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03.02 14:28.77N
61:04.85W
From Mustique we
headed north over night to drop Robert and Caroline off at St Lucia to catch
their plane. But first we all spent their last night in a hotel in
Rodney Bay for some well earned baths. Upon checking in Caroline and
I enquired at reception if any of the hotel facilities might involve a
cat? 'All the best hotels have cats don't you know!' Alas not this one I
was told. However as our rooms weren't ready, we were sent to the bar to
wait. Lo, what should we behold there? Being cradled by a very pretty
American girl in a very skimpy bikini was the tiniest, cutest most flea
ridden little kitten you ever did see!! Chris spotted it, although to be
fair I think he was really out spotting girls in bikinis. Apparently, one
of the hotel staff had brought it in the day before and it was
now officially the hotel's new 'Cat'. Caroline and I embarked
upon the task of picking fleas off him, and Chris named him St Lucia. I
think he ate more in the couple of days we were there than in his whole little
life so far. The Bay Gardens Resort is now officially my hotel
recommendation for the whole of the Caribbean.
It was great fun having Robert and Caroline
aboard, and having the opportunity to spend some time with members of the family
I don't see often enough. We were really
sad to see them go, and the place seems quite empty now they are not
here!
So.
After getting some chores done we set off for
Martinique.
WOW! what a difference! We are anchored in
Cul-de-sac du Marin at the Southern end of the island. Martinique is
French, and I don't quite understand how it works, but it is actually part
of France. They have managed to achieve that thing that the rest of
the Caribbean dreams of: rather than mass migration to escape the poverty, half
the population are white and appear to have come here from
mainland France! You go into a restaurant - where they only accept Euros,
and turn their noses up at the mighty dollar - and all the staff are
French. You go to a pharmacy to ask for some drug and they say 'oh no that
is not available in France'. All the cars are French, all the supermarkets
are French, and needless to say all the apples in them are also French. I
think however it is all courtesy of Millions of Euros of European investment, as
this place is considerably more built up and less poor than the Caribbean so
far, and I can't see how their economy alone could support it.
We were lucky enough to arrive a couple of days
before a 'Yole' race. These are their traditional boats, which have
now been vamped up into a colourful spectacle of frantic paddling and
yelling. From an observer's point of view, the boats seem rather
dangerously unmanageable: the tiller is an oar out the back operated by 3
men, and when a gust hits rather than being able to reef the sail, all the
crew have to hang over the high side of the boat to keep it upright.
Still. I suppose it all adds to the excitement!
colourful
startline...
.....And they're off!
Cool running or what??!!
We hired a car and met up with Tim and Henry from
Ariel who are anchored up north. The south of Martinique is flat and
relatively boring, and the north is much more rugged; mountainous and jungly,
with ivy dripping off the trees and covering everything that doesn't move.
The navigator - me - managed to take us down a dead end road, which we wouldn't
have missed for the world as the drive was spectacular! But I thought
there was a nice restaurant there, and alas I was mistaken. We ended up
eating lunch in the worst restaurant 'in France'. But then we headed over
the hills to the really cool St James Rhum Museum; with all the historic sugar
cane processing machinery, some really good photos, hordes
of memorabilia, and degustation complementary of course. Then,
on we went to the Caravelle peninsula. This is on the East-windward
coast, but has just enough shelter to make it anchorable in calm seas.
Henry spent the whole time trying to persuade us to come up this side of the
island: he had wanted to but the weather was not good enough, and now they had
gone West, so he was trying to 'live his dreams through others'. Keep
dreaming Henry!
  St James Rhum Museum. WELL worth a
visit. Tim
and Henry at the ruins of an old Castle on the scenic
Caravelle peninsular.
At the end of the day we dropped them back to
Ariel in St Pierre. St Pierre had been the capital of Martinique, but
about 100 years ago the island's Volcano erupted and smothered the town in
minutes, leaving only 1 survivor. Since then the town has never been
more than a shadow of it's former glory. No French investment here -
I think they're all scared of it happening again!
Next stop a couple of days in the capital Fort de
France, and on to Dominica for some walking in the rain forest.
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