July 20, 2020
The sail went very well from Antigua to Martinique. We arrived on July 14 at 12:50pm to Anse Mitan. As it was Bastille Day the place was greatly alive. We had not seen something like this in the entire trip. Not even before COVID back the in first week of March when we were exactly at the same anchorage.
The beach was full, boats going in all directions, jet-skis, banana boats, the ferries going back and forth and we could hear lots of people partying until late. It seemed like things were getting back to normal. Such a contrast after leaving Antigua which was almost becoming a ghost town as it was so empty.
The following day we were ready at 9:00am at the port authority to check in. The quarantine has been lifted officially for people coming by plane and we were advised by the CROSS that we could come in and they will give us instructions. We were expecting a test most probably or maybe even a few days on the boat.
It took us no more than 5 minutes to enter all the data into the computer, get the stamp and we were free to go. It was a very good surprise and more so later when we heard the quarantine was in place for boats arriving after us. Apparently, we were lucky to be clear in between the couple of days that the rules were changing.
Anyway… welcome to France. And of course a “boulangerie” close by was the perfect place to celebrate our arrival. Pain au Chocolat, Croissant, Fresh Orange Juice and coffee, with Free WI-FI. So perfect!. Make all the calls and obviously confirm to Killian that he could come. He could go ahead confirm his flight ticket from Paris to Martinique and get his COVID test done and we will be here waiting for him.
The anchorage in Anse Mitan can roll at times. There is a ferry that crosses Sainte Anne and Fort de France every 20 min. When the ferry passes and the boat is parallel to the wave that it creates… hold yourself!!! The boat rolls and rolls. The anchorage is still with a lot of boats for this time of the year but it seems that a lot of people stay here all the hurricane season. Anyway, it is a great sunset picture!
We moved to Les Trois Islets for a couple of days. From there we visited the town, the sea museum and the Mangrove. The mangrove is really spectacular, water is flat, perfect silence and the only voices are the birds and the water when paddling.
After a couple of days relaxing and getting the boat ready for a visit we went to Fort-de France to be close to the airport to pick up Killian on Sunday.
When we got Happy Days we wanted to have enough room for visitors and having 3 cabins give us plenty space for that. However, with the pandemic everyone had to cancel their visit and we have been spreading and we used the 3 cabins, so some arrangements had to be made for our visitor. We are very excited to have Killian coming to share some time on Happy Days with us.
Stay tuned, we have lots of activities planned for the next two weeks, to discover more of Martinique!!
NOTE from the Capitan: Attention! Attention! There is an important notice for all visitors, crew and potential guests on board of Happy Days. There is an animal with long ears, that can not be mentioned on board, ever. Unfortunately, with all the food opportunities in France, a pate of this specific animal ended up on board and during 3 days, Happy Nights was very clear that it was a no-no. Happy Nights worked well since we had it except for a couple of times when a 30mn rest would allow me to restart it. But for 3 days, it stopped and started erratically and bailed out on me forcing me to row for 30mn in the-Trois-Ilets and to open the carburator 3 or 4 times. So we got rid of the Pate and everything returned to normal.
Happy Days 