North to St Pierre

Caduceus
Martin and Elizabeth Bevan
Wed 9 Feb 2011 20:00

Position           14:44.51N 61:10.70W

Date                2000 – 9 February 2011

 

Encouraged by Sulana we decided to head north to St Pierre, a town at the north of Martinique some 32nm away.

 

Our route took us inside Diamond Rock:

 

 

Diamond Rock in 1804 at the height of the Napoleonic War, in lieu of a suitable ship to guard the coast of Martinique was commissioned as a ship and for 18 months was garrisoned and equipped with cannon and supplies.  Getting cannon up the steep sides of this ship must have been quite a feat.

 

 

Anchoring at St Pierre proved a challenge due to the large number of yachts occupying the small amount of available space on the narrow 10m shelf that rapidly dripped off to 30-50 metres.  The whole situation was complicated by fishing buoys and moored local boats.  Eventually and on the fifth attempt I was happy that we were in 10 metres, could not swing into anything and were not likely to get fouled up with fishing traps.  Alan, Sue, David and Ginny joined us for sundowners to celebrate.