Martinique - an island in Paradise

We spent a lovely day with Ian's sister Hilary and Martin in St Lucia - no sightseeing, only an extended lunch and catch up - before we set off our different ways to Martinique:  for us, a 5 hour sail, for Martin and Hilary a quick trip on a Cruise Ship via Barbados!

Le Marin on Martinique is a vast sailing centre and a place that would have the expertise to repair our Parasailor - we knew it was bad, but not that it would be placed in the pile with the others awaiting repair and take a month! 

Another reason for going to Le Marin was social.  We were meeting friends from home who were chartering for a couple of weeks - Steve and Pippa Cole, and Wendy Morton and Bjarne

Le Marin itself is definitely functional rather that beautiful, so we headed out to St Anne's as soon as we could and there met up with more sailing friends:  This time it was Bernd and Birgit from Sailing Yacht Rebell who we first met in Licata two years ago, and rather than a fleeting visit we plan to cruise Martinique together along with Steve and Lynne from Aztec Dream.

Martinique has some fabulous walks, we set off from St Anne along the coastal trail to Grande Anse des Salines to the South.

The view down over St Anne, Le Marin is further to the right.

One of the many magnificent trees on our route.

Sheltering from the rain with Birgit and Bernd - even though this is officially the dry season, it still rains at some time most days.

Looking South

A very unforgiving coastline, Martinique South coast.

We encountered an interesting collection of land crabs on our walk

A more sheltered bay on the south coast.

After a couple of days in St Anne's bay, we headed north to the crystal clear waters of Grande Anse, there is a Marine Reserve in the northern side of the bay where we picked up a mooring buoy.

The view over Grande Anse - the marine reserve is not visible in this photo, but provided excellent snorkelling and even had floating information buoys complete with hand rails for swimmers.  Unfortunately the swell gradually picked up in the bay - not only did this render the already challenging dinghy dick totally unusable but life on board became very uncomfortable so we moved on to Anse Mitan.

Grande Anse fishermen, just outside the marine reserve, casting a net for Ballyhoo, a small type of needle fish.

Saturday evening power boat get together in Grande Anse - an opportunity for the locals to test their stereo systems!

We made a brief stop in Anse Mitan - pleasant anchorage, but most noteworthy for the 'Disneyesque' development, Pointe du Bout and the tiny marina where there are seemingly endless shopping opportunities at one of the many exclusive little boutique shops there.  Quite a contrast from the rest of the places we have visited in Martinique!

Our final destination in Martinique was St Pierre, at the foot of the Mont Pelee volcano.  St Pierre was at one time the commercial, social and cultural centre of Martinique, with a population of 30,000 supported by the very profitable plantations in the area.  All that changed in 1902 when the volcano erupted and vaporised anything in its path. There were only two survivors:  a prisoner locked in his cell, who was rescued 4 days later by people from a neighbouring village and a cobbler who was in his cellar at the time of the eruption.

Parts of the old town of St Pierre remain standing, and the new town has made use of the old buildings where possible.

The remains of the old church overlooking the bay.

There is an excellent market in St Pierre, with Saturday being the busiest shopping day.

Sauce Chien. ... Dog Sauce, for those who don't speak French.  We baught some, it is a spicy relish - very nice, and nothing to do with dogs!

The town is benefitting from EU regeneration funding - nearly complete, it looks like the finished seafront will be very smart.

The seafront - a work in progress.

The anchorage - we are second from the left.  There is a very narrow shelf that is shallow enough to anchor here, 100 m from the beach you are in 100m of water.  

Martinique, like other Caribbean islands grows sugarcane and produces rum - a half hour walk up towards Mt Pelee from St Pierre takes you to the Distilleries Depaz which has been producing rum for 400 years.  

Victor Depaz rebuilt the magnificent Chateau Depaz after the eruption - he was studying in France at the time of the eruption and the only surviving member of the Depaz family.

Habitation Depaz - a very fine house.

Wonderful views from the lawn.

Magnificent gardens

According to the sign, this rubber tree was planted in 1960

The old water mill - 60,000 litres of water was needed to produce 6 hp.  

 The old machinery, some still is use today.

There was no entry charge, you could wonder around the displays and the working distillery and have a free tasting at the end of your visit. A perfect day out!

Back in the 1700's, slaves were used to build a canal from the mountains to the distilleries of St Pierre. The Canal de Beauregard (also known as The Slaves' Canal) is a spectacular walk, although fairly level it certainly is not for the faint hearted!

There are impressive drop offs in places.

Passing places are challenging.

The plant life is fabulous

And it's full of surprises!

We came back out of the lush vegetation back onto a road through vast sugar cane plantations

Again with the occasional surprise

And after the sugar cane, we came into the banana plantations which literally stretch for miles.

And finally, after a good hour walking down hill we came back to St Pierre where we recovered in a beach restaurant with heaps of rustic charm and a surprisingly good lunch

The Restaurant Le Reservoir - it really was excellent!  

We were told when we first arrived in St Pierre that you had to stay for 5 days in order to actually see Mont Pelee - turns out that is true!  One quick glimpse before the clouds roll back in and hide it again.

We have certainly enjoyed Martinique, it's a place to visit again.

A selection of signs we've seen in Martinique.

The plan is to do a dive here later today, and head on to Dominica first thing tomorrow.

The Windward Isles

We have spent the last month cruising the Windward Isles from Martinique to Grenada and back again.

Having spent one night in Soufriere, St Lucia where we experienced the very pushy tactics of the local 'Boat Boys' we were keen to move on the Rodney Bay anchorage on the north west tip of St Lucia.  The bay is over a mile across, with much of it shallow enough to anchor and is therefore a magnet for cruising yachts.

Rodney Bay, seen from Pigeon Island.

Back in the days when Pigeon Island was actually an island, This fort used to be a British Naval Base and was ideally located for keeping an eye on what the French were up to on Martinique.  The island is now connected to the mainland by a causeway which serves to protect the bay from the North Easterly swell and is the site of a large Sandals holiday complex.

One of the other Rodney Bay Hotels, on a day when the swell was not from the north east!  The swimming area was not getting much use on this day.

Although there are plenty of shopping opportunities ashore, you can provision from the comfort of your yacht from the local vendors

Soufriere Boat Boys could learn a lot here - this man supplied quality fresh fruit and veg at a reasonable price with and no pressure tactics at all.  

Rodney Bay has a large well appointed Marina which is home to several large Charter fleets and accommodates Superyachts 

Rodney Bay Marina. The Motor Vessel Venus, commissioned by the late Steve Jobbs is most certainly not to everyone's taste - and not what I'd have expected from the creator of all things Apple.  Although those top two roofs are reminiscent of an iPad and iPad mini ...

We visited some of the other attractions of St Lucia from Rodney Bay anchorage

The Pitons, and Soufriere town

The Volcano, from which the town of Soufriere (meaning Sulphur) gets its name -  complete with bubbling mud pools and a very strong smell of Sulphur.  We were informed that the overpowering smell was a good sign; if you couldn't smell it, there was about to be an eruption!

One of the mud pools - access is now restricted and you must be accompanied by a registered guide. Things were tightened up after an independent guide went too near a pool and fell through the crust some years ago.  We were told he suffered 2nd degree burns to his legs, but at least lived to tell the tale.

The Botanic Gardens

One of the many waterfalls - if does rain a lot here!

We also took the opportunity to go on a dive in St Lucia at one of the local PADI centres.

From St Lucia it's only a short sail to Martinique - Baguettes and Brie were calling

It was a very wet sail across to Le Marin, a vast anchorage complete with several very convenient supermarkets, chandleries restaurants and a large Marina again with a massive selection of Charter Boats.

The traditional Martinique sailing boats are called Yole Rondes and we were lucky enough to be there for the first day of their World Regatta Series

The competitors and supporters assemble on the beach

We had anchored next to the buoyed channel, which turned out to be very close to the action.

They were fantastic to watch - as far as we know no one fell in, but it certainly looked challenging!

The Yole Rondes being packed up after the race ready to be transported to the next race venue on the island.

The bay ends in a mangrove swamp

We took the dinghy up this little waterway which surprisingly ended up in an industrial park complete with a large sail loft.  A venue we will have to visit as we have unfortunately ripped our beautiful Parasail.

Le Marin also appears to be a place boats come to die.

There were dozens of yachts in this sort of state dotted around in the shallows.

Having spent a few days in Martinique we headed back to Rodney Bay, St Lucia to meet up with Lynne and Steve our travelling companions on Aztec Dream and set off together back through the Windward Isles to Grenada where we needed to collect a new anchor and hoped to meet up with another friend from Eastbourne Yacht Club, Alan Costello.  

Alan was in Grenada for the Grenada Sailing regatta, we met at the end of the first day's racing to find two of the crew had jumped ship - so we were invited to join Sandy Mair's crew on Cricket, a Beneteau First 35.  

The Hat - only available at events sponsored by Mount Gay Rum.  The departed crew members took two with them, a crime indeed!

Alan at the bow as we prepare to start a race

Sandy at the helm, Ian and Ray on the jib sheet.

And the results!  Third overall, which wasn't a bad effort for a scratch crew.

Sandy with the trophy, being put to good use to hold the kitty.

We left Grenada and headed north again, stopping this time in Carriacou, an island with about 5000 inhabitants.  

Tyrrel Bay, Carriacou.  

The festival of independence took place while we were in Carriacou - the town of Hilsborough was adorned with lots of red, gold and green bunting - the colours of independence although none of the locals I asked could explain what they represented. 

Apart from the bunting, the festival seemed to involve lots of people milling around in the street

Shopping opportunities

Drinking opportunities - this one may have started a bit early!

Lots of youngsters covered in green, gold and red paint - possibly another one who had one too many Carib beers.

Washing the paint off.  Apparently there was also a Shakespere recital, as a reminder of dark days when slaves were forced to perform plays for their masters and beaten for forgetting their lines.  The music at the current festival was so loud there would be no way to know if the scripts were followed or not!

We did some fantastic snorkelling off Sandy Island, Carriacou Marine Park where we also bought a lobster from a Boat Boy - hopefully not caught in the park.

Sandy Island in the background - we saw a sting ray while snorkelling here.

Ian's sister Hilary and brother in law Martin were spending a day in St Lucia so we sailed back up north to meet them, stopping overnight in Bequai on the way.

Bequai - not sure why we didn't notice this last time, but someone certainly wasn't looking where they were going on this ship!

We booked into the Rodney Bay Marina for a couple of nights and met up with Hilary and Martin.  It was great to see them and catch up with family news.

We set off to Martinique bright and early the next day so we could catch up with some sailing friends from Bexhill, Steve and Pippa Cole and Wendy Morton and partner Bjarne who are chartering a yacht here.  Unfortunately this time we also need to make use of the Martinique sail loft as we have done a very thorough job of ripping our Parasail.

One final photo - these birds are called Boobies, and provide us with great entertainment when we are sailing as they dive and catch the little flying fish that scatter across the surface of the sea as we sail past.  

We will stay here in Martinique to (hopefully) get our sail fixed and then head on to Guadaloupe and then Antigua where we will be joined by my sister Rose Anne - all is good!