Just a note about where we're at and what we're up to.
At the moment we're in Martinique. An intended week has become closer to a month because first we had a dinghy that needed to be repaired : no problem there, it was work done when we were here in April that had to be redone under warranty, and the company was first rate about honouring that; but we also had a fridge problem, which transpired to be three problems, so we had to keep getting the guy back. Then by the time we were all set to go we started getting some strong wind forecasts, so we decided not to try to cross the sea, and have been cruising around locally this past ten days or so.
So let me tell you a bit about Martinique. It's a "Department" of France, meaning a kind of county of France, so just like anywhere else in France - in theory!! In practice it sometimes is. Here for example, in Anse Mitan, you might as well be in the South of France. Ok, there are more people of African decent, but this is a holiday town, lots of cafés, apartments, boulangeries, etc., and most of the people are European French. Cross the bay to Fort de France - the capital, and it's different. There are few European faces, and there appears to be a degree of hostile feeling towards Europeans.
Perhaps that's justified, I'm not trying to get into the politics of the place. Demographically, it does seem that there are few poor Europeans, and few rich Africans, however there is not many African owned businesses, not even at street vendor level, so I suspect the reasons may not all be because of discrimination, past or present.
The trade winds blow almost constantly from the East, sometimes a little North East, sometimes a little South East, depending on the season. Because of this, all the sailing haunts are along the West coast (and therefore most of the major towns, after all up to 100 years ago, sailing was the only way to get here - it's the same for nearly every Caribbean Island).
If you look at a map of Martinique, right at the South East corner there's like a little fish hook, that's Le Marin. It's sheltered from the East, and therefore from the trades, and being a deep bay, it's rare for any swell to work its way in. Le Marin is a big sailing centre because it's so sheltered and a really good anchorage. Therefore there are lots of businesses about to service all the boats that come in here, it's a base for several sailing charter companies, and something of the downside, boatwise it's pretty crowded. However, great for getting work done.
Travel up the West coast a little, and there is a really big bay. It's like a deep rectangle, so I suppose it's a bit like Clew Bay in Mayo, but I think not as wide (maybe three miles at the mouth) and proportionately deeper. Anyway, that is where Fort de France is, about half way in on the north side of the bay. Anse Mitan is directly across on the South side, and there are several other "Anse"s (meaning cove) and little anchorages around the bay and between here and Marin.
Before here we had spent a few days anchored off the village of Les Trois Islets (although the whole region on the South West side of the bay is also called Trois Ilets). True enough there were three little islands there. It was a quaint little village, and on Sunday there was yole racing there amid much fanfare. (Yoles are a local sailing boat, a big wooden dinghy with a single very large square sail and a crew of about a dozen who scramble out the sides on long wooden poles to keep it balanced. As a boat they look pretty "ticklish", and regularly capsize. On the last race the wind got up a bit (like I said, we've delayed our departure from Martinique waiting for the winds to die down), anyway, the wind got up a bit more and 5 out of 10 boats in the race ended up capsized. The water wasn't too appealing looking to swim in, so we came over here on Wednesday, It's only a couple of miles.
Before Les Trois Ilets we were in Grande Anse D'Arlet, another pretty holiday village, which was great for swimming, but there was no transport if you didn't own a car, and the only shops were of the small corner shop variety. So last Saturday we picked up the hook and sailed round to 3Ilets, we anchored in Fort de France for lunch & to visit the supermarket.
Today (Saturday again) Catherine has taken the ferry across to the supermarket and left me here to play on the internet - I'm in a café where they give you 2 hours free wifi as long as you buy something. My €2 cup of coffee is long gone, but they don't seem to mind me sitting here for the rest of my 2 hours. And when she still hadn't arrived back I was getting hungry, and had ordered a pizza before I remembered I gave her all my cash because the drinklink didn't like my card. Here's hoping the credit card works or I'll be washing dishes!
Update on that, Catherine is back and her credit card worked in the Supermarket, so chances are mine will work here. If not, I'm sure Catherine won't mind paying to keep me out of gaol - or wash-up duty!
Since I don't appear to have written anything on the blog since the end of October, here's a brief summary of what we were been up to before Martinique.
After our visitors left in October we went into a marina in Grenada to get the boat ship shape. After doing only local cruising during the hurricane season there were a few cobwebs to brush off. However our preparations were interupted by Tomas, which I wrote about, and after that, we finally got ourselves underway about mid November.
We went first to Tobago. Tobago is an island pop circa 50,000, and it together with Trinidad make the country of "Trinidad and Tobago". It's a pretty place, the sailing is great, but the anchorages are swelly. We only spent a week there because we wanted to get down to Trinidad and get some work done in the boatyard, and then get back to Grenada to meet up with a gang we arranged to meet for Christmas. I might get the finger out sufficiently to write about it in more detail again, but this "update" is getting so long-winded that I'm afraid if I go into that level of detail about everywhere it'll be more dissertation than update!!
So we got to Chaguaramus in Trinidad, lifted out, antifouled the bottom of the boat, got a list of repairs done that I won't bore you with, and got back to Grenada a week before Christmas. We celebrated Christmas day in St David's bay with an English boat and an American boat. There's a boatyard there, and not much else (unless you count a billion skiddillion giant mosquitoes that bite you through ten layers of clothing!!). So seeing as how the boatyard was closed for Christmas the place was pretty quiet. Catherine cooked a Turkey, the Americans cooked the ham, and the English provided the plum pudding. We ate well.
We moved up the coast for New Years day, and went to a party in a local hostelry. We left Grenada (the island) for the last time on 2nd Jan, but only to go as far as the island of Carriacou, which is still part of the country of Grenada, about 20 miles north.
We continued north, visiting St Vincent and the Grenadines (stopping in Union Island, the Tobago Cays, Mustique, and Bequia) but not stopping anywhere for more than a few days. We had an overnight in St Lucia before we reached Martinique, which brings me to where I was a while ago, with dinghy and fridge problems.
So, plans from here, keep going North,. We're hoping to visit Dominica next, then Guadeloupe, Montserrat, Nevis, and finally St Martin, from where Catherine flies home on 23rd March, and I set sail for Europe about 6 weeks later. Who knows, I might even post another blog before then.
Anyway, fair winds and safe anchorages to you where ever you are.
