14:33.31N 61:03.42W

Thursday 17^th and Fri 18^th Feb

Headed off from the anchorage at Le Marin around 8.45am and carefully picked our way out of the shallow bay with various unmarked reefs.

Moderate 15 knots of wind behind us as we sailed clear of the inlet and past the massed lobster pots gathered around the entrance and off towards Diamond Rock. Diamond Rock has a place in history as the English, during their long running fight with the French in Napoleonic times, short of ships chose to mount guns and a small garrison on the top of this precipitous rock and called it HMS Diamond. A good many French ships got quite a surprise as they sailed past!

The wind remained steady now at 15 knots and we had a great sail round the south west tip of Martinique and headed up the west coast as far as the big bay with the capital, Fort de France on its northern shoreline. We made for Anse Mitan which is a small bay on the southern side with a little village and protected anchorage. However along the way we did encounter a German catamaran which managed to get Sarah very agitated! He was sailing along in the opposite direction to us, sunbathing on the trampoline in the bows and paying no attention at all to what was around him. We were on a starboard tack which in sailing terms gave us absolute right of way, but he made no attempt to avoid us and indeed did not even see us until very late. He then rushed around and altered course all a bit too late and as we passed close behind him, he gestured dramatically to say that he was towing a long fishing line! We made it rather clear (I believe) that he was wholly in the wrong here and we made no attempt to alter our course any more as we were genuinely beating to windward and did not want to surrender any more precious ground. He seemed bemused that we were not being any more helpful here and I suspect that like others we have met along the way, he has no real idea of the rules of the road and how they might apply to him!

We felt our way slowly into this small anchorage which is wedged tightly between a beach, a reef and a marked fairway for small ferries leading to a jetty. Our anchor did not want to bite and we dragged a bit before it reset itself, took hold and buried itself into the sand and coral bottom. Sarah had chosen to come here because of the regular ferry service across the big bay to Fort de France where she planned some shopping for Friday, however the downside of this location is that these same ferries fly in and out with quite big wakes which rock us about quite a bit once an hour. Fortunately they only run until 11.00pm! We spent the rest of the day doing a few odd jobs including a lengthy spell in the water by Sarah as we cleaned the waterline on both sides of the hull. Sarah’s side was in poor condition and mine was a breeze! In the evening we went ashore for a stroll and walked up to the resort, marina and village just round the headland from where we are moored. Wall to wall boutiques seemed to be the order of the day and I felt lucky to get back to the boat with my wallet intact.

On Friday morning Sarah was up bright and early to catch the ferry, but was still getting ready when I saw it approaching. However we jumped into the dinghy and sped in to the jetty arriving just ahead of the ferry which Sarah was then able to catch.  Unfortunately the majority of shops mentioned in the pilot and Lonely Planet guide have either closed or are verging on doing so, so Sarah was unable to complete the purchases she needed (including replacing the sheet she lost off the line in Barbados, needed for our forthcoming guests!) – but did manage a little retail therapy of her own.   She also visited the cathedral and the Bibliothèque Schoelcher which she declared as wonderful, designed by a French architect Henri Pick for the 1889 World Exposition in Paris;  it was then reassembled in Fort de France and is still used as the local library, if a very ornate and colourful one!

We ended the day rigging the new rain covers over the bow and stern hatches – but of course it didn’t rain for once.