Fort-de-France Day 2

Not a great deal to say. We shifted Dignity a little nearer to the shore today. Helen did a lot of clearing up and I assisted where I could.  I did the regular checks and improved the flow on our head a little bit.  I was able to confirm that the hotel where our friends will stay Monday night is indeed open and that taxis can be had from the airport.  Good news. Around town just a few bars and roadside eateries are open. A few folks I spoke to suggested more should be open tomorrow. As you may guess I am looking forward to fresh French bread.

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Fort de France

We left Roseau at 7am this morning heading for St Pierre, Martinique. The forecast was for NE winds which we didn’t see until 8nm south of Dominica. It was slow going for the first 2 hours but when the NE winds kicked in we had a flying sail to Martinique arriving at St Pierre around 12:20. We didn’t stop as a casual glance over the anchorage made it clear it was untenable. We later learned that everyone had cleared off at the crack of dawn as it had got quite rolly around 2am. We therefore sailed around to Fort de France to get some protection from the NE winds which are due to go further to the North over the next few days.

There were a number of boats anchored in Fort de France but we managed to squeeze into the anchorage and here we are settled. I walked round to the customs but found them closed. The guy on the gate said to come back tomorrow at 9am. I do wonder if they’ll be open but I may try.

Walking the half mile back to the dinghy dock I decided to check out the town. There were a large number of people milling around in red tee-shirts, clearly the aftermath of a demonstration. All the shops I saw were shut bar one little cafe. All the cash machines that I walked past had been smashed too. So it looks like the strike is very much on here. Fingers crossed for our guests who are arriving next week.

Fishing was not successful. In fact, something chewed up and bit right through my wire leader. So we must have had something for a bit. We never noticed. So we’re down one lure. Better luck next time.

Not sure what we’re going to do now. There are a few things to do on the boat and still plenty of books to read.

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Roseau Botanical Gardens

This morning we took a walk around the gardens. They are more open and less formal than the splendid gardens we saw in Deshaies, Guadeloupe. It was quite restful to walk around the place. We also walked up the path called Jack’s Path which took us up a series of switch backs to the top of a hill where we were afforded great views of Roseau and the sight of an interesting cross.

Back on the boat we had lunch. The weather turned a bet wet so we abandoned our idea of a walk south and instead worked on the boat and read up on Martinique.

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One more day in Roseau

Having checked the weather forecast tomorrow’s conditions for sailing are far better than today’s. So we’re staying put another day. We can visit the Botanical Gardens in town and maybe visit the villages to the south.

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Last night in Dominica

Having arrived in Roseau we’ve been to town twice for final, final provisioning before leaving. The boat is now full of food so we can remain independent for at least 2 weeks with all our guests. I found some reasonably cheap beer in a wholesaler so we now have an extra four crates of Caribe.

We have left two of our propane tanks with one of the boat helpers who will have them filled and back to us by 8 in the morning. As soon as we have them we’ll be off to Martinique and on our way we’ll be trying out the hand line. Who knows – maybe Friday night curry will be fish.

On the suggestion of one of the blog readers I’ve caught up on a task which I’ve always meant to do which is to categorize my posts. You can now see which country we’re in at the bottom of each post. I’ve also noted where we’ve referred to other cruisers so individual blogs about particular folks can be found.

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