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.
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 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.
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