Today has been a bit of a planner – near term and long term. I’ve started the process of mapping out places to go between now and the end of 2010. This is a bit of a task and it’s nowhere near complete. A couple of constraints we’re working to is the central Pacific cyclone season which runs from December through March and the expected total solar eclipse on July 11th next year. The best site I’ve found for eclipse paths is Solar Eclipses – Google Earth Files. For each past and future eclipse it has a Google Earth download that maps the umbra and penumbra onto the Earth and somehow adds a calculator which allows you to know exact eclipse times for a given spot. Given that websites change, here is the July 11th file itself. We’d really like to see this so we’ll have to pick two or three potential rendezvous points. If you look at the central track you’ll see it passes over French Polynesia although far south of the milk run from Marquesas to Tahiti. The challenge will be to find atolls with navigable passages into the center that are on the line of the eclipse. One such place is Amanu approx 500nm east of Tahiti. Watching an eclipse from a place like this would be memorable to say the least. Not sure how much interest this is but it gives a glimpse into what has to be considered when planning a trip segment.
Near term planning involved a trip to Kingston, the capital of St Vincent. Yesterday, on a brief walk, we learned the cost of a taxi and guide to take us north to climb the volcano would be US$140 – far too much – so we wanted to explore options. We took the bus into town and had a walkabout. This included a visit to the tourism ministry who were extremely friendly and helpful. We now know we can do the things we want to by bus at a fraction of the cost and have an idea of where to spend my birthday next Sunday.
If all goes well we’ll take the bus north tomorrow and climb the 3,000 feet to the volcano (Souffriere – no imagination) rim. One the way down we’ll visit Hell’s Gate Falls which has a pool we can dunk ourselves in. On saturday we’ll visit Montreal Gardens which are supposed to be quite splending. Sunday we’ll sail round to Buccement Bay on the west shore where we’ll spend my birthday and base ourselves for west shore exploration.
One big factor is the weather. Right now it is miserable but getting better than it was just now. Rain is pouring, hatches are shut and we’re sweating it out. This may affect any or all of these plans. Given that Montreal Gardens requires a bus into town and then one out we could just as well do that from the west coast so we’ll try and get the volcano trip in the next 2 days.
Fixing. Today I put a few hours into figuring out why my scanner (which works (worked) wirelessly) wasn’t working even though it was yesterday morning. I figured it out in the end. All fun.