Messing in Martinique
25 April 2017
After motoring down the west coast of Dominica on Monday 10th April, we picked up the wind and had a good sail in 14-18kts ESE to complete the 53nm to St Pierre in nine hours. We anchored south of the town and Alastair and Esther on ‘Cranstackie’ came over for sundowners.
Then on to Fort-de France the next day to clear in and restock with French produce at the big Carrefour. The anchorage was very rolly during the day with all the ferry traffic but calmed down at night. Since our last visit in 2011, the authorities seem to have made a big effort to smarten the place up somewhat – a work in progress.
We arranged to rendezvous with Ann and Stephan on ‘SAS3’ at Grand Anse d’Arlet on 13th April and they joined us for a sumptuous dinner at the restaurant L’Escale which we highly recommend.
We hiked over to Petite Anse d’Arlet, strolled around the bay, gave the bottom of the boat a bit of a scrub and enjoyed having a beer ashore at the many beach restaurants and bars. We were entertained by the anchoring antics of new arrivals and their apparent indifference to being in very close proximity to other boats – ah well, c’est La France.
Like a magnet or being joined by a tether, we just had to go back to Ste Anne, which we did on Easter Monday – a beat of course but quite comfortable. It was a good place to sit out some stronger winds, more swell and buckets of rain that arrived on 18th and 19th April.
Dinner aboard ‘SAS3’ was the usually delicious affair but we managed to walk off some of the calories by heading to Les Salines and Pointe d’Enfer – an eight miles round trip. The coastal walk is varied and quite delightful.
However, it was time to keep moving south and so Friday 21st April saw us clear out and enjoy the 23nm sail, reaching in 12-13kts wind, to Rodney Bay, St Lucia, which shockingly is virtually empty of boats.
We have been quite amazed at the contrast these last weeks with the enormous number of boats cruising in December-January – St Anne was down by at least 50 per cent as well. It seems strange since we are now in a more benign period of winds and there is generally less rain about. Oh well ….