24 - On aime la Martinique!!

We love Martinique!!!!  After a month or so of sailing from harbor to harbor, spending a little over a week in one place seemed like it would a little boring!  Au contraire!!!!  We found a front row anchorage right our in front of the town of Fort de France, Martinique. 

We spent the first couple of days, touring and relaxing in Les Trois Ilets area which was an easy ferry ride from Fort de France.  The hotel Fred and Beth rented had a fabulous pool with a bar nearby so we spent their last days soaking and relaxing.

Fort de France turned out to be ground zero for Carnaval (the annual pre-Lenten festival).   No sooner than we kissed our crew good-bye, then we geared up for the festivities.  For 5 days straight the people of Martinique (yes, I think the entire island showed up each day) partied hard!  Saturday afternoon started with The Queen’s parade (quite appropriate we thought that they would celebrate our arrival).  This was a combination of former and current queens of the various provinces as well as many wanna-be and drag queens!!!!  The costumes were absolutely across the board.   Some were just adorable and some were not so much but all were entertaining.

 Sunday morning, we were jarred awake about 4am by the sounds of extremely loud drums, horns and what Pedro described as “a monkey on a motorcycle with a gun.”  By the time we got out of bed and looked as our Carnaval schedule, we realized that we’d missed the pajama party in the streets (yes, it started at 4 am).  We got into town about 7am to find several of the partiers still wondering around and from the (lack of) dress code could only imagine what we missed.  Later that day was another parade as there was each afternoon through Wednesday.  Each day there was a new theme and the parade goers and attendees all participated appropriately (or inappropriately as was really the case)!  All seemed to have fun – we certainly did - and no harm seemed to be done.  

One of the things that amazed us the most was that after the partiers celebrated well into the night, when we arrived in town each morning just after sunrise, the streets were all clean – or at least in the process of being cleaned - and garbage disappeared.    Such was the condition of most of island.  We saw more affluent areas and significantly less so, but all seemed to be relatively maintained.

In addition to the daily parades along with numerous food and drink vendors, another draw of Carnaval was this handmade carousel.  It was man powered – 2 men when they wanted to go really fast – and the music was provided by a live band.  MaryAnn was excited that she finally didn’t exceed the, uh, height limit as was the case with the other carousel’s we’d seen in the past few months.  It was an amazingly engineered machine and we loved the music!

After 5 days of partying, the city of Fort de France returned to its normalcy and we decided to venture to other parts of the island.  As we were unable to find a car rental locally, we decided to take the bus to the airport to pick up a car there.  While waiting in line at the grocery store, we were lucky enough to find a lady in line front of us who spoke English.  We asked her about the logistics of the bus system.  She was unsure, but walked us over to the depot and translated for us as we purchased our tickets.   While standing at the stop we assumed was the one we needed, a young man come up to us and said that woman who sold us our ticket (that’s what we assume he said) made a mistake and to follow him.  I admit we were a little nervous following him through some back streets but we came upon another bus stop and discovered that the bus we wanted, would not have stopped where we had been standing. This seemed to be the norm in Martinique.   While very few people we encountered were fluent in English and our French practically non-existent (and our creole completely non-existent), we found people who were willing to help us communicate in various different ways.   I just cannot say enough about how welcoming and kind practically everyone we met was.

Once we had our rental car, we spent the better part of the day, exploring various towns, agricultural areas, gorgeous mountain tops and adorable seaside villages.  MaryAnn thought that driving on the switchback mountain roads was as much fun as the carousel!!!!  We also saw several rhum distilleries.  In Martinique, they produce rhum agricole which our research taught us means that it’s made from pure sugar cane juice as opposed to the other 90% or so of rum which is produced with molasses. 

Finally it was time to move on.  We spent our last day shopping (most of the stores had been closed during Carnaval) and stocking up on the great – and cheap – French wines and chocolate (yes, we bought some fresh produce too) for a next passage.  

As I type this we are sailing north back to Dominica for a reunion of the fellow Salty Dawg sailors we sailed with from Virginia.  It’s another gorgeous day in paradise and while we loved the land, it feels great to be sailing again - even if it’s just a short 10 hour sail!!!

Until next post!