A Pirates Life for Me!

Written 14-5-08

Today I got promoted to First Deckhand Helper Monkey, which is a big promotion on the boat, so life is good, except for the mound of dishes I need to do.

Boat life has been really interesting. Small periods of hard work while sailing coupled with hours of free time, in which I’m usually reading or exploring. Fresh water and electricity are coveted, and in order to get to something, you have to move eight other things. It’s also a weird feeling that since I’m staying with my dad and stepmom I have three meals a day cooked for me, which is very new because I usually don’t eat that much, and when I do it’s been beans and rice for the last six months. This also explains the dish duty, since I can’t cook.

So let me tell you a little bit about the islands, which are surprisingly very different. We left St. Lucia last week with the moon smiling down on us, as only half-moons can. St. Lucia is definitely touristy and the locals have learned to cater to the “yachties”, people who live on boats. Once a guy paddled up to our boat standing on a surfboard selling coconuts and mangos he had just picked from the jungle, while listening to his iPod. The people there love anything having to do with New York on their clothing, but when asked, actually don’t like New York at all. As per usual, my dreadlocks seem to attract to the local crowd of Rastas, but again, on asking questions about the Rastafarian religion, they only seem to be aware of the part they can smoke. One old Rasta man stopped me in the street for some light conversation, and on discussing my dreads he turned to my father to ask his thoughts on his daughter’s hairstyle. My father’s reply was simply to shrug his shoulders and calmly say, “It’s only hair.” The old man, stunned into silence by the sacrilegious words of my father, completely forgot to peddle what he was peddling in the first place and walked off in a daze.

On top of all this fun, I also get to spend time with my good friend Richie, whom I met over two years ago while working at the Selkirk Pub in South London. Richie is as crazy as they come, an excellent friend, and a good pub crawl guide to St. Lucia. He has also turned me on to my next career opportunity…

The Tobago Goat Racing Championship!

The Wisdom that is Richie speaks: “The trick is that you have to run alongside your goat, so you either need to be able to keep up with your goat, or be strong enough to pull it along after you.” I, being an expert on goats after sitting near one on a bus in Guatemala, have decided to pursue this new career headfirst and see where it takes me. I have no doubts that I will be towards the back, with my goat dragging me.

On my way to the races, we stopped next in Martinique, which is in the complete opposite direction of Tobago. The sail north took about five hours, with not so friendly winds coming out of the east. It was, however, quite an experience that cannot go without mention. An hour into the sail, a dolphin jumps out of the water next to us. I mean fully out of the water. Then another. And another. Perhaps there were twenty dolphins, perhaps more. They came past us in waves, of all sizes and lengths, playing tag with our boat. I was mesmerized and afraid to blink. A brief thought about going down to get my camera flickered through my mind, but I wouldn’t have traded one minute of watching the dolphins for anything this world has to offer, so there are only pictures imprinted in my memory. They were a dove gray with white speckles on their sides, and a surprisingly pink underbelly. The power in which they moved so effortlessly through the vast ocean, and their choosing us to play with, was truly a miracle. Barely paying attention to the threat of falling off the boat in attempting to watch them, I was straddled around a wench and holding onto the starboard jib line (to use some nautical terminology), in complete awe. They skipped and jumped in unison, jumped clear out of the water at the bow of the boat, inches before it went over them, and followed us for a good twenty minutes. As they bade their final farewells, we all sat, glassy-eyed and dumbstruck, thinking about what we had been privileged to witness, and I will remember my dolphin friends until the end of my days.

We arrive in Fort du France, to check in and look around. Martinique is a French state, and as I speak zero French, I picked up a phrasebook and learned a few things. By far, my favorite phrase is “Je suis le gran fromage,” which, gloriously, means “I am the big cheese.” The phrase I ended up using the most was…

“Je parle seulement un peu francais. Parlez-vous anglais?
No?
Hablas espanol?
No?
Uhhh…Parla italiano?
No?
Well shit…”

I ended up loving Martinique, despite the frustrating language barrier. It was a lot like France with a Caribbean twang. All the little towns were architecturally beautiful, painted in all the bright colors of the islands. The boulangerie was packed every morning with people enjoying the smell of fresh baguettes, croissants and pastries that fill your senses. On the third day we reach Saint Pierre, where they happened to be hosting a Marche Rasta, with a craft market that made my mouth water and live music that kept me dancing all night. The one bad thing was that there were some French white girls that put my dreadlocks to shame, and as I’ve never felt that my dreads were inadequate before, I have started thinking long thoughts, willing them to grow.

Yesterday we landed in Domenica. The sail was uneventful, seeing as how the only thing to top the dolphin experience would be a whale or something. Domenica is really a beautiful place, considered by the boaters to be somewhat “off the beaten track.” It is definitely less developed, into eco-tourism, and English speaking country (Thank God) and was also where the second Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed. If I run into Johnny Depp anywhere, I’ll be sure to let you know.