I set off for Martinique on 1st March in good time for the Carnival and Mary's arrival on 16th. It took me 6 hours to sail the 37 miles to Fort de France. The anchorage is in the lee of Fort Louis but suffers a little from the constant movement of fast ferries plying the various small communities around the bay. Checking in is very simple and is done on a customs computer, in this case located in a chandlery.
The town is one of contrasts with renovated 19th century municipal buildings and some pretty rundown areas as well as some impressive new buildings. The island is a department of France and you can see the obvious advantages of the arrangement. There is a cruise ship dock which is visited frequently by ships from a variety of lines. The town copes with the influx of a couple of thousand visitors without too much trouble.
The crossing to Dominica was typical for the island chain with impressive seas and accelerated winds off the headlands. We picked up a buoy off Roseau and checked in. Not a great deal to say about the place except that it boasts a fine botanical garden and the most rolly anchorage I have experienced. A couple of days later we headed for Portsmouth which nestles in Prince Rupert Bay some 20 miles north of Roseau.
Most of the ships beached in Prince Rupert Bay are of Venezualian origin and the government promises to come and remove the ships which were blown ashore by hurricanes. They don't seem to be in a hurry to complete the task.
The town is one of contrasts with renovated 19th century municipal buildings and some pretty rundown areas as well as some impressive new buildings. The island is a department of France and you can see the obvious advantages of the arrangement. There is a cruise ship dock which is visited frequently by ships from a variety of lines. The town copes with the influx of a couple of thousand visitors without too much trouble.
I made a separate entry for the Carnival. Mary's arrival was delayed a day due to fog and unserviceable aircraft. Air France looked after her well and paid a fair compensation for the inconvenience. We moved the next day to Les Trois Ilets which was a quite anchorage on the south side of the bay. We were the only cruising yacht there. The Empress Josephine was born in the nearby small village. A few days later we moved north with the intention of anchoring at Case Pilotes, a small fishing village halfway to St Pierre but there was too little space for PS so we enjoyed a fine broad reach up to St Pierre.
The town was obliterated in 1902 when the nearby volcano exploded killing 30,000 people. Two souls escaped, one of whom was a prisoner in a dungeon who was found 4 days later badly burned. We hired a car and drove near to the summit of the volcano and from this lofty perch it was possible to see both the Atlantic and the Caribbean with only a slight turn of the head. The island has excellent roads and is well cultivated with large plantations of bananas and sugar cane. Significant areas of rain forest remain. On this trip we managed to take in a banana museum, a rum distillery and a 15 kilometer drive along a track through the rain forest.
The crossing to Dominica was typical for the island chain with impressive seas and accelerated winds off the headlands. We picked up a buoy off Roseau and checked in. Not a great deal to say about the place except that it boasts a fine botanical garden and the most rolly anchorage I have experienced. A couple of days later we headed for Portsmouth which nestles in Prince Rupert Bay some 20 miles north of Roseau.
Just had to include this sign high up on a remote track.
Taking the advice of a local sage we engaged the services of a registered guide who goes by the name of Fire to take us up the Indian River. He was excellent giving us "extras" such as a walk through forest and small farms where avocardo, cinamon, grapefruit and other exotic trees were identified. A lot of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed up the river. His home, which we were invited to, is in the village where the oldest person in the world lived to be 128 years. On the walk we met an Amerindian who were the very first people to settle the island. He kindly allowed me to photograph him and the difference between him and the rest of the population is very obvious. The government allows them to have land free on the basis they were there first!
The crab rests his claw close to or in the water waiting for the unwary to pass by. If this fellow gets a grip of you, you are in deep trouble.
Some of my favourite fruit in production.
Only about 80,000 people live on Dominica and it is covered in pristine rain forest. We took a taxi to the Syndicate Estate high up in the hills and walked a mile or so through the rain forest to Milton falls. It was a wonderful experience.
Some of my favourite fruit in production.
Most of the ships beached in Prince Rupert Bay are of Venezualian origin and the government promises to come and remove the ships which were blown ashore by hurricanes. They don't seem to be in a hurry to complete the task.
