Back to St. Anne, Martinique

After having a wonderful time with our friends on Lagom we headed out for Marinique.  The wind was light but we were able to sail some of the journey.  The rest was motor sailing.  24 hours later we arrived in St. Anne.

Yippee!  We celebrated in style with a French Bokit and baked goods.  

Trois Rivières Distillery

The weather was between hot and sunny to cold and rainy.  We took advantage of the hot and sunny days to rent a car for 2 days and tour the island.  The roads were steep and winding through hills and valleys.  We all noticed the amount of color of the tropical flowers.  Paul loved driving the cute little rental car around.  The first day we got stuck in some traffic.  It was like being back in the real city as we found our way toward Fort De Fance.  We stopped at La Galleria Mall where we found a Super U (grocery store).  They had some great deals on baguettes,chocolate and UHT milk.  Next we found an awesome store called Decathalon.  It reminds me of the REI from back home with some things being half the price of the U.S.  We made it out of there with a few swim shirts,swim suits and a boogie board.

A cool welded sculpture at St James Distillery

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The next day we toured the south end of the island and up the East coast which was quite beautiful

The language barrier doesn't seem to be much of a problem as we can decipher much of what signs say with some common sense.

After more then a week in St. Anne we decided to move up the coast a little to Grande Anse d'Arlet. We spent the day on the beach and and anchored for the night. We actually dragged anchor for the first time since we've been cruising and had to deal with it at 5 A.M in a crowded anchorage. We decided to just raise sail and move instead of trying to re-anchor in the dark as the anchorage is very deep and its was impossible to see. We moved up to Anse Mitan and spent the afternoon walking around the touristy town and playing on the beach in front of the abandoned hotel. We have now moved over to Fort-de-France to do a little shopping and get some decent internet at the library so we could post these last few blog entries finally. We are going to travel a little further north to St. Pierre and perhaps rent a car to tour the north end of the island and do a little hiking. We really love Martinique.