Anse Mitan - Ste Anne

Well we have been in Ste Anne for a week now so we are behind in the blog. Our apologies!

We had a quick run around the Baie De Fort De France then straight to Ste Anne. 

Trying something new here. This is taken from our cruising guide and gives an overview of the island. We have been from top to bottom on the west side. 

This is the Bay of Fort de France.

We spent two nights anchored off of Pointe du Bout. Which is in the bottom, middle of the with the North Cardinal bouy and red navigation bouy. We didn't get off the boat except to swim. It was quiet and peaceful. We decided to take a motor tour of the bay so we went due north to the Fort and entered the harbour. Other than watching over your shoulder for ferries about to run you down it was uneventful. Once in the harbour it was a bit congested but we wanted to see where the marina was located. It's not likely we'll ever go there. Since we were in the industrial harbour we were dwarfed by container ships, bulk carriers and of course a monster cruise ship. (Sorry photos seem to be lost) We proceeded along the north coast and the water got rather shallow so our wariness got deeper. You can see a line of red bouys in the upper right of the chart. We motored as far as the northernmost then turned, threw out the jib and sailed across at about 5 knots. It was great with next to no fetch and no other traffic. Once across we angled ourselves into Trois Ilets. There to stay for one night. We thought we would have a great night's sleep with the wind blowing into the fore hatch like air conditioning. Wouldn't you know it would go dead calm! Then we were concerned about mosquitos as we were close to the mangroves. But the screens in and the coil burning we were fine. 

Trois Islets is a quaint town that hasn't been overrun with tourists.

The anchorage seems to be filled with boats that are left to die!

Maybe not so old? Sure makes you wonder.

Moving on, we heard the weather forecast for more wind and building seas for the weekend so we decided to leave Trois Islet and sail directly to Ste Anne. The reason being that to get there you have to come around the end of the island and beat your way into the prevailing wind and sea. As mentioned before it was dead calm and that lasted until we cleared the south end of the Baie de Fort de France. As we motored along we were overtaken by a horde of jet skis. It looked like a scene from Water World! (I don't think too many people saw that movie with Kevin Costner) there were 20 or so. 

We managed to sail down the West coast on a nice reach out past Diamond Rock then tacked (yes we tacked) a couple of times to close on Ste Anne. All-in-all a great day. 

Since we have been here we have played dominos on Bay Pelican with Aquarelle. Walked to Pointe Saline and toured in a rented car with Dream Maker. They had to pick up a part in Forte De France so we hitched along and spent the day going out to Presquile de la Caravelle (the long peninsula on the East coast) where we had a fabulous lunch at a beachfront restaurant, visited a rum factory and went shopping at a huge mall!

Ours is the silver one.

Bougenvalia, love these plants. The white dot in the middle is the actual flower.

Waiting for our table on a swing. 

Bill and Cathy of Dream Maker, A little sampling of the product with Lorna.

Same vintage as me! At a fraction of the price! Lorna wouldn't let me buy it. Actually it's rum Agricole made without molasses. Can't say we appreciate it so much!

By North American standards this is a large mall. Largest in the Caribbean. We don't plan to confirm that.

Time to wrap up. It was a beach day yesterday and today it's dominos on Aquarelle at 1:00.

Keep on keeping on!

Au Revoir Saint Pierre et Bonjour Anse Mitan. .....Brian here

Well after three days of hiking throughout St.Pierre if was time to go. We walked from the south end where a statue of The Virgin Mary gazes down on the anchorage to the North side where the Depaz Distillery continues to operates on the flank of mount Pellee amongst fields of sugar cane. Everything between had been destroyed by the eruption of May 8, 1902. There are many poignant reminders of the power of nature and the foolishness of man. There is not enough room here to explore the previous statement fully. We recommend doing some internet research or better still come and see for yourself.

The Virgin. She was knocked off her pedestal in the eruption and replaced several years after. Curiously, the statue is well flood lit at night but to walk to it there are no signs. We just started on a road walking uphill and came across the stations of the cross which just stopped. Then at the end of the road we turned right and decided we were going in the wrong direction so we turned around and walked uphill until the pavement stopped. Then we turned around again and followed the road past where we turned figuring it would lead us back down the hill to the sea. Well it just petered out and there she was down a dirt path guarded by goats!

The View we saw.

1902

Now for the RUM!

Mount Pelle amongst the sugar cane and the estate property.

This estate was wiped out but has obviously rebounded after 114 years. They had a very informative museum with a self guided tour. Some sampling was provided as well. Enough said! But no purchases were made. 

In Between!

Ruins!

May 8, 1902 was a Thursday, in fact is was "Assecention Day" according to the Roman Catholic Faith. So when the disaster struck many of the estimated 30,000 victims would have been in church. As a Christian I would say; "What a way to go", considering that "to be absent from the body is to be in the presence of The Lord"! The pryroplastic blast would have killed most of them instantly. Only two people were known to have survived. Following are some pictures of places of worship and a cemetery that shows the brute force of that day.

From closest to furthermost from the mountain:

This was not an insignificant structure.

Closer to the Centre of town this church is still being restored.

The stained glass is spectacular but rather secular as well. The bells are rung on the hour.

A memorial and just two of the many tortured graves.

Saint Pierre has never recovered. Today it has a population of about 5000. 

One other worthwhile adventure was a walk to the Earth Sciences Centre that is built on the slopes of Mount Pelee. It is dedicated to research and understanding of volcanic activity. They continue to monitor Pelee and provide educational opportunities. One film in particular explained the plate tectonics and how the islands were formed. It's amazing that you don't know, what you don't know! 

Now for our trip to Anse Mitan.

We had intended to sail leisurely down the west coast and observe the towns along the way. What actually happened...have we ever mentioned that all plans made down here are done in sand at low tide?...first of all, no wind, second of all, numerous showers, third of all,a when the wind and showers combined it was on the nose. Consequently we did our best "trawler" imitation and motored the whole day! Well the batteries sure enjoyed it so all was not lost except a few burned up dinosaurs. Thank goodness for good canvas!

Ta Ta for now!

On our own again

We have been travelling with Dawn and Laurie on Cat Tales and Steve and Maria on Aspen and Al and Michelle on Tarantella and four boats and eight people are a lot to try to keep organized and happy. Everyone wants to entertain and the good food both on the boats and off has been amazing. We have a few good hikes too ...try to walk off the calories.  As of this Sat.am we are alone for the first time since mid Dec. Cat Tales and Aspen have gone north to Dominica, Tarantella headed south to St.Lucia on Wednesday when the rest of us headed north. So Brian and I will explore St Pierre in the northern end of Martinique then gunkhole our way back south to St.Anne Martinique. We will meet up with Dawn and Laurie again there in a couple weeks to start the trek south. 

Flowers just growing along the side of the road. This is a Flamboyant blossom.

Who's Prettier? (That's a rhetorical question!) Brian 

Cat Tales off the stern of Peace and Plenty at Anse A L'ane 

We arrived here in St Pierre yesterday before noon......I do love these 4 hour sails! It was quite a smooth ride without any waves over the deck so no need to wash down. We all headed into town to check out a craft brewery but actually found it to be a lovely air conditioned restaurant that served draft beer. We enjoyed a rather fancy higher than usual priced lunch. We called it our Valentine treat since none of us will probably do anything special tomorrow. 

St Pierre is a very unique city at the north west part of Martinique. It was known as "The Paris of The Caribbean" until the volcano of Mt.Pelee erupted in May 1902. The entire city of 30,000 was lost with only a couple survivors. Many of the ruins remain and we saw some of that yesterday and will continue for the next week or so. 

It looks so peaceful, now, 114 years later!

Looking down into the ruins and we are anchored just off that road.

We are all walking up to view the ruins of a huge theatre tha had been rebuilt after a hurricane in 1900 but never re-opened because of bankruptcy only to be destroyed by the volcano.

We still have no good wifi on the boat in the French Islands so we only catch up and post as we get to a cafe. 

Dawn and I laughing at something????

Just an hour or so ago Brian and I helped a family on a catamaran. They had just anchored ahead of us and we thought they were way too close. She saw us looking at them and said (not called they were so close) that they would only be there for a short while. Her husband had just gone to shore with their little boy. Not 15 mins later she was coming at us sideways. Brian and I hopped in our dinghy and helped her relocate as her husband returned. No harm done. Just another fun day in the anchorage. 

Back in Martinique

We left Bequia at 3:00am on a full moon night for a 70 mile journey to Rodney Bay St.Lucia. The night unfortunately was cloudy with a light shower so .....so much for our moon light sail! As we were upping anchor we see the lights of two more boats also leaving. It got a bit crazy as four boats tried to come into the wind to raise the sails in the dark. But all was well and we were off. The four boats kept in radio contact the whole way and the faster two ...not CT or P&P gave us wind and shower conditions as we proceeded. We had a lot of wind between the islands as always and almost no wind at times and along the coast of St Lucia the most lovely sail not hurrying so we would arrive after customs check in time to avoid costly overtime. Arriving in Rodney Bay at 5:00 P.M. was like coming home. 

We have spent most of our time here and know so many people. It was a quick week and I organized the ladies lunch on Wed for a group of 25. We made plans to leave on Tues. So Monday Brian and I went to town to get a few last minute groceries and check out at customs. We went into the town dock for the grocery store and lunch, but it was so crowded we decided against it and went back to the marina and tied up at our friends My Island Girl. Barabra came racing out of the boat telling us Cat Tales' Laurie was hailing on the VHF looking for us ...our boat was adrift in the anchorage and 10 feet from our friend Stopp Knott. We race back a 10-15 min dinghy ride to find Laurie in his dinghy being a human fender and Dawn on our bow with a line to the local fruit vendor boat ... he, trying to pull us forward. I started the engine and pulled us forward as Brian tied off our dinghy and raced aboard to lift our anchor. Once we were free and caught our breath we reanchored. John of Stopp Knott arrived at that time having heard in the marina about the goings on. We had reanchored two days before after having to go the dock to reinstall the wind generator. So we were two days dug in, so we thought, Brian had dove on the anchor, you just never know. Thank goodness Dawn and Laurie were there to see us go. More than enough excitement for all of us. But no damage done to either boats just some frayed nerves!

We left the next morning for Martinique and had a lovely sail again. This whole season has been filled with good sails. Finally for the first time we saw Dolphins. There were 5-6 off our starboard stern and although I tried to get a picture and I can't even find them. They weren't exactly frolicking beside us but there just the same. The day after our arrival Laurie took Cat Tales into the town of Le Marin where we all stocked up on beer,wine and groceries. He towed our dinghy behind and we had a busy day. The boat stores here are so amazing. We found bits we had been looking for for weeks. 

The dolphins are out there somewhere. 

We have a busy social life here with lots of get togethers,dinners,hikes and fun.