Initially we had two or three nights in the north of Martinique, in St.Pierre. Famous for a huge volcanic eruption that detroyed every thing and almost everyone in it's path in the early 1900's. It was a nice little village, with a market at the waterfront, a patiserrie for me to buy bread and a supermarket to stock up. The essentials these days.
The anchoring would be described as somewhat challenging, as we hunted around for ages looking for a good spot with the right amount of depth. It seemed that we'd be in 100 ft, then 60 ft of water and then 30 ft away, the water was breaking on the beach! We tried our luck at 60ft, putting out more chain than ever! As Joel backed down to ensure we had dug in, we kept moving backwards...oh dear, Start again. We started lifting the chain up and found the problem. We'd snagged a fish pot. Thankfully without too much trouble, although quite alot of bending and stretching, Joel manged to cut it free and we started again. This time with success! All of this happened right on sunset, so you can imagine the stress of trying to get it done before we couldn't see a thing.
After a day or two rest here we left for Le Marin, a well protected marina in a land-locked cul-de-sac. This would be our homing ground for the next two weeks as we re-stocked, got the engine serviced and had a few things looked at before we started longer ocean passages.
Much to our delight, we saw some action in the water 15 minutes out of St. Pierre and along with a few other boats we were able to motor right up to a large pod of dolphins that were feeding for the morning. There was one particular little one that was jumping and splashing, much to the girls amusment. At several times we could see them (several groups of 30-40 dolphins) lined up splashing to, as we thought, spook fish into the direction of other waiting dolphins. It was great to see and we spent a good 20 minutes following them around, looking on both sides of the boat to see where they were. Best dolphin show I've seen!
Life in Le Marin almost became, normal. We went to the beach on the weekend, and went to the supermarket every 2nd or 3rd day. Only difference, we used our dinghy to get there instead of driving. It's our car. The girls wear lifejackets instead of seatbelts and when the dinghy is full of people and bags of food, we don't go so fast!
Time can get absorbed with daily life habits and we need to remember to try and make the most of the time we have in each place. One of my first times ashore I walked to the 'end' of a footpath. If only I'd walked a tad bit further I would have found an open vegetable market, pharmacy and day spa! Instead I discovered this 3 days before leaving, as I went for a walk to find bread while my laundry washed. It was Easter Monday and everything was shut. I walked and walked, went up a huge set of steps and down a backroad to find a little corner store that yes, was open, and indeed sold bagettes! I went there again before we left as it was only 5 minutes from the dinghy dock that we had used that first time. Funny, that if I'd only walked that little bit further the first day I could have had facials and pedicures lined up!
I'll pop some photos on here of Easter etc. The bunny came and left some teasure! Eggs weren't to be found easily. Didn't matter, chocolate is chocolate when you're two. I hope it was an enjoyable time for all, spent with family and friends.