A year afloat: to the Caribbean and back

Grockled up to le max

Sam and Alex Fortescue

Mon 24 Jan 2011 19:21

Still in Martinique, where we're settling into a more Caribbean pace of life. We managed to stir our stumps sufficiently yesterday to sail 2 miles downwind to a 'famous' local beach, where we anchored up for the night.

Unfortunately, we were just one of about a hundred boats with the same idea, while the beach itself was thronged with more grockles than Beaulieu on a summer Sunday. Picking our way past groups of sunburnt tourists and sleepy-looking locals, we found an unoccupied square metre in the shade and hunkered down. Alex was in hog heaven. The skipper felt decidedly edgy and kept a good lookout.

We then decamped to the nearby village of Sainte Anne for a drink before heading back to the boat for supper. We found a swanky looking place on the water where we ordered, after a few moments hesitation, a 'ty-punch'. This is cutesy antillais lingo for a petit punch - a little punch. A more accurate translation would have been 'short rum'. When the drinks turned up they amounted to a thimble full of the strongest liquor this side of Dodge City. As if it wasn't already hot enough here, this drink warms you up from the inside out. It would be ideal for skiing, but was near undrinkeable without drowning in fruit juice.

Apparently the locals like nothing better than to wade out on the coral sands until they're in the water up to their waists, then stand about bellowing at each other and downing 'ty-punchs'. It must be said that this is a favourite of the white Martiniquais. Presumably they eventually fall over and float back in to the shore, from where they are recovered some hours later by exasperated wives.

On the plus side we found an old lady selling homemade coconut sorbet, which was excellent. And the coconut bread in the market is second to none, so we get stuck in to a big slab every monring. We've been every day for the past week but the mad old lady who bakes it still doesn't recognise us. She speaks a rapid fire creole over her shoulder while she's serving you and is quite impervious to banter or small talk. I fear she may be a prime candidate for the character stereotype we've seen all over the Caribbean: the Shouty Old Lady.

These stooped and insubstantially built ladies are found everywhere. They often march along muttering to themselves, but it doesn't take much to set them off at an actual target. Maybe a car passes by too close or someone crosses their path. Then, with as much emotion as a stage diva, they pour out a great gale of personal abuse after the unfortunate in their sights. Their angry words swarm like wasps and pursue the victim out of sight. Alex made the mistake of retorting to a Shouty Old Lady in Kingstown market, and was nearly run out of town by an indignant mob as a result. Although she managed to silence the actual shouter, this was clearly considered such a gross breach of decency, that other people became involved. We made a hasty exit.

Tomorrow we're off to explore the north of the island in a hire car. The communal taxis are so expensive that we're actually saving money this way. in the meantime, we've uncovered damage to one of the lower shrounds - the wires that support the mast. We're hoping to lash this up and carry on to have it fixed in Guadeloupe. Otherwise, we may have to forego our planned cruise up Martinique's wild east coast, where the Atlantic swell crashes into great reefs that harbour acres of clear, white coral sand and peaceful anchorages.

In the meantime, the dairy-a-thon continues...

Summer Song anchored up in Cul-de-sac du Marin, Martinique