Meandering Up Martinique
01 February 2017 | St. Pierre, Martinique
Julie
Usually we leave St. Anne's and beat feet to Dominica, bypassing some great anchorages along the Leeward (western) coast of Martinique. This year, we are buddy-boating with friends Ken and JoAnn Reed on Allicat, a Privilege 465 catamaran. Ken and JoAnn leave their boat in St Lucia each summer and spend four months or so on her each year. They've been doing this for years so they make terrific tour guides for us.
Our first stop was at Anne Petit Anslet on the southwest corner of Martinique....a beautiful little anchorage with a quintessential French fishing village. Magnet de canard...breast of duck...was a special meal aboard Allicat that evening.
Next we moved on to Anse Dufour for a quick snorkel...I tried out JoAnn's full face snorkel mask (didn't quite get the hang of it, but it has potential....and then anchored in Sohelscher (pronounced Soul-Share). All of these little towns feature a solid concrete town dock, a lovely promenade/park area and beaches along the waterfront....all backed by a large church with steeple. The grocery stores are tiny, but we are pretty well provisioned at this point, so that's ok.
Our afternoon entertainment was to watch all the kids in the local sailing school out and about sailing everything from wind surfers, to lasers, to old traditional wooden boats. Seems that all the islands have their own traditional boat design with very specific rules about racing them. In Martinique, the boats are about 20 feet long, almost keel-less. They are steered with a long tiller-like oar and sport a single large colorful square sail. At misships are long boards that slide from port to starboard. There must have been 15 or more kids and on each boat. They all move as far out on the boards as they can when the boat heels. Sometimes they fall off. Each racing boat has it's own chase boat to return any crew overboard..rules says that you have to end each race with the same number of crew as when you started. It's a hoot to watch!
Today, we sailed ten more miles up the coast to St. Pierre. We've been here twice before, but always by land, do it is fun to see the harbor-view. St Pierre was destroyed in the early 1900's by the huge eruption of Mount Pellee. Only one person survived... prisoner trapped below ground in his cell. The museum is fascinating and the ruins tell the story of what was once "The Paris of the Caribbean."