We're continuing to enjoy Martinique. We've sailed around from the northwest corner at St. Pierre past the capital, Fort de France, which is in the center of the west coast, to St. Anne and Marin on the southeast. We're planning to spend several weeks here to get a bit of work done and await Hannah's visit in the middle of the month - YAY! Then at the end of the month we plan to go to a birthday party for our friend Michel before moving on to St. Lucia.

Our daily living typically starts with French coffee on deck and when we're lucky a fresh baguette or croissant. Next we do a bit of boat work and cleaning which often takes the full morning. We then will often go grocery shopping; since we don't have a car and our refrigerator and freezer are quite small this is a bit bigger task then at home, lugging food in backpacks and using our dingy. Later we try to access Internet which is often on shore, and lately we've been trying to work on our taxes. Sometimes instead we sail, snorkel or hike. Often we practice speaking broken French. And, sometimes we we have lunch, dinner or an outing with friends from other boats. By late afternoon we're typically quite hot and sweaty so we'll dive right off of the boat for a wonderful swim. We shower right out on deck before popping open a bottle of wine in time for a gorgeous sunset.

A few days ago we had a several hour sail and we saw a huge disturbance in the sea. Turned out to be a very large whale, spouting and broaching. We didn't see the whale as we needed to keep our distance in the boat but we did see the large spray and friends who were closer did get surprised by her.

We do often see turtles which are quite common here.

Dinner typically consists of something on the grill (tuna, mahi mahi, shrimp, chicken and an occasional steak) or sometimes just a lovely salad, cheese and baguette.

All in all it's a total adventure wherever we turn. And, the sunsets are truly magnifique!

The Google Earth plot is at St. Anne, where we were the other day and where we will be going back tomorrow (Sunday). We are currently a little northeast at a marina in Le Marin - pleasant place, but it is on a dock, and we really prefer to be on anchor! The sunset picture is from our anchorage in Grand Anse D'Arlet a few days ago.