Le Marin, Martinique

Serafina
Rob & Sarah Bell
Sun 8 Dec 2013 15:30

14:27.9N 60:52.4W

 

Saturday 7th Dec

 

With deteriorating weather being forecast, we opted to forgo the various pleasures of visiting St Pierre for now (we will be heading back this way in the new year) and did not bother to go ashore and check into the country, but raised the anchor and set sail southwards to Le Marin.

 

As we left, St Pierre disappeared once more behind a dense curtain of heavy rain, but we had a steady sail which livened up considerably as we reached the capital of Fort du France. Here once more the wind tipped over the 30 knot mark and heavy rain made life less than pleasant, but it was nothing like as dramatic or nerve-wracking as yesterday and entertainment was provided by several French charter yachts failing to read the situation ahead and getting caught under full sail. We rounded the south western tip of the island and were delighted to find that we could lay the entrance to Le Marin on a fine reach, some 11 miles to the east. This took us past the dramatic Diamond Rock which was at one stage in its history renamed HMS Diamond when the British under Nelson, hauled guns up the vertical cliffs to create an additional ‘ship’ to inconvenience the French.  It is hard to conceive how on earth they managed to accomplish this when you sail close to this extraordinary towering rock.

 

We made our way up the long entrance to Le Marin, weaving past the many sandbars, one of which has a wrecked yacht lying there to remind everyone of the need to pay attention…  We had a couple of attempts to anchor in a very tight mooring field on the shallow starboard side as you approach the huge anchorage, but ended up in an ideal spot on the port side of the channel, away from the busy traffic lane with a nice view to the south.

 

We then headed ashore to clear through customs which involves inputting various details about the boat and crew etc. into a dedicated computer terminal – in this case in the marina office. All very straightforward apart from the small difficulty of the French keyboards being very different from the Querty keyboards we are used to and the fact that the letters have all but been rubbed off the keys themselves from use.

 

Horrified to find that the internet café we always used when we have been here in the past seems to have closed, but Sarah did manage to make an appointment at the hairdressers – she thinks!

 

We plan to stay here now for a while before heading down to the next island which is St Lucia. However St Lucia is the finishing point for the big Trans-Atlantic rally (ARC) that takes place at the end of November every year, so we will wait until they have all finished, the excitement has died down and the boats have mostly moved on south or north. We will probably spend Christmas and New Year there.