal forest comes right down to the water. There are little bays, with beaches and the shore is rocky. Closest to the water are mangrove trees, the ones on the edge of the water having the characteristic long exposed roots. I actually looked up mangroves on Wikipedia… They are quite extraordinary. There are dozens of different types, some of which grow further away from the water and don’t have the same roots – indeed, have underground roots which at their ends protrude up into the air, an adaptation for surviving in mud, which unlike normal soil has very poor aerobic properties. The mangroves growing in the edge of the water are well-adapted to dealing with salt. Seawater has a 3-4% saline content, and in places where high water is left behind by the tide, might be 9% salt due to evaporation. Mangroves filter out over 90% of this and then, depending on the type of mangrove, have evolved ways of excreting the rest of the salt – in one case, literally secreting salt from their leaves. They are great stores of carbon, as well as protecting the land from tides and even tsunamis – basically they are viewed as fantastic for the overall environment. Concentrated in the tropics, mangroves even grow as far as 37-38 degrees south, in Australia and New Zealand. Anyway, it’s great to see this natural forest well protected here – and it makes a lovely environment for walking. The mangroves create a home for all sorts of life, not least crabs – everywhere you look there are holes in the sand where crabs live, sometimes quite far from the water. Some crabs apparently feed on mangrove leaves. The lifecycle of mangroves is quite remarkable too – unlike other trees, whose seeds tend to be dispersed by the wind, mangrove seeds remain attached to the parent until they’ve grown some leaves, which means that they can photosynthesise and sustain themselves. They then break free and float off, sometimes for hundreds of miles. When they feel that they are in a promising location, their elongated shape turns from the horizontal to the vertical and they drop some roots. 

Isn’t nature amazing? Sorry to go on a long educational detour! But just to demonstrate that I am not only looking at the sea – the land remains as interesting as ever! And I suppose that the interaction of sea and land is especially appealing…