St Pierre
Scott-Free’s blog
Steve & Chris
Sun 13 Feb 2011 01:15
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14:44.34N 61:10.674W
Sunday 13th February 2011
Distance run: 32 nautical miles
We checked out on Saturday morning as planned, then
spent a couple of hours trying to put credit on our Digicel Caribbean mobile
phones. We usually top up online but had to resort to usng the computer at
the internet cafe when our laptop decided to play dead, and the French do not
have QWERTY keyboards, so we managed to get our password wrong and got blocked
out of the account. They still are not topped up, despite speaking to
Digicel Barbados on Skype and being assured the account would be
unblocked. Hey ho.
We had just got back to the boat and put the rib up
on the davits when we heard from Serafina that they were just approaching the
anchorage. We decided to wait to say 'Hi' to them, and as they had about
fifteen minutes till Customs closed, Steve whizzed Rob ashore in the rib
(hastily lowered again) and I joined Sarah for coffee. Well, as you can
imagine, having been apart for a whole week we had lots of news to catch up on,
so when the 'boys' returned they also had coffee, then beers, then
lunch... Eventually we returned to Scott-Free around 17:00 having
arranged to meet again for drinks and then dinner ashore at 19:00. Another
opportunity to enjoy the French style cuisine, and enjoy it we most certainly
did...
Needless to say, we did not make it to St Anne's
that day, or at all actually, as the next morning we left Le Marin and sailed
the thirty miles or so round to St Pierre. On the way we passed Diamond
Rock, which spent 18 months in 1804/5 as HMS Diamond Rock. At that
time the British largely controlled Caribbean waters but were short of ships, so
they kitted the rock out with canons and enough supples and water for a crew,
and HMS Diamond Rock was an unpleasant surprise for unsuspecting ships sailing
into Martinique!
 Diamond Rock from the East
and close to from the West. Imagine
hauling canons to the top!
We sailed in reasonably calm seas round to St
Pierre and dropped the anchor in flat calm water just off the beach. Then
we went for the long-awaited swim.
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