Anchored here at St. Anne, we had a front row seat to the races of traditional Martinique boats called "Yolos". As you can see from the picture, they are very colorful. In some races the boats were using two sails as in this picture and in others only one. Evidently, each boat needs a team of about 10 people complete with matching T-shirts and business sponsers. We even saw teams doing warm-up exercises on the beech prior to the start of the races. Other teams were observed hanging out at the beer tent. Not sure which group was more successful. The boats are VERY tippy, and often the whole team, except the helmsman, would be hanging over the side on the outrigger; and yes, a few boats went over.

Martinique is a delightful place. Although we were aware that this island is a department of France, I was a little surprised at the degree of French influence. Of course, French is spoken locally as well as the island Creole, a mixture of French, Spanish, Amerindian, English, etc. It's not always easy to tell the difference when local people are speaking to each other except the Creole has occasional English, Spanish, German, etc. words in addition to mostly French. In addition to the French language, there is an abundant supply of great French wine reasonably priced, plentiful baggettes, and wonderful food. Paul always includes the prevalence of topless sunbathing in his list, but it's not so important on my list.

A returning traveler shared his cold with us, and we lost a few days on the beach. After we quit sniffling, we left St. Anne and also anchored in Les Trois Ilets and Anse Matin (both inlets in the very large Baie de Fort de France). Our last stop in Martinique was St. Pierre on the western coast. St. Pierre suffered an eruption of the nearby Pele Volcano in the early part of this century which killed almost 30,000 people. Although the town has been rebuilt, there are still interesting ruins especially the coliseum which reminded me a lot of the smaller ones I saw in Italy. St. Pierre is a great stop for cruisers because it has a good anchorage and easy access to shore; but it is not a place that has a lot of tourists usually. So a visitor can get a flavor of life in a traditional Martinique town complete with the local market, a favorite of mine.