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A Martinique Cruisers Christmas
December 24 – 29, 2017 Sainte Anne, Martinique
This is the longest we have been in one place since we left Florida over two months ago and it has been nice to stay put for a while. Of the twelve days on Martinique, nine of them have been in Sainte Anne. The original plan was to be in St Lucia for Christmas but it is only 25 nautical miles away and there has been a lot of windy weather so for once we are not in a hurry to leave.
We heard from Ken and Lynn and on the cruisers net, (a designated time when cruisers all tune into the same channel on the VHF for an organized program about social activities, services and to buy or sell things) of a cruisers pot luck at Caritan Beach on Christmas Eve. It was nice to have a social activity planned for the Holiday. The gathering of about 100 cruisers was wonderful. The food was good and it was great to visit with people who are living aboard their sailboats. We met two other couples who also chartered their boats, one of them from Great Britain on sailing vessel “Emily Morgan” will be chartering while doing World Arc with us. It is awesome to be making new friends from around the world.
Just as we were crawling into bed on Christmas Eve, we heard fireworks and hurried out to the cockpit to watch the display coming from the beach in front of us. When the fireworks ended it poured rain for a short time. I love fireworks and was thinking this was a great way to end the day but when we went back to bed the small port hole above the bed was open and our bedding was soaked. To make matters worse when we got the extra bedding from our storage area, we discovered some of it was very musty. Looks like Christmas will be a laundry day.
The next few days were a mix of work, errands and socializing. Dan replaced a water pump, rebedded the galley sink, installed handrails on the hardtop and installed some jack lines he made. I sent out a crew guide, we did some polishing on the boat and after three attempts to mail some packages we finally got to the post office when it was open. It took 1 ½ hours to mail two small packages, everything seems to take more time on the islands. We needed some boat supplies and parts so we took the dinghy back to Le Marin, less than a 15 minute ride. While there we had lunch at a restaurant that said fast food. It took over 40 minutes to get our food. It was very good but not very fast.
We had a good time going out to dinner one evening with John and Stella. I started using google translate and it was very helpful when ordering dinner. Dan and I had red snapper, it was served with the whole fish on the plate, and in French it is called vivaneau. On our last afternoon in Sainte Anne, there was a beach BBQ with a small group of cruisers. We enjoyed the comradery so much we stayed all afternoon.
Agnes Long
Smoke and Roses