After our uneventful sail from Rodney
Bay, St Lucia we anchored in Le Marin, Martinique where we met up with Linda
and John – Blue Moon. They were anchored in St Anne’s. They had organised the
hiring of a car for two days and wondered if we would like to join them. Of
course, we did…… so on Monday 19 March we met up with them at the Le Marin
Marina and off we went in. Monday was designated as a shopping day.
Linda and John have been sailing up and
down the Caribbean for the past 4 years, since we met them in 2014, so they
know Martinique well. John drove and took us to the HUGE hardware store where
you could get practically anything you wanted. We then went to an amazing
sports shop type warehouse, where once again you could find whatever you
wanted.
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Martinique, in most parts, is lush and
green. The countryside is beautiful. I feel that the entire island and its
people have a lovely calm and happy disposition about them. The roadways are
well maintained for the most part. Lots of sugar cane and banana farms are
found all over the island. Sugar – to support the rum distilleries found dotted
all over the island.
We drove up the west coast and it was
fascinating to see the island and the coast line from a different perspective.
We stopped in Saint Pierre for lunch, before going to a beautiful rum
distillery called Depaz, where Mel sampled the wares! The rum distillery is
situated on the foothill of Mount Pelee overlooking the anchorage and town of
St Pierre. The gardens and grounds are quite spectacular and beautifully
maintained. The original plantation house is slowly being restored back to its
former appearance. We were able to walk around the estate and distillery.
Saint Pierre was one of my favourite
destinations when we were sailing in 2014. The anchorage is not the best as we
found out again while sailing up north to Guadeloupe (Saturday 31 March 2018).
The town was once referred to as the
Paris of the Caribbean back in the 1800’s when Gauguin spent time living and
working on his creative and artist talent.
The volcano of Mount Pelee looms above St Pierre and in 1902 (8 May) it
erupted killing over 30, 000 people. It is reported that only two people
survived the eruption, a prisoner – Cyparis, who was in a stone prison cell,
for murder AND Leon Leandre, a cobbler. There were thirteen ships in the bay at
the time, with only one able to survive the vengeance and ferocity of Mount
Pelee’s destruction. In the harbour, a few of the wrecks are used as dive
sights.
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| St. Pierre |
The town has an interesting and
fascinating appeal to it as many of the ‘new’ buildings have been built with
some reference to or part of the old buildings before the volcanic eruption.
Many of the cobbled streets, are the original ones.
After the rum distillery, we drove north
east to Morne Rouge. We had been here before in 2014 when we were keen and
eager to climb to the top of Mount Pelee but unfortunately were not able to due
to the cloud cover.
We were now driving along the east
Atlantic side of Martinique, winding our way through the many picturesque towns
like Marigot, St Marie, Trinite, Robert Francious and Vauclin – all the way
back to Marin and St Anne.
After spending a few days anchored at Le Marin,
which was becoming increasingly crowded, we moved to St Anne and enjoyed what
this attractive and charming town has to offer – the bakeries are amazing.
While we were in St Anne’s, we took the
public transport bus to Le Marin and spent some time once again enjoying the
sights of Le Marin. We have noticed that quite a few new developments have
taken place since 2014: New dinghy docks, the boat yard looks as if it’s had a
whole new facelift – cement throughout the boatyard – no sand! At the boat yard
is a second-hand shop which Mel was eager to revisit.
Martinique is the type of place where one
can easily just choose to stay….. there were many days Mel and I would say, “We
will be leaving to sail north on Sunday….. then Monday……”. We eventually lifted
our anchor leaving Blue Moon once again and lovely St Anne’s for St Pierre on
Saturday 1 April 2018.
We sailed passed Diamond Rock again…..
Diamond Rock played a significant part between Napoleon and Nelson. We had a
good sail up to St Pierre.
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| Diamond Rock |
I was eager to stay in St Pierre as the
last time we were anchored there in September 2014, the Gaugin museum was
closed, and I was keen to see it, if possible. We arrived in St Pierre just
before lunch – struggled to find a decent spot as it was full. There are a limited
number of decent places to anchor despite it being a large bay, as the drop off
is quite sudden, plus a large amount of the area is reserved for the ferries,
the fishing boats and diving sites. You must go quite close to land to find a
suitable depth which we eventually did. Very seldom do we drop anchor and leave
the boat as we like to wait and check to see from the anchor watch (part of the
AIS) how the anchor is fairing.
We had a quick lunch, checked the details
of the Gaugin museum and where we could ‘check out ‘from Martinique and then
took the dinghy down to go on land.
Checking in and out of the French islands
is so easy as it is all done via the computer. Certain outlets/restaurants/
internet cafes have a designated computer with the customs and immigrations
‘forms’ which all you have to do is fill in, submit/save and print – this varies
in cost, depending on the outlet between 2 – 5 EU.
We caught a taxi to the Gaugin museum, as
I was concerned that we would not arrive before 4.30pm when the last entries
are allowed admission into the museum.
It’s a small museum but still very
interesting about Gaugin’s life and time spent in Panama,
After the museum we found the place where
we could check out of Martinique, had supper at the restaurant Mel took me for
my Birthday celebration back in 2014 and went back to the boat to get ready for
our sail to Guadeloupe – Ilse des Saintes, via Portsmouth, Dominica in the
morning - Easter Sunday.
Martinique is a destination that one
could easily return to, time and time again as it is a welcoming place and
there are many different aspects to it that would appeal to lots of different
tastes. I was very happy to have had the opportunity to visit Martinique once
again and quite sad to see her shore disappearing off into the distance as we
headed for Dominica.
Until next time when I’ll write from Guadalupe
about the routine I have observed in anchorages.
Bye for now. Keep well and safe.
Mel and Caryn
sv Passages
If you want to see where we are – go to:
top right corner – search for Passages
with the Australian flag – that’s us!
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| Depaz - the Rum distillery |
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Leaving St Pierre,Martinique - Mel taking down the French flag
Mount Pelee is in the background.
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