Position 14:44.5N
61:10.6W
Actually, not all of
Martinique was fantastique. We spent our last night there anchored off of Fort
De France, the capital, and weren’t too impressed. Our first sight of the locals
just after dropping anchor involved a punch up between a group of youths, and
when we went ashore to do some final French shopping we discovered that the
waterfront area of town was none too welcoming either. No trouble for us, just
had that feel about it.
But the fantastique
bit was St Pierre, on the north west coast. After a horrible trip from Roseau in
Dominica (gusting 35kts, two reefs in the main and genoa, the worst seas we’ve
experienced in the Caribbean) it was a pleasure to anchor off the town. You
might recall from earlier diary entries (look, I told you there’d be a test, and
if you haven’t revised that’s your own lookout!) that St Pierre was the capital
of Martinique up until 1902 when it was completely destroyed by the volcano just
behind the town. Although the town wasn’t covered by a lava flow or even buried
in ash, it was utterly destroyed by a burning cloud of toxic gas that came
barrelling out of the side of the volcano. All bar one or two of the 30,000
inhabitants were toast. It’s now a very pleasant small town of 5,000
inhabitants, and there’s a great little museum which shows the place before and
after, along with various molten artefacts. A short-ish walk away, at least
short by our recent standards, lies the Depaz rum distillery which is open to
the public in a very non-HSE style in that you’re pretty free to wander about
and poke your fingers in the machinery etc, and provides a very interesting few
hours finding out all about rum, including the post-explore tasting,
naturellement.
When the volcano
went pop there were 18 ships at anchor in the bay, all of which burnt and sank.
Six disappeared completely, probably drifting out and sinking in very deep water
just ½ mile or so from shore, the other twelve sank most conveniently in
diveable depths a stone’s throw from town. Of these twelve, ten were built of
wood so have mostly broken up on the bottom, but two were steel and remain
relatively intact. One, the Tamaya, is in 83 metres and so too deep for sport
diving (requiring mixed-gas technical stuff) but the other, the Roraima, is
in 55 metres making it just about diveable on air. A great bunch of our froggy
friends at Papa D’Lo dive club took me out for this dive which was by far the
best I’d done in a long time. Visibility was great, the wreck was pretty intact
and very colourful and all in all thoroughly enjoyable. It was deeper than I
usually dive and involved decompression stops and was all the more interesting
for that. Most Caribbean diving is relatively shallow and sedate so it was nice
to something a bit more challenging, more along the lines of what you might do
in the UK but without the cold and darkness! The only slightly unnerving part
was when the bloke who took me declared "Hah! We are ze crazy frogs!"
Here’s the culprit
(the volcano that is, not the crazy frog), which is now constantly monitored for
further trouble, viewed from the rum distillery. The original Monsieur Depaz was
away when the volcano did it’s stuff, but it wiped out his entire family. In a
rare display of faith / stupidity, depending on your point of view, he rebuilt
the distillery and a very nice house as soon as the dust had settled.
