Le Marin, Martinique

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Fri 6 Jan 2012 12:38

14:27.89N 60:52.32W

 

Wed 4th & Thursday 5th Jan

 

Up with the lark – well it was daybreak and set sail out of Rodney Bay heading north to Martinique.

 

There was the usual big overfalls off the north western tip of St Lucia and then we were back out into the Atlantic swell and the residue of waves from the previous few days of harder winds. We were blessed however with an easterly which meant that close hauled we were just able to make a heading direct to Le Marin in the south eastern corner of this French island. The wind remained a pretty consistent 15 to 20 knots all morning and so we made great headway through the swell with one reef in the main and just the staysail set forward allowing us to make 6 to 7 knots all the way.

 

Glorious sunshine all the way too, so finally a day without rain!

 

We dropped anchor in final approaches to the marina which is handy for both getting to the supermarkets and the main town dinghy dock (Customs and Immigration etc.).

 

We had an early lunch and then set off to explore the town, which turned into something of a long drawn out exercise and we did not return to Serafina until around 6.00pm.

 

On Thursday morning we were up early again, firstly to clear in through Customs (they are only open 7.00am to 12.30am) and also to visit the internet café (no wifi in the bay). We needed to get going early as we had to pick up the car we had hired for two days at 8.00am. There was a bit of confusion about which day we had to return it mainly because we had mistakenly got it into our minds that today was Friday! So it was quite a bonus to discover we had just gained a day.

 

We then set off on one of our usual blind days out, only this time Sarah had done quite a bit of homework and we even had a half decent road map. It did not take us long to quite fall under the spell of Martinique and certainly we have been a bit dismissive previously, but today we got to see some of its better features and (with apologies to our old travelling companions Chris and Steve off Scott-Free, who of course we missed) it turned out to be one of the best days out we have had during our time in the Caribbean. We had an early stop for coffee in Le Francois and were very taken by the extraordinary brand new church (cathedral?) under construction there – funded by Rob’s favourite financiers, the EU (anyone who hasn’t been treated to a rant has something to look forward to….).   But at least on this occasion even Rob felt it was a worthwhile cause if wildly out of place in such a poor town otherwise. The east (Atlantic) coast is stunning with some wonderful beaches and bays and glorious views.   It also appears to be well protected by offshore reefs, although we felt it was a remarkably calm day for Atlantic swells.   We can see the temptation of sailing up this coast but the only pilot is in French.  We explored the ruins of the great plantation at Caravelle which also had a lot of quite harrowing information and pictures (and even an early 1900s photo of a man manacled and netted) of the slave trade. Further on we stopped and had a very nice lunch at the Restaurant ‘Point do Vue’ which overlooked one of the best surf swept beaches of them all.

 

We then continued north, before heading inland and wound our way up several of the volcanoes before heading through the stunning rain forest, driving along quite narrow roads and endless chicanes until we reached the ‘Jardin de Balata’. This was undoubtedly the highlight of the day and we had an adsorbing hour or so there, exploring the beautifully presented botanical gardens (including a very vertiginous aerial walkway – too much for me) with Sarah taking loads of photos, the best of which as usual we will post at http://www.rhbell.com  as soon as we can.

 

So with the rush hour in full fury, we entered Fort du France looking for the huge Carrefour Hypermarket which we found surprisingly easily. After a leisurely hour visiting every aisle in the place, we headed back to Marin and around 7.45 pm we arrived back at the stern of Serafina in the dinghy and were able to take the first real advantage of our new courtesy light!