A short sail north 20 miles to Martinique landed us back in Europe! Euro's are the currency, French is the spoken language, mouth watering bakeries abound (chocolate croissants for breakfast again), and fine cheese and wines line grocery store shelves. The waves where quite steep and rough for half of our crossing with several large green water waves smashing into our windshield, but the sailing was fun as we powered into the seas in 18-24 knots of wind, True North kicking up her heels. The second half of the crossing, the waves settled, the wind died to 6-10 knots and we leisurely approached the enormous anchorage of Ste. Anne and Marin Marina where we were meeting up with Sea Rose to do some exploring together.

One unwelcome sight were the many "fishing pots", usually clear pop bottles barely visible and often bobbing partially on the water's surface, ready to snag your propeller. The entrance up a channel to the marina was tricky with shallow reefs on each side, but with so much boat traffic around we just jumped in line, and lined up the channel markers. We had made a reservation for a mooring ball for 3 nights and I radioed the marina to announce that we were getting close. My instructions radioed back were to meet up at a numbered channel marker and radio again. But as we approached, a man in a small blue boat signaled to follow his lead, except he was moving away from the mooring ball field and towards the docks. Although we were confused, he was not someone to be argued with but I did shout..."True North, mooring ball?"

So as he led us to a slip with lazy lines like in Las Palmas to anchor the boat in place and tie to our cleats, Mike and I had to scramble to prep the boat. Thankfully there was no wind so letting the boat float in the still water, Mike dug our bow ladder from the bottom of our deep back lazarette, while I scrambled to put out fenders and dock lines. Gustaf patiently waited, helped with our bow lines then handed me the lazy line then instructed us to head to the marina office. French islands have a different system of checking into the country then most other Caribbean Islands who use SailClear. Their system is also online, takes about 5 minutes, the marina prints and then stamps the forms with the official seal and costs 5 Euro, no multiple visits to officials involved. Slips are inexpensive and we didn't mind having power and water and easy access to the many ships chandlery's around, grocery stores and restaurants.

Marin is known for it's excellent yachting services but the town surprised us because it was quite sleepy with just a few scattered restaurants, businesses around plus a local market other than many ship chandleries. We made plans with Tom and Karen on Sea Rose to eat dinner together and found ourselves dining in a unique way. Fish, veggies or meat is selected as an entree, and was brought to the table raw, dipping sauce on the side (I chose mixed fish while Mike had chicken). An extremely hot granite slab on a stand is set in the middle of the table and we each place our meat selection on the stone to cook.

While Tom and Karen worked on boat projects, Mike found a car rental agency. I was thinking we were sightseeing but did not know his agenda was to drive to Fort-de-France, a large city an hour away, to find the big box store that sold stand up paddle boards. Discombobulated, I missed a road sign, we turned onto extremely narrow roads snaking up steep hillsides in the back country. But we arrived safely, store clerks spoke english and we traveled back with a small blow up board in hand. (In hindsight we should have gotten the large size...).

Before our road trip I braved entrance into the very busy patisserie, waiting in line and googling how to say "4" in French (quatre). I asked the nice woman behind me how to pronounce the word and she repeated over and over for me, then laughed as I just held up 4 fingers as I asked for Pan de Chocolate croissants.

We branched out over the next couple nights away from the marina area, finding a delightfully delicious barbecue restaurant where we had smoked mahi sandwiches. Reporting on our find to Tom and Karen, they set out on the walk uphill to grab the table we had just left and teased us because we had eaten the last of the mahi!

The weather had turned quite settled so we, Tom and Karen, decided to head to an anchorage a short distance away with a beautiful beach that is normally just a day stop. There was some rolling caused by the ocean swell but we decided it was tolerable as we had the anchorage almost to ourselves. What we didn't know was that the beach was a nudist beach! The first day we stayed on our boats, swimming and enjoying a couple salads for dinner on Sea Rose.

The following morning we all went ashore, averting our eyes, hauled the dinghy way up to land to chain to a tree, and found a lovely beach adjacent trail that led 5km to the charming town of Ste. Anne. The trail was shaded nearly the entire way and wove through mangrove trees, masses of mother-in-law tongue plants, and stunning vistas of the most beautiful hued waters. We arrived to watch fish mongers at the outdoor market and wandered the veggie stalls. We bought sandwiches at the patisserie and found a shaded bench to enjoy. A large wedding party line up behind us and a growing crowd gathered to watch. Church bells rang as we wandered the streets, checking out a few tourist shops before returning to the trail.

Sea Rose was heading north to Dominica the following day and we spent the evening enjoying my home cooked mexican feast, using the enormous avocado purchased as inspiration and planning a future meet up somewhere in the northern Caribbean before they head south again to Grenada. It's wonderful how a chance meeting on the dock on Orkney led us to such a wonderful friendship.