Never judge a book by its cover
05 January 2018 | Anse Mitan, Martinique
Anse Mitan has turned out to be a fine stopover from a yachtsman’s perspective. We have now had a couple of days here.
We had an afternoon ashore, walked through the village, and found the Marina, found the supermarket and more importantly found some wifi. In some places it is quite smart and in other places a bit shabby. A bit like much of France really. But it suits our purpose. The real find was a little café / restaurant just at the top of the dinghy dock. They had Poulet Colombo on the menu, which we have been wanting to try (must make this at home). It was low key, on the beach, sand in your feet kind of place, popular with the locals, really friendly and the food was good – just what we needed. It has become our local.
Yesterday we took the dinghy round the corner to a wee beach for a swim and a read. Think we landed on the locals’ beach rather than the tourist beach – definitely more interesting watching the intimate goings on of the young lads and lassies and trying not to inhale the air too deeply. There seems to have been a really upmarket hotel development here that has not quite worked. It is shown on our chart as ruined but there is clearly some kind of hotel running on the site but it is not the 5-star place that was originally built.
It’s a bit beguiling here. We meant to stay one night, then it was two nights. Now it looks like three. Must move on or the boat will grow roots. It’s just nice to stay put for a bit with facilities.
Today’s picture shows a guy wearing jet boots attached to a jet ski (pumping water to his boots), which gives him the ability to rise out of the water and do tricks.
We probably have a few more days to spend in Martinique as we nibble our way up the west coast. We have not been inland yet as we have not really found the right spot to leave the boat unattended for a day to hire a car or take a tour. But the trade off is a very relaxed meander up the coast with little agenda.
Our next island will be Dominica – an island that was hit really hard by the hurricanes this year. There is a major effort underway to get the island back on its feet. The local yacht association has been emphatic that yachts should come and that they are ready for us. We met one of the guys in St Lucia. It does look like a spectacular place (or it was) but we shall see when we get there how much of it is still up and running. We are currently enquiring if there is anything useful we can bring up from Martinique.