Martinique

Another weekend and we find ourselves in Martinique. It is a very pretty island, where the language is French. The customs/immigration formalities were very easy, but the next day we were boarded by two gun carrying customs officers who searched Sal Darago. Naturally everything was in order (they did not find my secret supplies of KitKat ;-) ) We had sailed from Barbados on the Tuesday overnight and arrived on Wednesday. To clear customs on the Monday, in Barbados had taken us several hours and it is one of the few places where they are still using four carbon copies. The trip across was very jerky; still no long swell on which one can leisurely sail. We had hoped to go to a Marina in Marin, but they were full and we decided to save the 20 Euros a day by anchoring. The Marin anchorage is huge and very full of yachts - couple that with a huge marina and you can see it was not our image of a quiet, idyllic stopover. Still it did mean that we could purchase courtesy flags, wine, beer and Camembert, as well as some delicious French bread. Also possible was a laundry to wash our bedding, which last saw daylight in El Hierro about five weeks ago.

Another reason for going to Martinique was that a man called Tony Carter does aluminium welding/repairs and we hoped he could help with our snapped pole. We took the pole ashore and left it with him. He asked us to call the next day, Thursday at 1300. We did so only to find the repair would cost 350 Euros. We picked the pole up and returned with it in pieces. We had just finished lunch when we were hailed from a dinghy. It was Jonny and Kate from “Newtsville”, whom we had last seen in Crosshaven, Ireland at the beginning of August. They sailed out of Fleetwood Dock, so you can imagine we had quite a chin wag. Later we popped over to Newtsville which is a much beamier, slightly longer, newer yacht than Sal Darago. It also has many more electronic devices including SSB through which they can send emails at sea.

We left Marin on Friday rather later than expected as Jeremy had had a poorly tummy from eating too much Camembert ( and possibly washing it down with a little too much wine). We were heading for Trois Ilets, passing Diamond Rock (The English set this rock up as a Royal Navy Gun boat – it is a mile off Martinique – and blasted any French shipping that passed close enough. This really annoyed Emperor Napoleon apparently and it all led to the Battle of Trafalgar) {Gosh I sound like Catherine;-) }. It was getting on for four when we passed Anse Noire, a delightful small anchorage with no boats in it. We headed in there, snorkelled, showered and had a candlelit meal in the brilliant moonlight. It was most romantic.

On Saturday we battled Easterly winds of 32 knots (on the nose) to enter Trois Ilets. It’s quite pleasant here with a golf course and the obligatory seaside redevelopment courtesy of the EU, but the shop had no Camembert, so it’s all a bit of a let down. The Mangrove trees abound round here and, in the evening, the noise made by grasshoppers or frogs is quite awesome. It’s quite green, remarkably so after the Canaries, and of course the people are very friendly.

We left Trois Ilets on Sunday morning and had a brisk sail north of the capital Fort de France. The winds died away and we slowly made our way north to the former capital of St Pierre. This small town was happily going about its business on 7 May 1902 when a volcano belched forth a cloud of intense heat and poisonous gases killing all but two of the 30,000 population. The museum has some awesome pictures reminding one of Hiroshima post Atom bomb. They really are very comparable. A few years later the town was being rebuilt. Mind you they all evacuated in 1929, when the volcano showed signs of activity. For the record, of the ten or more ships at anchor, only one somehow escaped burning and sinking. It is a pleasant anchorage (just no access to public water ie no tap on the pier) and there are adequate shops. Kathy and I did the walk round the various sites, including an 800 seater theatre. It was strange walking through the shell of the stalls and peering into the “fosse” of the orchestra having stared, fascinated, at the twisted remains of the musical instruments in the museum earlier.

Kathy and I had our hair cut at the coiffure afterwards (15 euro each!) and after the obligatory shop at the supermarket, returned to Sal Darago for lunch, a siesta, a snorkel, a drink while the sun set behind us and then a salad supper. It is a tough life, believe me.