Can hardly believe that it is Easter. Last year at this time John had just said his farewells to the University. How time has flown as we have adapted to our new lifestyle.
We spent Easter in Martinique arriving in St Pierre on Good Friday. Everywhere was shut and so not a lot to do. We did managed to find a pizza take away which was yummy, specially when it was washed down with a few glasses of red wine. Well you have to don’t you – when in France and all that???
We visited with a couple on Dancing Walrus and had a lovely evening chatting about our various experiences. Next morning we left St Pierre early and headed to Fort de France to clear customs. We had to motor all the way as it was a flat calm and little swell. It is the flattest we have had since coming to the islands. Fort de France was open and after the formalities we found our favourite coffee and bun shop to fortify ourselves. Later we lifted the anchor and popped over to Anse Mitan which is a firm favourite with us now. We caught up with Dancing Walrus again as we had a little incident whilst trying to anchor. Fortunately Ken is a diver and he kindly went under the keel to check for any damage. He then put some filler into the scrape in the gel coat and hopefully that will do till we get to Trinidad. Thank goodness he was there otherwise we would have had to haul her out to get the keel inspected. See these damned uncharted rocks!!!
We got a bit fed up being rocked rolled on anchor in Anse Mitan and decided to head for a more favourable anchorage at Sainte Anne just outside Marin. Again we had been here before and so it was all familiar. We had a couple of incredibly heavy downpours over two days and today it has been very cloudy and windy. Actually very pleasant and reminiscent of home.
We have been walking when the opportunities have presented themselves. There are some really good shore walks and quite a few woodland/rainforest ones. I am not really very keen on the rainforest ones as you are never sure what is around you. Today on the headland walk the undergrowth was moving with land crabs. They are amazingly well camouflaged amongst rich red leaves and at times there were so many of them it was hard not to step on them. They are curious creatures – they clearly sense your presence and take avoiding action by pirouetting one one claw to change direction.
As we passed the salt flats we were greeted by a young couple who were camping on the beach with their kids. They beckoned us over and asked if we wanted to join them for drinks. It was 10 in the morning and they were well pickled and spaced out. We thanked them for their offer and beat a hasty retreat.
Tonight we are in Marin marina as tomorrow we have arranged for an engineer (Fred) to come and look at the generator. Only hope he can do something with it! It is currently blowing old boots so being tied to the shore tonight seems like money well spent.
If all goes to plan we shall be meeting up with Linocat and Dancing Walrus in Rodney Bay on Friday to revisit the jump up at Gros Islet
