1st - 9th Feb
When Jamie
pointed out today that we had been in the Caribbean for a month now it made me
realise how long it had been since I'd updated our blog! 3 weeks infact!
We have visited
so many places in those weeks that I have had to get out our log book to try
and help me retrace our steps.
We had 10 more
days on Martinique where we sailed between beautiful anchorages along the
western coast; Anse a l'ane, Anse Mitan, Plage de Case Navire and finally St
Pierre in the north of the island where we stayed 3 nights with the incredible
back-drop of the stunning Mt Pele rising up on one side of us and the statue of
the Virgin Mary high up on the hilltop watching over us from the other end of
the anchorage.
We really enjoyed
our stay in St Pierre. Much as we had loved the stop-offs along the way they
had very much been little holiday spots with beach bars and a bit of a resort
vibe… which we had enjoyed very much but St Pierre was a working town
which had a pretty cool ambience of its own. Everyone was really friendly and
we found a little local's bar opposite a fascinating looking building (likely a
town hall) where we were well looked after by "Joel" and greeted by
each of his customers as they arrived and left.
Over these couple
of days we explored the small town and re-provisioned from the 2 excellent
supermarkets and the fresh produce market conveniently located at the head of
the pier where we bought some fabulous fruit and vegetables for the next part
of our trip.
The peak of Mt
Pele was shrouded in mist for much of the time we were there and we saw quite a
bit of rain over these few days which we feel justifies our decision not to
hike up the mountain but more importantly I think we were getting some good
excercise lugging groceries around in our backpacks (almost certainly negated
by the fact much of the weight was from bottles of wine we found at a price we
couldn't resist!)
On the 9th of Feb
we lifted our anchor and had our sails set by half past 6 in the morning to
begin our trip north along the western coast of Dominica and towards the
islands of 'Les Saintes" off Guadaloupe.
