Back in Marin and Martinique is once more open for business!

On the way to the swamp...... Trois Ilets

Mont Pelee..... normally hidden by cloud. A perfect volcano!!

The cell where the only survivor of the eruption was living.

The pier at Saint Pierre after one of the notorious northerly swells.. actually, I think it may have been hurricane damage!

The "calm" of Saint Pierre....the day before.

Er, we were quite happy in St Pierre and looking forward to heading north in a few days for Dominica, then this dreaded northerly swell arrived ( We'd read about it in the cruising guide but it wasn't going to happen of course, except that it did!!) We awoke on the Saturday morning to the boat rolling around quite alarmingly.... not as badly though as Pete and Helen on Troutbridge who were farther inshore and the other catamaran inside them (with absentee owner) who actually ended up on the beach. That boat was wrecked apparently and featured on the local news. There are a couple of photos I took on Pete's blog..... (mailasail Troutbridge if you want to see).

We left in a bit of a rush and headed south for shelter to a "lovely" little spot......yes it was very sheltered, virtually surrounded by little islands, mangrove etc "Trois Ilets". It was actually a bit of a swamp teeming with flying 6 legged beasties (which feasted on me naturally) with the air punctuated periodically by a foetid sulphurous odour as bubbles of gas escaped from the nasty grey goo 5 metres beneath us. Lovely!! We ventured ashore a few times but found most things closed as the general strike in Martinique continued. We weren't getting desperate but I was really missing butter on my freshly baked bread! A ferry trip across to the capital city, Fort de France was fairly uneventful. We found a good chandlery anyway which meant some things on the boat could be fixed at last....... like the light in the loo!!! We trekked around the area a little and found a nice little touristy town with wifi ( but my computer wasn't working that day) and so the days passed............ Time was running out to get to Dominica by now so we decided to leave and head south and east again for Marin and then on to St Lucia to pick up Katharine on the 22nd in Vieux Fort.

There were very few boats sheltering with us and Troutbridge.....maybe they knew about the smell? We did meet one very nice couple though, Lois and Derek from Canada, on Aldebaran II who had some incredible travel stories to tell! I hope we may stay in contact.

Back in Marin in just about the same spot we were before..... but this time, everything is OPEN ...at last!! We have already taken advantage of the stuff you can get here and nowhere else in the non French Caribbean.... like cheap wine and cheese and will carry on supermarket shopping til the boat starts to look a little low in the water!!!

I'm so glad my computer is working again as I felt a little lost without it. Sad isn't it? Photos to follow and hope to post another blog from St Lucia soon.