With the hurricane season officially over (let's hope the hurricanes know that), it's time to start exploring again.

It's hard to believe that last season we took several months to travel from Martinique, south through the Windward islands, down to Grenada, and yet just 24-hours after leaving Grenada to head north, we were back in Martinique. And what a 24-hour journey we had, dodging thunderstorms, getting soaked through by torrential rain, going really fast then having to motor as the wind died away.

We made landfall in the delightful anchorage off the village of St. Anne before heading into the busy yachting centre of Le Marin a mile away to do some provisioning and boat jobs.

Martinique is officially a Province of France and so, everything you can do and get in France, you can here too. The currency is the euro and they use the metric system. After spending months further south, where we got used to eating lots of chicken and Caribbean curries, it is heaven to be here and stock up on all kinds of French food and wine. Another good thing that the French do is laundry. Whether in mainland Europe or in the Caribbean, you can always find wonderful launderettes that actually clean your clothes. I never thought, when I was a career girl, that I'd end up writing about laundry, but there you go and thank you France!

When we were here earlier in the year, we replaced the boat batteries, which are doing a fine job. This time around we needed an expert to look at our fridge. Patrice came on board, diagnosed that we had too much gas in the system, took some out and it has never worked better. We also needed to get our rigging inspected at the request of our new insurance company. That was done very efficiently and quickly by Gaetan at Caraibe Greement, who signed it all off and the insurance company are happy.

We are now back at anchor in St. Anne waiting for the weather to settle to allow us to start journeying north, through the Leeward islands and on to pastures new. In the meantime, fresh baguettes, cheese and wine are keeping us going.

CRUISERS NOTES
Refrigeration - Patrice Fougerouse, Fraicheur Service, above Caraibe Marine.

Rigging - Caraibe Greement, in portacabins to the left of dinghy dock in Marin marina.