Well we have been in Martinique a month and it started pretty much to plan as you saw in the last blog, but things have slowed down a bit since then. The weather has been doing crazy things with strong north easterly swells and some strong gusty winds, so we have pretty much decided to just stay put in Le Marin. Also the cable I bought for the VHF didn’t seem to solve the problem so I took it into Jacque at Diginav for him to have a look at it. Friday afternoon was when he said it would be ready, but we must keep in mind that this is “Island Time with French Attitude” and so…. it was not ready. “Tomorrow” they said, then rethinking it they said “Monday”. With this in mind we relaxed into the bay and hit the Beach Friday night in search of Pizzas and ended up at a restaurant with Evergreen eating the local curried Dorado which was very nice.
Saturday was the starboard engine service (sometimes I wish I had a monohull – one engine – one service, but this is rare) and Sunday wasn’t Dominos day as is the usual plan but we tried out the new bocce set and got our butts whipped 3-0 by Jim & Dinah – it must have been the lack of Sand Bar Rum Punches!
We gave Diginav until Tuesday morning before checking back and they had good news! They knew what the problem was – the cable they sold me was no good so I just needed to get another one! Fantastic… except they didn’t have one, but Jacques was heading to the Paris boat show and could get me one. The bad news was it was another 2 weeks away. We decided to bite the bullet and wait as Jacques is probably the most competent Raymarine technician we have dealt with – albeit a little slow. With this news Evergreen decided to get their mail sent to Le Marin and we settled into Le Marin for the wait.
Over the next two weeks we hired a car with Jim and Dinah twice for 2 days each time. The first time was for 1 day shopping and one day touring, and the second time was for touring Fort de France. Well it seems Karen can manipulate things such that we did shop on all four days…. I am wondering the wisdom of letting her read Sophie Kinsella’s Shopaholic series! I am also wondering whether the French really want to share their island with the rest of the world as most of what we had decided to visit was closed (from parks to museums to rum distilleries) with the exception of Karen’s shops….
So anyway what did we see: We started off with a tour around the south West peninsula taking in Les Anses d’arlet stopping at the pretty little bourg of Petit Anse d’Arlet for a snack at the patisserie
On to Anse Noire ….
… and up to Trois Ilets before Karen decided that it was enough touring and we had to shop. So it was off to Champion and Intersport in Dillon where Jim and Dinah bought a nice expensive set of shiny boules (apparently our kiddies set was not good enough to beat us with). Then we headed east to Francois and Le Vauclin looking for somewhere to have an early dinner or at least a drink. Whilst the scenery was nice, our quest was unsuccessful and we ended up back at the Mango in La Marin where we all partook in the moulles et frites (mussels and fries in a white wine sauce). Delicious way to end the day.
Day two was supposed to be all shopping, but by consensus (can’t say which way Karen voted or whether or not she was pouting in the back seat of our Peugot 307) we decided to be Tommy Tourist again. We headed off past Fort de France to the north west of the island for our first stop if the day – the Museum of Gauguin at Carbet. This is where the disappointments started – after 20 minutes of looking, we realised that it no longer existed, so it was onto St Pierre at the base of Mt Pelle. The prior capital of Martinique was the victim of the 1902 eruption of Mt Pelle when only one resident out of the 130,000 survived (of course he was a drunk in jail for disorderly conduct – who says drinking is evil?) We started at the commercial centre,
visited the museum, toured the grand old theatre (a copy of one in Bordeaux) that was destroyed in the eruption)…
…and then had lunch at various outlets around town before heading further north.
Here the disappointments continued to mount. First stop was the Tomb of the Rebels where legend has it the last of the Carib Indians jumped from the cliffs above to avoid being enslaved or massacred by the pursuing French – couldn’t find it. Next it was onto Habitation Ceron - an old plantation with apparently beautiful gardens – shut. Always chipper we headed back to the DePaz Rum Distillery and we found the tomb of the Rebels !
The cacti were in flower there as well.
Then we hightailed it to DePaz because by now it was bucketing down. We dashed across the car park and sat outside the store to wait for the rain to abate to do the tour which is mostly outdoors.
Half an hour later we gave up and went into the store to sample the rum. After trying a couple of different rums we purchased a few of the specials (yes shopping) we checked the rain and gave up, thinking we might make it back to the Dillon distillery for a tour there. Wrong, this distillery is shutdown and it is now made at DePaz which we had just left! We did get the education video and bought some white rum, shrub rum punch for the girl and a bottle of very old rum for special occasions (more shopping – the girl was happy).
Day two did however end on a brighter note as we found the seaside bar restaurant in St Luce on the way home. Unfortunately our budget extended only to a drink. Jim and I tried the Desperado Tequila beer – don’t bother!
The next week or so we relaxed around the boat, played dominos and boules (with Evergreen’s new boules and they still whipped our butt) and waited for mail and parts. We decided to do another couple of days with the rent-a-car when we found out it was almost as cheap as catching the bus to Fort de France.
The plan was to spend 2 days in Fort de France taking in the history and doing some shopping. We headed in with a plan to visit the fort, the library, a museum and the shops. So this is how it went down….
We lucked out and got a free park near the old post office and visited the fort to be told that it was not doing tours as it was a strategic defence location. No problem, plenty more to see like the park with the beheaded statue of Josephine…. Fenced off for renovations (as it was when we were there over a year ago). No problems lets do some shops and then the Library and the museum.
The shops didn’t take long (believe it or not) with the exception of a liquidation centre Karen wanted to find (but no longer existed). We grabbed lunch in a Gyros shop (as you do in a French Island) near the market and kept going. Next the Schoeller Library, a unique structure designed and built in Paris around the same time as the Eiffel Tower, dismantled, shipped and rebuilt in Martinique. We were concerned that it might be closed as it had scaffolding around the front (picture below from last year) but we found a side entrance and got some cultural experiences.
We were however not so lucky with the museum and with time to spare we started heading back, but of course we had to hit the hardware on the way back (as close to a Bunnings as we are going to get south of the US Virgins) but alas it was closed. Karen, being the opportunistic shopping that she is took us across the freeway to Gallerie de Lafayette! Here we hit Hyper U, a shop not dissimilar to RG Maddens and a great sports store where Jim found shiny boules for a quarter of the price they paid – much to their horror! They finally told us and we were now the proud owner of grown up boules!
After shopping it was back to Marin and onto the boat for an early night.
Next day it was up and heading to the north-east, via InterSport to return Evergreen’s new boules. Luckily the guy in the store had been to Canada and chatted with Jim while he gave him his money back. On to the other store to get the cheaper boules and then up to Robert and places north to find somewhere for lunch. The scenery was idyllic
But alas nowhere that struck our fancy for lunch! So it was back to Le Marin to have pizzas at a place we tried and liked last year but guess what – it was closed! We found another placed and enjoyed the pizzas while the skinny French woman next to us and her friend ordered the largest steak I have seen that wasn’t part of a cow! I assume it was to share…
So by now we were just waiting for Jacques (Diginav) to finish his olives – his choice not mine - and champagne at the Paris boat show and get us the cable so what did we do – play boules of course.
Guy (Princess of Tides) suggested we dinghy over to the beach past St Anne have a picnic – it was only 20 minutes away. Sounds good in theory, until we realise that 20 minutes is in a dinghy with a 15hp outboard… we have 6 and Evergreen 8, so even when we rode Evergreen’s wake it was slightly longer than 20 minutes
but it was a nice beach and we did enjoy both the picnic and the boules (although we got our butts whipped again)
Next with Christmas coming up it was time, for the first time since leaving Aus, to decorate the boat. We splashed out and bought a Santa on a rope ladder for the mast and a Christmas tree for our pressies. So we carefully decorated the tree with the 2 hand painted bells my sister had given us last Christmas out and only now had a tree to hang on!
Well Jacques finally returned but it didn’t appear that he had the part but he assured us if we came back early in the morning it would be there. Not only was it there, it was installed and he charged us no more than the second hand part we already paid for! Big thanks Jacques.
Now all we needed was Evergreen’s mail and some good weather and we were all off with my Christmas leg of Lamb in the freezer. Well the weather came but unfortunately the mail didn’t and we took off without our sailing buddies to St Pierre to wait to cross to Dominica, hoping they would catch up before we left.
After another day wandering round the town, dinner on Princess of Tides and it was time to go it alone – we are off to Dominica for Christmas!
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