After spending one night at Pigeon Island, and partaking of the excellent food in Jambe de Bois again (we didn't check in to St Lucia) we carried on up to Martinique. It is a part of France and the EU, they speak French, little English, and have euros, Carrefour supermarkets and typical French attitude. I went ashore to check in, and was immediately struck by their inability to share a pavement with anyone else. No matter what action I took faced with an oncoming pedestrian – trying to guess which way they would move, or stopping for them to pass, I was just forced onto the road, and nearly run over. I think they have the same problem with space awareness when they are anchoring their boats and tying up alongside you.
We failed to check-in on Saturday when we arrived as it was already the start of Carnival and all officialdom was closed. It has a very relaxed attitude to check-in so we were not concerned and we just flew our French courtesy flag and carried on as normal.
We heard that two boats (Innamorata & Tactical Directions) we last saw in Barbados were here, so it was time to be sociable again, and we anchored with them at the capital city, Fort de France, also the birthplace of Josephine, of the Napoleon fame. When they left, Siga Siga and Mary Ann 2 arrived so the social life continued without interruption.
Carnival is usually and traditionally held on Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday), which we know as Shrove Tuesday or pancake day, and is 60 day before Good Friday. A time to use up all your fatty stores of butter, meat, and sugar before you give them up for lent. It has taken on a party atmosphere broken from it's Catholic roots, an opportunity for the community to celebrate in style.
Each day, Saturday to Wednesday, there was a parade from 4pm to 7pm, with drumming bands, marching bands, and lots of people dressed for a bad taste fancy-dress party.
Each day had a different theme; pyjamas, the parody of marriage, red and black devils, and black and white, as far as I understood from the French pamphlet. Everyone was in good humour, there was not a policeman in sight in the 5 days we were there, and although a fair bit of rum was being consumed in the cars and floats, there was not a sign of drunkenness in the whole affair. Lots of noise, lots of men dressed as women, and all over by 7pm, the city deserted within 30 minutes of the end – they didn't bother to clear up the litter everyday, but it was all smart again on Thursday morning, when the businesses reopened. We don't know what Carnival is like in the other islands, so we will be cautious in our design of next years outfits, just in case cross dressing is just a French thing. How embarrassing would it be to turn up in, say, Trinidad next year, Stu in his slinky undies and basque, and everyone else dressed as rainforest animals for instance. Local advice should be sought I think.
We took the time between parades to track down a problem with our electronic autohelm, that had suddenly developed Alzheimers, and was liable to wander off without warning in any direction it felt like. Fearing an expensive replacement part necessary, Stuart went ahead with removing floorboards and emptying the food lockers to get to the electronic compass. With the help of the advanced trouble shooting help on the manufacturers website, and a voltmeter, Stu tracked the problem down to a broken wire between compass and computer, and it was solved with the installation of a new wire, and lots of soldering. Rejoice, rejoice, the autohelm's senile dementia was reversed.
I took the opportunity to catalogue and repack the stores into the lockers and we dined on Fray Bentos pies in celebration.
Tactical Tony has a dive compressor on board for refilling dive bottles. What a useful chap to know. We headed up north to St Pierre for a couple of days, with Innamorata, who like us had not done any diving since they passed their PADI certificate some years back. Our equipment was as rusty as our technique, but I re-read the instruction book, we took our antihistamines (to prevent blocked snotty tubes interfering with clearing your ears as you go down) and donned the cumbersome gear, extracted from the bottom of the boat locker. .
The first dive, Stu and Tony managed to get down, but Steve & Carol couldn't unblock their ears, I was stung by tiny things in the water, and then after being swept away from the dinghy in the windy and choppy sea, my jacket decided not to keep any air inside it. This is a BAD thing, as you also have a weight belt to enable you to descend despite the buoyancy of your wetsuit, body fat and air in jacket. I swam furiously back to the dinghy and removed my weights (I could have just dropped them where I was, but it was very deep!) and decided that was enough excitement for one day. The boys filled the tanks again, we had a mediocre French meal ashore and started again the next day, this time on a much shallower site. The Mount Pelee volcano towers over the area, and it's last eruption in 1902 killed 30,000 people – only 2 survived in the city; a cobbler in his cellar and a prisoner in his cell. Who says crime doesn't pay? 12 ships were lost in the eruption of the volcano and now make interesting dive sites around the coast. We had a delightful dive, and my now repaired BCD jacket functioned perfectly and I've reminded Stu that I don't have a life insurance policy for him to cash in, so he'd do better keeping me alive and cooking! The superstructure of the ships above the sand, makes a base for coral to grow, and then the fish and eels come to live among the shelter of the coral. The wreck can be seen from the surface in 7-9m, so is accessible to snorkellers, but it was great to be able to float effortlessly down among the fishies, turtles and eels. What we at first thought was a type of sea weed, turned out to be hundreds of little worms with their heads and bodies about 30cm out of their holes, swaying in the current. As we approached, they all disappeared rapidly into the safety of the holes, proving themselves definitely not seaweed.
Tony filled out bottles again, and we are fit to repeat the exercise at a later date, when the conditions suit. There are heaps and heaps of dive sites around, so we won't be lacking choice.
We learned that it was possible to check in at St Pierre for a limited time in the mornings of Carnival, this to be done at the tourist office. Elsewhere you have to visit immigration, customs, health and port control with several copies of boat papers, passports and cash. In Martinique, you put your details into the computer yourself, print out an A4 sheet, which the tourist office lady stamps officially, and no-one asks for papers, proof of who you are or where or when you came from, or cash. You have to admire the French for that, at least, and the bread and cheese, and Carrefour supermarkets and wine bag-in-box.......
We are now anchored back in St Pierre, with Siga Siga, and it has been raining constantly for 4 hours. At least it was a chance to get the blog up to date. The trouble with being 'mariners' is that you've looked at the forecast, and you know that it's going to continue for some time, and how heavy it it going to be. No respite. Just got to get on with the interior jobs and ignore the rain pitter patter on the roof, .
Hopefully it will clear tomorrow, and we will walk to the volcano, and if it's too far we will stop at the rum distillery for sampling. It's all in the cause of science, you understand. And one day, the internet will work somewhere, and I will post this blog.
Martinique is the most northerly island of the Windward Islands. Next stop, Dominica, the start of the Leeward Islands.
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