Bonjour Martinique

Martinique – Windward Islands

With our passage from Dominica to Martinique, we left the Leeward’s and entered the Windward Islands. Martinique is the southern most of the French islands and was our last opportunity to test our recently acquired French (ok four or five words is not much, but it was all we had for our time in Martinique).

After arriving in St. Pierre, we ventured ashore to customs and immigration. Checking in was a pleasant experience, there were no fees and we did the paperwork at the local internet cafe’. Using the French keyboard was a bit of a challenge, as they moved the keys we tend to use most. So after about 15 minutes of hunting and pecking, we were legal visitors to the island and had even cleared out to our next destination.

St. Pierre is a small town at the foot of the Mt. Pel�e volcano. In 1902 the volcano erupted destroying the town, approximately 30,000 people burned to death and there were only two survivors. The town has since been rebuilt, but there are still remnants and ruins from the original town scattered throughout the village.

While in St Pierre, we hiked up to the statue on the south side of the harbor and then to the local rum distillery in the hills North of town. Distillerie Depaz was in full production and still operates with a steam engine to drive the machinery. After sampling the Depaz production, we hoofed it back to town, a good ten-mile trek for the day.

Off to Ste. Anne and Marin

As the end of our southward bound adventure approached, we were feeling a little pressure to head south quickly, so we sailed south by Fort De France and Diamond Rock to the Southeast end of the island. In the 1800s, Diamond Rock (off the South West tip of Martinique) was commissioned by the British as a ship (H.M.S. Diamond Rock) and provided England with a ship to harass French ships approaching Martinique. Odd but true.

We anchored off Ste. Anne, a delightful seaside tourist town, where we used our limited French with the local fishermen to purchase some Mahi Mahi and Tuna. In the end, we found that a pen, paper and numbers worked best.

After an exhilarating (and wet) dinghy ride into 25 knots winds, dodging reefs and grounded sailboats, we arrived in Marin the yachting center of Martinique. We have not seen a marina this large with this many boats since we left the USA. It turns out that Marin is a popular base for all of the major sailboat charter companies.

We have really enjoyed the food in the French islands and are very comfortable having chocolate croissants for breakfast at a sidewalk caf�, as long as we can have a diet coke along with them. While in Ste. Anne we went out to a restaurant that was known for its local shellfish and listed as a “classy restaurant” in our cruising guide. Our directions weren’t good and the road was very dark, but we eventually arrived to at the restaurant. Well, the seafood was great, but we didn’t know that vinyl table cloths and Christmas lights were “classy”. I guess that is classy for our new lifestyle. On the way back, we ran across a classy club/lounge and stopped into have a nightcap. This place was so hip that no one was there yet. It was only 10:00 and places like this don’t start until after 11:00. So we now find ourselves somewhere between cruiser classy and the real thing.

Oh well, we are off to St Lucia.