Where is it?

[Tjack]

Does the islands name begin with Saint?

 

[agilis]

You mean like Saint Lucia or Saint Vincent? No. Same general neighborhood, though.

 

[Tjack]

Century Plant hmmmm.....How bout Barbados?

 

[agilis]

Not Barbados, which is comparatively flat, and pretty densely settled.

 

[Mark Derail]

La Coche, near Guadeloupe.

 

[agilis]

Good guess, but not Guadeloupe or its associated islets.

 

[agilis]

Mark, I guess you know the history of the Saintes, where La Coche is located, the 1782 sea battle just offshore between Admirals Rodney and DeGrasse that saved Jamaica and ensured British domination of the West Indies for the next Century. An amazing victory for Rodney against heavy odds, and the destruction of the 20,000 man invasion army on board De Grasse's ships, headed for Jamaica. "Iron men in wooden ships."

Interesting people on the Saintes, many old long established 'poor white' fishing families there. An unusual social structure. Some great diving, pristine.

 

[Tjack]

Dominica?

 

[Mark Derail]

It also looks like some of the tiny islands found North / East of Puerto Rico.

I think they filmed a scene from Pirates of the Caribbeans, when one the characters is marooned on such a tiny island, the girl Elizabeth Swann I think.

I wouldn't want to be stranded there during a squall, but wouldn't mind to much if Elizabeth Swann was there.

 

[agilis]

DOMINICA it is, Tjack. Salisbury, mid-west coast. The east coast is the Atlantic side. I wrote "very Caribbean" because there is still a Carib community there, on Dominica long before Columbus. Once a powerful group after whom the Caribbean is named, they survive as a community only on Dominica. There are a few unmixed full blood Caribs in that reserve, mostly older people, but many of the several hundred there are clearly Amerindian in appearance. The language disappeared about 100 years ago. They used to live mostly on the calmer Caribbean side, but genocidal raids by Europeans killed so many they moved to the inaccessible windward Atlantic side in the 1700s. The town of Massacre, a few miles from where I took the pic, was the site of a major attack by the English. Dominica is a former British colony, but was French longer with many French settlers, so most people speak a French patois as their first language. The least developed of all the Caribbean islands, with about 80% still covered in rainforest and mountains. Total population only 71,000. The diving there is world famous. I'll be there again next month.