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.