Frenchy land
They don’t…. they won’t…. and not because they don’t want to….. It’s because they can’t. Speak English that is. I get it that most Americans or English speakers go to every country and try to speak English to the locals. And when they don’t respond then we speak English even louder! Which does absolutely nothing but frustrate them. The solution is simple. Learn the local language or enough to get you by. For Lennie and I we have an amazing three part plan. She speaks French and Spanish and I speak English. That covers the entire Caribbean and Central and South America. And in case you’re wondering Lennie also speaks English which she uses to speak to me!
There she blows
In Martinique we spent a good deal of time in Saint Pierre. This is the town at the base of mount Pelee which erupted in 1902 and sent a hot ball of gas that hit the town and killed 29,000 people instantly. It was the worst volcanic eruption disaster of the 20th Century. It was really cool to visit the town and imagine it before. We are history buffs so one of the great things about traveling to sea ports is the ton of history involved in the colonization of the entire Caribbean. We read up on all island history before we visit each one, which is a pretty cool way to arrive and see the history revealing itself.
Twin Peaks?
Saint Lucia…Those two mountains are awesome to look at and when you pull your boat in the bay and anchor between them. They have an eerie mystical feeling to them. They are big. In pictures the scale is hard to see but when you are between them its surreal. The local island beer is named after them and it’s quite good by the way. We bought enough of it to last to Grenada! (if you know how much beer we drink imagine how much we bought to make it to Grenada) The only thing I can’t understand is the name. Piton? It means a climbing spike according to Webster. Seems like twin peaks would have been better. Wait….further googling indicates that it’s French…..google French to English dictionary….. google climbing spike…….nope……google peak in French……yep that’s it. Piton is Peak in French. I guess they got it right.
Eye.gee.gee.why
Arriving in Saint Lucia and pulling into Rodney bay was without care…..why……because they have an IGY marina which is part of the IGY marina group. This company bought a dozen marinas worldwide in the right spot. They created a brand and the brand works. They are upscale, well built, maintained, with friendly staff and great service. It’s the kind of place you want to be while either staying on the boat or especially while leaving it unattended. We went to their booth at the Fort Lauderdale international boat show and met all the managers that we would see on our travels. We knew we would stop at Turks and Caicos Blue Haven Marina, Sint Maarten Simpson Bay Marina and Saint Lucia’s Rodney bay Marina. They all fly the IGY flag and are part of the brand and it didn’t disappoint. As luck would have it (and I get this type of luck a lot I might add, Lennie calls it the Randy factor) we met the Chief Operating Manager Tommy Decker of all IGY on a plane to the Caribbean and became fast friends. He gave us the hookups and we were treated like royalty at each marina. Soon we head to Columbia and there is an IGY in Santa Marta, Later it will be Panama and then Cabo San Lucas. What can I say…we are raving fans. And Tommy if your reading this we appreciate what you have helped build with this organization. The problem is every time we pull in to one of your marinas we can’t stop singing the Iggy Azalea tune.
The video below is part three of the trip and highlight’s Martinique and a bit of Saint Lucia. We hope you enjoy it!