Last Thursday, the 24th, while in St. Pierre, Dawn and I
hiked through the town to the north side of the river to visit an attraction
called: Centre de Decouverte des
Sciences et de la Terre, or known to we anglophones as the Earth Sciences
Centre, where we hoped to get more technical information on Mount Pele and her penchant for mischief. Mischief is probably not the best word when
the earth rumbles and chooses to blow away approximately 30,000 people. The building and exhibits were constructed in
2002, by the government on the 100 year anniversary of the disaster.
On the way, we passed the ruins of one of the larger former
churches, this one having been almost totally obliterated on May 8th, 1902,
actually during the church service, by the largest explosion of the
volcano. Estimates are that the
pyroclastic flow took three minutes to get down to the hill, and likely very
few of the worshipers likely even got to stand up from their pews. Here is a picture of the ruins:
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| Church ruins where many people were the day Mt. Pele blew |
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| Earth Science Center overlooking Mt. Pele |
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| View of the center from the road |
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| Mt. Pele taken from the Science Center |
This is a view of the mountain from the Earth Sciences
Centre, as well as one of the front of the Centre, which faces the mountain:
When we arrived, we found the staff had very little English
to assist us, and my efforts at speaking french were not getting us too
far. However, almost immediately, they
passed us two hand-held devices that had recordings in English to supplement
the experience for English visitors. We
found that there were 19 stations around the complex, and the device had
special recordings for each station. In
the end, we were convinced that the english visitors left knowing more than
others. As well, every hour on the half
hour, they ran a fantastic movie in the enclosed theatre that covered the
disaster as well as the developments in vulcanology that resulted from it. It turns out, with the St. Pierre disaster
being the largest modern volcano disaster, it pushed the great leaps in the
science of vulcanology.
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| An exquisite map of Martinique using Google Earth Technology! |
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| Laurie is trying to find the route we took a couple weeks ago to climb to (almost) the top of Mt. Pele. |
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| Looking down at Fort de France, the capital. |
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| Wandering around inside while we listened to the 19 stations while looking at photos. |
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| A poster in the hallway giving us more insight into the center of the volcano. |
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| Station 4 of 19 |
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| Laurie listening to the talk at station 6. |
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If I could digress for a moment, I wish to add that the
science still has far to go, according to Bill Bryson, author of "A Short
History of Nearly Everything".
Apparently, volcanology is still a dangerous science, and these
scientists are constantly dying as a result of misinterpreting the signs of a
pending eruption. Not many old
volcanologists around, I guess.
Other stops we have made since St. Pierre include Trois
Islet and Fort de France. This is a
picture of the ruins of Josephine's family's sugar and rum refinery, followed
by the Schoelcher library.
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| Josephine's residence |
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| Schoelcher Library |
Schoelcher
was a French cabinet minister who pushed very hard for the end of slavery, and
therefore became a Caribbean hero. The
building is just about totally made of metal.
It was designed by Eiffel, manufactured in France, and then assembled
here.
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| derelict building in St. Pierre |
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| Cat Tales sitting on the far right |
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| Our front yard that day! |
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| Typical street in St. Pierre |
We'll be staying in Grand Anse d'Arlet for the next few days awaiting the next 'weather window' to safely sail back to Rodney Bay, St. Lucia. Lorna and Brian have emailed us asking us to bring important French supplies. The photo tells the tale!
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| Yup...5 red and 2 white! Averaging about 9 euros a box or 3 euros a liter. |
