Martinique Redux

The last time we were in Martinique there was an island-wide general strike underway, and we left the morning after we heard gunshots in the night, only to have a wild and wooly sail to St. Lucia, with the highest winds and biggest seas we’ve seen on the whole trip. We approached that same body of water with a better weather forecast and the knowledge that it can get a little crazy out there. This time as we slipped north from St. Lucia the wind and seas started to build as expected, and we saw a couple other boats going too.

Within half an hour of leaving Rodney Bay we were smoking along at eight knots over the bottom, with a double reefed main and about half the jib rolled up. The wind (around 20 knots) and seas (approx 5-6’) were just forward of the beam, so it wasn’t too bad, but the combination made steering strenuous, so I took over from Emmy. The next two hours saw more of the same, and the GPS showed we were making 8.6-8.7 knots, pretty quick for a forty footer, so it looked like we were enjoying a favorable current. St. Lucia rapidly shrank and then disappeared behind, while Martinique quickly grew in size and definition up ahead. My shoulders were starting to talk to me as we reached the lee of Martinique, where the seas and wind began to ease. We pulled into Fort de France after four and a half hours, and happily anchored under the old fort again, thankful for a quick and uneventful passage.

Fort de France had a whole different “vibe” with the strike lifted, with lots of traffic on the streets and people crowding the sidewalks, and all the shops were open for business. Last visit we had some problems getting Customs and Immigration service at the commercial port, and after asking a few people and getting contradictory answers, we were very happy this time to find a “do-it-yourself” clearance computer at a marine supply store in town. I know it sounds crazy, but I just filled in the information about the boat, passports, prior and next port, printed the document and handed it to the clerk in the shop. She gave it a cursory look, signed it and handed it across the counter - we were cleared in and out of Martinique, without showing any documents of any kind!

After we completed Customs formalities we found a little patisserie nearby and had some quiche, tasty pastries and coffee, then Emmy went off exploring the shops in town while I shuttled jerry jugs of diesel to the boat from a funky little marina nearby. Fort de France itself seems a little past its prime, but is vibrant, alive and real. We didn’t have much on “the list,” but the open air market had a great selection of fresh local veggies and fruit, and it’s hard to be on a French island without picking up some fresh bread (baguette) and cheese. Oh yeah, we also needed another bottle of that ten year old Clemant rum! As we walked around we came to realize that there are a lot of strikingly attractive people here, and the Martinician people we met were quite friendly, and very forgiving of our pretty thin grasp of French.

Now that we’re getting into Spring the frequency and strength of north swell events has thankfully tailed off a bit, and it was tempting to stop off at St. Pierre on the way north, which would shorten the longish passage up to Dominica, but we were enjoying snooping around Fort de France so much that we opted to hang around there instead, and then make the 68 mile hop all the way up to Portsmouth. The forecast looked good, so at first light we bid au revoir to La Madinina (the old name for Martinique), and headed north…sigh.