Have You Hiked Your Volcano Today? – Bequia, The Grenedines, March 22, 2024

We left off our story in Portsmouth, Dominica and I have to say we have changed our mind about this island, so we were eager to give Martinique another try as well.  It is a French Island but also one of the richer ones.  Things had not been difficult enough lately, so we decided to start off by climbing the active volcano of the island – Mount Pelee.  The elevation gain in the hike is nearly 2158 feet but the trail is supposed to be well traveled.  We had rented a car for the day and drove the 2 hours to the northwest side of the island. 

It last erupted in 1932 but the worst eruption destroying the town of St. Pierre (which we had just stopped to visit).  It killed 28,000 people there and the only known survivor was an inmate in the jail.  He was badly burned but once he recovered, he was immediately hired by Barnum & Bailey’s circus!?!  The museum there was cool along with the ruins from the eruption.

We drove the 2 hours from the anchorage of Le Merin part way up to the volcano to where the trail started (after it had stopped raining that morning).  As we started the hike it was VERY muddy with a lot of standing water on the trail.  We weren’t the only idiots out there but after about half a mile, we decided to jump ship on the trail and go somewhere else for our hike due to all the mud.  It was still worth the drive there and even the top of the hill where the trail starts has beautiful views of the town and the rainforest. 

Our next stop was a quick 5-hour sail to Marigot Bay, St. Lucia for a quick overnight.  We had been here before and thought it was a bit shady then but this time it was actually worse.  We were approached several times by the locals trying to sell us stuff.  This was expected but the final approach was after dark, two guys in a dinghy called “Tip-Sex” came and basically tried to get us to take them with us to St. Vincent.  That when it got uncomfortable and while Ron was trying to be cordial, by asking “what do you do?”…his answer was “I hustle.” We did finally get them to leave by assuring them we would discuss this with them in the morning (knowing we had a 5:00am departure date) and when they were planning to show up at 9:00am, we would be long gone.  It’s amazing how quickly forget how poor this island is regardless of how nice and what a vacation hotspot Marigot Bay is. 

We did head out at 5:00am without issue and once again decided to skip St. Vincent.  This is based not only on the recent incident in Grenada where a yacht was boarded but also on our recent experience in Marigot Bay and head straight to Bequia.  It really is the major downside on these southern islands.  The upside is the waters in Bequia are beautiful and Ron was planning to teach me a few scuba diving skills while we are here the next couple of days.  Yeah!