Back in Martinique

First off thank you to everyone who reads our blog, we know there are a few of you still out there. Regular readers will know that we’ve had postpone plans to head west (or anywhere else) whilst it is hurricane season. So two questions have to be answered i) aren’t we bored with Martinique by now? ii) isn’t Martinique in the line of fire for hurricanes?

Before we answer those sensible questions we’ll just recap on our sail south from Deshaies, Guadeloupe. Ideally, we’d have liked to have hopped down to Martinique in easy stages. However, no weather window showed itself and so we made the decision to do it in one overnight sail. Better that, we thought than make for, say, Portsmouth, Dominica and be stuck there for days… One always has to think of food and water procurement as Stargazer has limited storage for both and Dominica wasn’t high on our list for this. Nice place though it may be otherwise.

So we set off. As predicted the channel between Guadeloupe and Dominica was a bit of a lumpy ‘mess’. We motorsailed past Dominica as is usually the case and as night fell we entered the Martinique channel. The mate went off watch and to my surprise we sailed pretty well in a less lumpy sea than the previous channel. The mate arrived on deck and exclaimed amazement that we were already approaching St Pierre in Martinique; we’d sailed well and we were both very pleased with ourselves and with Stargazer who was still charging onward down the coast of Martinique.

There was the usual blast from the Baie de Fort de France of up to 30 knots and as we approached Diamond Rock we came to a stop (Skip has a great knack of handing the helm over to me just as conditions are about to nose dive! – Mate). This is the final 10NM or so of the sail and you are faced with a full on trade wind, a full on current and no chance at all of sailing against it. On went the engine and we had a pitiful crawl of a motorsail for the final leg of our trip. All I could think about was the amount of diesel it takes to push a 9 tonne boat through a trade wind sea. Finally we got into shelter of the coast, dropped the mainsail and motored in.

Regular readers, and people who know us well, will have realised by now that our destination was Le Marin. We both regard Le Marin as our Caribbean home. We’ve said it before, but you can function here, people are polite, food availability is excellent and in some of the supermarkets as good as the UK. Water availability is no problem at all and getting any boat spares is the best it can be in the Caribbean. Stargazer clearly knows about the latter point as her shower pump gave up, the engine battery was kaput all of a sudden and a steering ball joint needed replacing. This, when added to all the other bits and pieces, created a not insignificant amount of work, to which I added a cockpit grating repair.

SG’s original cockpit grating under repair…

Et voilà – given a new lease of life

Back to our two questions…

i)                    We are not at all bored with Martinique, in fact we love it here, mainly. It is just like being in France/Northern Europe – “just what you want in the Caribbean” said one friend of ours, sarcastically. “Well, yes it is what we want, you can live here in a civilised manner at sensible cost” we replied (it is also very easy to just be. You aren’t instantly viewed as a commodity and it is nice to feel part of the local community - Mate).

ii)                   It is hurricane season and Martinique is around 150 NM north of where our insurers would like us to be. They regard southern Grenada as ‘safe’. However, after a few hurricane seasons here we’re not sure we wholly agree. We think of Beryl in 2024, the track of her was forecast to be anywhere from southern Grenada to Martinique. The question is: what would you do with that forecast? Wherever you were in the Lesser Antilles, it would be stupid to head north, but then again, unless you were in Grenada, heading south wouldn’t hold much appeal either. Luckily for us at the time, we were in Rodney Bay Marina, St Lucia and didn’t experience much at all. The very last thing we are is complacent and our hurricane plan is as follows: if the forecast track is similar to Beryl, head to Rodney Bay Marina (28NM away), failing that, get lifted out at Carenantilles yard here in Le Marin and take to mast off (this is the best yard I have seen in the Caribbean and it is extremely sheltered). If the forecast track is to the north of us or at Martinique itself then get going south asap (to this end we aim to make sure that we are full of diesel, water and as much food as possible).

All that said, Martinique has escaped hurricanes for many years and long may this be the case; especially as we are reluctant to leave. The mate has secured a mooring for us at a very agreeable price until the 10 August and we hope to extend for another few weeks beyond that which will take us towards the end of the hurricane season. To finish boring you about it all, the professional forecasters are predicting a less active season than normal, possibly aided and abetted by it being an El Niño period (high level winds are greater, which discourages hurricane formation).

Right, I’ve got the jobs list out, so off I go… I’ll let the mate add anything I’ve missed, maybe she’ll have a picture of two – I’m not sure. But I do like the mischievous glint in her eye when she adds the comments into pictures sometimes.

As our friend Paul had a hire car we enjoyed a tour around Martinique, including to Saint Pierre – where we hadn’t actually set foot on land before!

Saint Pierre from the jetty

Saint Pierre cathedral

Mont Pelée with his cloud hat on (as usual!)

View down the valley above Saint Pierre

In the hills above Saint Pierre