We have spent quite a bit of time in Martinique this season. Some weeks ago we cleared into St Pierre at the northern end of the island, moved down to Ft de France and then onto to St Lucia for nearly two weeks. After that we moved back to Martinique and spent time in St Anne, a lovely little village with a huge anchorage.
The anchorage is very well protected, open to the west but in the lee of the island. A beautiful sunrise nearly every morning.
We enjoy one restaurant in particular, right on the water. Our view.
My view and dinner date, Brenda.
We were not alone but it was a very relaxed vibe. To sip a drink with your toes in the gently lapping water…
On the way back to Pandora it was a beautiful night. Thanks to my amazing Google Pixel phone, a pretty good shot of her at anchor with a rising moon with blue LED lights bathing her mainsail with a glow.
A few days ago we headed north to St Pierre again where we expected to spend a few days before clearing out and continuing our trip north to return to Antigua.
Along the way we passed an “island” if you can call it that. It is the cone of a long extinct volcano. Over the millions of years, the soft parts had washed away, leaving only the hard rock of the interior lava cone remaining. It is huge and quite intimidating to see the waves crashing up on it
It’s hard to get a feel for the scale of this rock. It’s enormous.
Big yes until you see the dive boats at the base. It’s massive.
I took a short video about this formation as we sailed past.
When we reached the northern part of the island, we picked up a mooring in St Pierre, long a very challenging place to anchor because the shoreline drops off quickly. In this case our mooring, newly installed, not far from shore, in 100′ of water.
The Saturday market was bustling.
Hard to believe that a single vendor could have such variety.
The first day in St Pierre was lovely with calm waters and a beautiful sunset. I do love sunsets and this one is perhaps in the top ten. I plan to submit it to the “Cloud Appreciation Society”. They post a cloud photo a day and I have had a few of them selected over the years. I wrote a post about this quirky group some time back and decided to join.
The run north to Dominica is fairly long and requires an early start so our plan was to head out on Sunday morning, today, but as we returned to Pandora in the afternoon of the second day on the mooring, it had become terribly rolly. While we were on shore for only a few hours, quite a surge had developed and dishes had crashed out of the cabinets onto the counters, due to the violent rolling. So we quickly decided to up anchor and head back to Ft de France, a retreat of about ten miles in the wrong direction.
A setback to be sure but being in St Pierre is always a lesson in “what might be” and to get more than a day or two of calm conditions is not common in our experience. Happily, it was calm when we arrived but a swell came up on the second night and it got nasty. It seems to be settling down again. For sure, it was calmer than in St Pierre.
So, here we are again in Fort de France for a few days. I say “few” as that speedo that I had “fixed” wasn’t fixed after all so I had to go back to La Marin to see what can be done about it. The repair guy now says that he can “fix it” and even agreed to bring it back to Fort de France tomorrow. The $50 “fix” didn’t last long and by the second day, I will reserve judgement
While we didn’t want to head north only to head back south again but sometimes life is unpredictable, “two steps forward, one step back”. At least it is, sort of, calm now although last night was more than a bit challenging, to be sure.
The good news is that we had brunch yesterday at a restaurant that we really overlooking the harbor and that didn’t roll a bit.
We will just have to make the best of it I guess and hope to head north again in a day or so. I will admit that I am looking forward to being back in CT soon. I know Brenda is…