August 30, 2020
Well, after Killian left, the plan was to go straight to Aruba. Martinique is south but still not south enough to be safe from the hurricanes. But Aruba was not very clear in their entrance procedures. They are officially open and they are receiving flights and the rules for people arriving by plane seem to be clear. However, they haven’t transmitted the rules to the entrance by sea. So, we decided to stay a few more days in Martinique and see that things clear up a bit.
In the meantime, Cedric had been thinking on adding a “tangon” (pole) to Happy Days. It will be very useful when sailing downwind to get more speed and also be more comfortable. Talking to Jean from “Chanse” he knew someone in St Marteen that has one and is not being used. So anyway, Cedric agreed to buy the tangon and get it delivered to Martinique. The estimated time of arrival was August 24. One more reason to stay in Martinique a bit longer. We had to continue watching for Gonzalo’s friends and all other letters of the alphabet to come.
I say Dominica was “green” with lots and lots of rainforest and waterfalls. Antigua was “blue” with clear blue waters and nice sandy white beaches. Martinique is a bit of both “green and blue”. Trails, gardens, snorkelling spots, diving sites and some wind for sailing and even for kitesurf. Although we are offseason.
Diving
With our two new tanks we bought in Antigua, we are now able to dive by ourselves. And there are diving shops around the island so it is easy to get a refill. We still don’t have a compressor onboard. We seem to find more cons than pros when we think about buying one. Space, power requirements, maintenance… but when we go carrying the tanks around to get them refilled, then it looks like it would be so convenient to have one onboard!! Anything with the boat means a compromise.
Diving in Martinique was very rewarding, we dove almost a dozen times. And we saw lots and lots of different fish, corals, sponges, turtles, squid, octopus, shrimps and many more. The underwater camera we have cannot be taking more than 10m so not a lot of pictures to share. The only missing encounter was with the seahorse of the anse “les 3 aires”. Great explanation from the dive shop did not help us find the spot even after multiple trips. The 2 days we planned to go with the divers to see the seahorse, our trip had to be cancelled for bad weather and bad organisation. Maybe another time.
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Kitesurfing
Did I mentio we are off season? Well, we are. But there are still a few days that kitesurfing is possible even for a beginner like me.
Here I go to take more lessons. On kitesurf they first teach you to pilot the kite, which is basically to be able to lift up, keep it in the air and land carefully not with a sudden crash. Next lesson is “body dragging”. I loved it because it gives you a glimpse of the force of the kite but at the same time as you are still on the water it still feels safe, there is no place to fall. However, the instructor told me once you learned more, body dragging is not interesting and you only use it when recovering the board in case you lose it.
So there I was already piloting the kite and body dragging, next step : “water starts”. Basically stand on the board an go!! I cannot tell you how much water I drank and how many times I felt, I even did a small flight. You are not supposed to pull the bar very strong… it is a no, no. But the normal reflex reaction when you get scare is exactly that. Pull the bar and bring it close to you. So what happened? I did it, I flew and landed in the water. Not nice. But learned my lesson. I kept trying until I managed to “water start”. Sliding in the water for about 50m… what an incredible feeling. I was able to repeat it a couple of times, but the lesson finish, I was exhausted and there was no more wind the days after to keep trying. So I still need to keep working on it!
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Cedric is also improving his skills and learning how to navigate up wind!! Who knows how far is the day when we can just go kitting from Happy Days and coming back to it!!! We’ve seen people doing it and it looks so easy but I think it is like everything else: Once you know what you are doing, it seems so easy!!
Martinique is called the Island of flowers.
We discover a small private garden on top of a hill with quite an adventurous drive to get there. The owner of the place is passionate about flowers and knows so much about the local varieties that you could spend hours there. As a tropical islands, I am very familiar with some of the exotic flowers as they grow in Colombia as well. What I was really surprised about is to find the same flower in different colours. In Martinique, this one is called “Rose de porcelaine” while in Colombia we call it “Bastón del Papa”. It is originally red and that is how I knew it. That type of flower that can last 3 weeks after is picked. But in Martinique there are also pink, yellow and even white. So when I asked, the host explained they are hybrids and they all last less time than the red one. The white one only lasts for a week.
We kept touring the garden and found another surprise. Do you know what this is?
Well, it is vanilla but the surprise is that it needs to be manually pollinated. The bees that pollinate the vanilla don’t live in Martinique, so in order to have vanilla they have to do it by hand. At the beginning, I thought, well the conditions in that garden are very similar to a farm in Colombia, why don’t we produce vanilla like crazy in Colombia? It is delicious. It would be so good. After the explanation of the bees, I got my question answered. Probably that is the same reason why vanilla is so expensive when you actually find it natural.
Le Domaine De L’Émeraude
One day, we had to cancel our climb to Mont Pelee. We drove there but it was completely covered with no signs of clearing up. So on the way back to the boat we discovered Le Domaine De L’Émeraude. It is a 24 hectare site which includes a huge garden with 3 different paths crossing the forest and many endemic species, a museum with some of Martinique’s and Caribbean history and a shop with some local produce. A really beautiful place. We were so lucky to be able to do the visit just before the rain started!
ABSALON Trail Loop
The hike of the “Boucle d’Absalon” is a nice 4.3 km loop in a humid path with really good shade from tall trees. It took us a bit more than 3 hours with a picnic stop, pictures stop and of course sometime at the top of the 380m ascend to appreciate the impressive panoramic views.
And at the end one of my favourite parts, a waterfall down the road at the end of the trail for a nice refreshing plunge in cold water.
MONT PELEE
Finally, we did it!. Mont Pelee is the highest mountain in Martinique with 1397 mt in its highest peak. It has different points to start the climb. During this time of the year, clouds tend to cover it partially or completely most of the time. We found an online webcamb 24hrs a day, so for a few days we monitored it. Lots of people say that you have to go super early to start the climb. But looking at the camera for few days in a row it didn’t seem the best option. So I woke up early to look at the camera to see if it was clear or not. Most days it wasn’t until one morning when I looked at it I saw it was more or less clear with a promising forecast. So without thinking a lot more we decided to go for it.
We got there and for the first half of the ascent it was clear, the views were magnificent. We can only imagine how it will look like from the top. Because, unfortunately when we were getting higher and higher the clouds were following us until they did catch up with us. When we got to the loop on the crater the weather changed completely we were in the clouds, we couldn’t see much further and the humidity was super high. It was really nice and fresh (Gloria’s favourite weather). We continued walking and at some point we passed the clouds we were on top of the mountains above the clouds. Pretty much like a movie when you reach heaven. For a short time it opened a bit a small “window” and the view was stunning! (photo below)
It is quite a hike, with some rocky paths but very well marked and maintained. We stopped for lunch and made a long pause hoping it will clear up more, but it didn’t. We finish the loop and then the descend with small patches of open sky that gave us a sneak peak of the sea.
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The flowers along the way are really nice and we found one of the typical inhabitants of the place as well
Only 20min from the parking lot, we crossed a group of people starting the ascend. I thought they were crazy. They were not going to be able to see anything. I was wrong!!! We were probably 5 to 10min out of the parking lot and looking back on the mirror there it was …. Mount Pelée all cleared up… saying goodbye to us.
Sailing with “Chanse”
Chanse is a Hanse 445 that is like “Happy Days” twin sister. Same brand, same model, same age.
Last year we were very closed to putting an offer on a Hanse 445 called CCCP. We were not very confident as there was something on the papers in regards to tax that was not clear. We would have had to fly to the Caribbean from Australia to check the boat condition and papers and it seemed very complex. At the same time we found another option in the UK which looked more interesting and forgot about CCCP.
Here is where the story gets more interesting. Just by coincidence, once in Martinique we met CCCP. The boat was just in the anchorage looking for a place to anchor and we were just there. Both captains said hi to each other and agreed “what a great boat you have”. Of course, it is the same boat. Couple of days later Jean (captain of CCCP) came to visit us. He was curious about our arch where we have the solar panels and the dinghy. He wanted to take some ideas because he was planning to get one on CCCP.
We exchanged stories, how we were interested in that boat and then we didn’t buy it and he told us his story about how he bought the boat in Saint Martin. It was a good opportunity for him to upgrade his home. Yes, he lives onboard with his wife and one kid. Unfortunately in his lifetime he has lost 2 boats to hurricanes so the boat is not CCCP anymore it is now called Chanse. It is a combination of chance and Hanse.
Such an incredible coincidence, made us closer and as we were both in Martinique for sometime we had the opportunity to share more boat stories, some drinks, good food, some laughs and of course a great sailing day with Chanse and Happy Days side by side!!
Jean, Maude and Malo, have in their plans to travel to French Polinesia one day. Maybe and opportunity for Happy Days and Chanse to meet again. Let’s not put dates to it, we will just leave it as a maybe for the future!
Anyway, we did a lot more in Martinique:
Visit Fort the France, including the Fort Saint Louis which took me several tries to get in.
Sailing with friends: Nico and Lisou are a french couple friends of Gwen and we met them when Gwen disembarked in Martinique early March. Now we were back in Martinique so we got in touch and shared some nice sailing and fishing with them.Nico is a chef in a restaurant that we had the pleasure to enjoy as well.
We also celebrated our 10 year weeding anniversary in a great restaurant called Zandoli.
Finally, by the end of August we decided it was time to continue moving!! Next stop Curacao. Surely there is more to do in Martinique but after 7 weeks, we had a great time around.
Happy Days 