Montagne Pelée, Martinique

Since our last post we've covered some distance heading north.

We continued our journey up the coast of Martinique each day started with croissants and pain au chocolat.  We walked up the hill in Fort De France to stop at a sporting good store for a new mask for Paul.  After that we sailed up the coast to St. Pierre.  We stayed there for a couple of days to make water and catch up on beach time.

One of our days in St. Pierre was finding a rental car to drive up to Mt. Pelée.  That morning we woke up early and all headed to town in the hopes of finding a rental car.  We walked through the town of St. Peirre and found a "voiture de location" open and that had a car available.  Driving a nice rental car with air conditioning is such a treat!

We drove through a town built on top of a mountain on our way to Mt. Pelée called Le Morne Rouge. The town was long and narrow.  It had huge drop offs on each side with beautiful views.

We climbed most of the way up Mt. Pelée which is the volcano that destroyed the town of St. Pierre in 1902 killing nearly 30,000 people.  The day was sunny and clear which is a rare occasion for the mountain.  After sweating so much on the way up I put on my jacket at the top because of the cool breeze.  Everyone laughed because it was still pretty warm.

It was a rare clear day on the mountain and the views were awesome.

Since we still had time and the rental car we decided just to drive along the northern part of the island for a bit.  We found a sign for JM Rum distillery in Macouba where we stopped for the tour and a drink.  The tasting area looked like a bar where the staff made rum tasters for the adults and limeades for the kids.  

Our last day in Martinique was spent doing laundry.  While it was drying the kids jumped off the boat and played in the kayak.  We left early the next morning for a long journey to the Saints in Guadeloupe.