Marking Time in Martinique, a Cruisers Haven
Finally, we knew we were going to a place that was easy to check in and check out of – there is never any hassle and the cost is minimal – we love the way the French Caribbean islands can achieve this and wonder why all the rest cannot use the same system. After Trinidad and Tobago, we were looking forward to Martinique and we were not the only ones – our friends Mark and Marie had a tougher time than us in Scarborough and they couldn’t wait to get out of T&T.
We had a fabulous sail from Tobago to Martinique with just over 20 hours and 200 miles from lifting our anchor in Charlotteville to dropping it in Le Marin. Perfect sailing conditions on a tight reach which Eleuthera loves with a reef in the main to control speeds so we didn’t fall off too many waves. Arriving in the channel between St Lucia and Martinique at sunrise we were treated to 10 or 15 Brown Boobies following us and feeding on the flying fish we startled into flight.
Le Marin
By 9 am we were anchored and had a nap before venturing ashore after lunch to check in at the Marina Office. All that is required is to fill in the forms on the computer, pay 5 Euro and that was it- checked in, So simple.
Le Marin has 5 dingy docks, a very large fuel dock, dry stands, floating maintenance docks, many shops, several chandleries though these are small, and numerous bars and restaurants. It is a very buzzy marine destination with several yacht charter companies. Of course, the downside is there are hundreds of yachts, the marinas are very full, and the hundreds of buoys are also mostly full both at Le Marin and at Sainte-Anne which is just at the harbour entrance. The good things are there are very good supermarkets and boulangeries.
We were fascinated by the local boats out training – you must be very fit to hike in and out on the boards. Here is a short video as we watched one training. https://youtu.be/QvQoOqnI8pg Here is more about the Martinique Yole .
Raymarine Screen Failures and Delays
We anchored close in the first night as we knew we had to check in and also take in the second Raymarine screen which had failed in Tobago. We could not make the Raymarine online system work as it kept telling us to send the screen to Sydney when we were in the Caribbean and it needed to go to Boston. No amount of emails or help desk chats seemed to be able to sort this. After several days it became apparent the solution was to take it to the local Raymarine dealer to send away. We did this on Thursday and returned on Monday to check on the progress to find it still on the floor having been forgotten. After some prompting, we had a DHL tracking number the following day and it was off to Boston.
Meanwhile, we were trying to get an update on the other screen we had sent for repair via the dealer in Trinidad which was proving difficult as Raymarine would not talk to us without authorization from the dealer.
While this was going on we discovered the Transducer for recording speed, depth, and temperature was on the blink and we needed a new one. These were unavailable in Le Marin and expensive to import so to reduce the local taxes and fees we ordered one for delivery to St Lucia. Here we could import it tax and duty-free as a “yacht in transit”, not something the French were interested in.
Le Marin
Sainte-Anne
The following day we shifted out to the entrance at Saoimte-Anne for better swimming and less crowded – if 250 yachts means less crowded!
The town of Sainte-Anne dates from 1868 and was named after a man who defended the island against the English in 1808. The famous Église Sainte-Anne was burned by the British in 1730 and then destroyed again by a cyclone in 1817. It took 12 years to build another church and today it is one of the oldest on the island. As you walk up the hill, from the town towards the beach, you pass the well-kept Le cimietière Marin which overlooks the bay. All the tombs are constructed with white tiles which makes it truly beautiful. https://azmartinique.com/en/life-in-martinique/municipalities/sainte-anne.
With the old sections, there is also the new and the artwork and posters are interesting. I was very amused to see the poster of the female Air Force pilot. An Air Force poster is not an item you expect to see in the islands, let alone a female one.
A lovely lunch – Basilic Beach
After we walked over the hill from the town to the beach we stopped and had lunch at Basilic. It was a lovely low-key restaurant with a great view and excellent food. https://www.facebook.com/lebasilicbeach
A Music Bar for Dinner – La Dunette
Another night we decided to go out for dinner and try and catch some music. Well, we got a DJ but he was very good and the bar had a beautiful view but the food was like English Pub food – eminently missable. The night was very entertaining with the locals coming and going along with tourists like us. https://www.ladunette.com/restaurant/restaurant.html
Diving
We knew that we would be in Martinique for a while, so we decided to go diving. We selected Natiyabel as they were the closest. The first day of diving was with more cruisers also on their way toward Panama. The first dive was a bit average but the second one was very good. We decided to do another day’s diving but Hew’s knee had swollen up badly. We called Mark in Australia for a medical opinion. So I went diving and Hew had a day off. Hews’ knee turned out to be Bursitis from overuse perhaps kneeling in the bilges. The first dive was at Saint Luce reef and was great with a big swim through and some nice cliff formations, but the following dive was shallow and not very interesting. It was more of a snorkel site.
Natiyabel Plongee
Two days Touring
We had been diving and the battery in my watch was running low and needed replacing. The company that had the agency to fix and test Suunto watches was out near the airport a 30-minute drive from Le Marin, so we decided to hire a car for two days and use it to drop the watch off and do some island exploring. So off we went and did all the southern part of the island one day and the northern part the next.
The roads are generally very good with some 2 lane motorways as you head towards Port au France—evidence of substantial financial support from France and the EU everywhere. The guys in the dive shop were very friendly and assured us the watch would be ready the following day.
We decided to head across the island to Francois and explore the bottom of the island. The southern part is lower lying and we visited various bays on the East coast along with inland areas of farming and agriculture. Lunch in a local restaurant is always a good thing with some delicious local fish and good coffee. After some further exploring and a visit to a local supermarket (Carrefour), we returned to Eleuthera at dusk.
With an earlier start the next morning we returned to the dive shop via a different route and then on to the more mountainous northern part of the island. Narrow winding roads up and down steep terrain were the order of the day. These roads would open out into valleys and areas of flatter arable land with large areas of sugar cane and many banana plantations. Almost all the hands of bananas were encased in plastic bags to protect them and help them ripen. Something we must try at home with our bananas. There is a lot of mechanised farming with large tractors and harvesters operating, we even passed a tractor and farm machinery dealership.
Lunch proved difficult as the fare in the local patisseries was uninviting and we struggled to find a cafe or restaurant. Hungry we found a large supermarket and emerged with a baguette and the makings of a picnic to consume on the beach nearby. After negotiating the one-way system in the village we made it to the beach only to discover there were several restaurants right there! We had a very nice picnic with an old upturned fishing boat as a table followed by a walk across a sandy spit to a very picturesque little island. Barb of course had to go swimming while Hew looked on.
From there it was up into the highlands and the spectacular rainforest. The island is largely volcanic with steep hillsides windy roads, narrow bridges, and lush vegetation from the high rainfall. Much of the inland area is a protected park with various walking tracks and areas to explore. Unfortunately, we were constrained by time and could only stop occasionally.
However, we did drive up Mt Pele as far as the first Refuge at about 800m and stopped to look at the view. It was a bit cooler up here and Barb had to put on some more clothes, rather than just her bikini. The mountain is nearly 1400m and last erupted in 1902 when it wiped out the town of St Pierre on the west coast below it. On our visit, the peak was largely shrouded in cloud with several walkers heading up the trail to the caldera a 7km round trip with at least 2 other shelters further up the mountain. It felt like it would be a pretty wild place in a big storm.
Restaurant Le Refuge De L’aileron
We visited the small town of St Pierre last year. St Pierre was settled by Europeans who wiped the last of the local Caribs in 1658. Legend has it that the last ones uttered horrible curses invoking the mountain to take its revenge before they died. By 1900 St Pierre was known as the Paris of the Caribbean with a population of 30,000 and the capital of Martinique. Despite early volcanic activity and minor eruptions throughout April, the politicians of the day chose not to evacuate the town as elections were due and on 8 May 1902 the mountain took its revenge and erupted. All but 2 people were killed and 12 ships in the bay were destroyed by a fireball of superheated gas, famously one of the survivors was a murderer who was locked up in a stone cell.
Continuing via a hilltop town with a huge church, and on towards Port au France for rush hour on Friday. Bumper-to-bumper traffic and only a large-scale map meant a few wrong turns. We got to explore parts of the town you might not normally find yourself in, got tooted at a few times but eventually found the road south to Le Marin. Interestingly Port au France has an alternative to light rail with divided bus lanes down the middle of the road and long buses with several carriages – dont know what it cost but seemed to work well!
Recruiting Crew
Given our next major leg to Panama is fast coming up we decided some additional crew to help would be a good idea. It is about 1200 miles from here to Panama, 6 or 7 days nonstop some additional watch keepers would make the journey easier. Facebook soon produced some likely candidates with a young French couple just arrived across the Atlantic and wanting to make it to Central America and a young English guy wanting to go to Colombia.
