The Caribbean - Windwards 2

Martinique

12 March 2003

We had a horrible sail northwards, heading for the island of St Lucia, with both strong wind and current against us. Realising that we would not get to a decent anchorage before dark, we decided to skip St Lucia altogether, and struggled on through the night to make landfall at Martinique. We anchored at the anchorage of Le Marin in St Anne’s bay in the south of the island. There were hundreds of boats here.

Forever at St Anne's Bay

We loved Martinique which stood out like a little gem of civilisation and sophistication in the Windwards. We had such a good time here we stayed for 10 days and met a number of friendly yachts with whom we shared sundowners or dinner. The weather was generally wonderful, perhaps a bit hot, but not as bad as Trinidad had been. We were both very tanned; Mike’s hair was almost white blond by now and even mine was turning golden at the tips. One day we hired a car and took a tour of the hills in the south.

The view from Trois Ilets

At some point, around here, the fridge died - again. So sad. Personally, I was convinced that it was due to the fact that we did not charge it properly. Mike hated to run his engine so it went for days without charging, and other times, we connected it for perhaps much too long and at too many revs. (I sound like I know what I am talking about, but I don’t really.) Anyway, it stopped working and we never got it fixed again. This particular system used a gas called R12 which was no longer available in most countries so it seemed pointless to try and repair it. Back to bags of ice – when we could get them.

We hopped further up the western coast of Martinique, stopping at Anse Mitan for four days and took a ferry ride across the bay to visit the capital city of Fort de France – a big thriving metropolis compared to everywhere else. Last stop on Martinique (it’s a large island and I insisted on day sailing when possible) was St Pierre in the north; there’s an active volcano at St Pierre on the Montagne Pelee which erupted in 1902, completely flattening the city and killing all but two of the original inhabitants. We wandered around the impressive and eerie ruins. The city has now been rebuilt, but is a shadow of its former self. We were advised that the volcano could erupt again at any moment – why, I ask, would anyone want to live there?

The 400 year old Depaz sugar plantation and distillery, beautifully situated at the foot of the Montagne Pelee, was replanted and rebuilt after the 1902 eruption. Assured that this was the finest rum in the Caribbean, we took a tour and bought a couple of bottles. Rum is the drink in the Caribbean so we felt compelled to drink it - the Martinique French drink it with ice, a squeeze of lime and a dash of sugar cane syrup. Delicious.

Depaz distillery with Pelee mountain in the background

A note about the dinghy

Living on board a yacht obliges the crew to do almost everything together. As Mike and I were usually at anchor rather than in a marina, if one of us wanted to go ashore we both had to, there being only the dinghy as transport. In the early days when we didn’t have an outboard it was even worse. With an outboard, one could always run the other person into shore and then come back later and collect them. Having to row in and out made that a bit less feasible. Though we now had an outboard – with the smallest engine in the world - it spent most of its life bolted to the back of the boat as Mike did like to row everywhere.

So, we went everywhere and did everything together. At times it felt like we were joined at the hip and even when we got to shore, we still tended to stick together. No longer having even one phone between us we were always worried we’d lose each other in a strange place and the idea of sitting around for hours in the harbour waiting for the other was not appealing. Most of the cruising couples are like this – and it’s a measure of how well most of them get on with each other.