We left Bequia on Wednesday, April 19, a little after noon, sailed north past St. Vincent and St. Lucia, and arrived in Le Marin, Martinique Thursday morning. Most everything was closed in town Friday thru Monday for Good Friday and Easter so we didn’t get out much until Tuesday. Saturday evening we had Al and Runa over for a sampling of several very good French wines which ranged in price from $2 to $5 per bottle. We have not found a bad French wine yet. They had us over to “Runal” on Sunday for a wonderful Easter dinner with a little bit of Swedish tradition thrown in. On Tuesday we made arrangements to rent a car for 2 days and spent Wednesday and Thursday driving all over Martinique. This is a very beautiful island and it is full of civilization. The contrast between the French islands and the other Caribbean islands is stark. The economy on most of the islands is pretty thin and based mainly on selling trinkets, vegetables and unnecessary services to tourists. The French see their islands as an actual part of France and have invested in them and developed them accordingly. Big cities, excellent roads and maintained highways, shopping centers, malls and lots of late model cars all coexist with beautiful beaches, sugar and banana plantations, volcanic mountains and tropical rain forests. If anyone knows of some browser plug-in or Windows applet that allows sending smells over the internet, you should let us know right away so we can share the morning smells of fresh baked baguettes, croissants and cafe au lait … this place will be hard to leave.

At the turn of the century, 100 years ago, the town of St. Pierre on the northwest coast was known as the Paris of the Caribbean and was the commercial, cultural and social center of Martinique. The wealth of the island lay in the plantations and the richest of these surrounded St. Pierre. Ships would take on rum, sugar, coffee and cocoa and enough was sold to make several of the plantation owners multi-millionaires. All of this came to an immediate halt on the morning of May 8th in 1902 when the side of Mount Pelee that faced St. Pierre burst and released a giant fireball of superheated gas which flowed down over the city. All that remained were smoking ruins and nearly 30,000 dead. We toured the ruins of one of the nearby plantations, the Anse Latouche Estate, the other day and plan to visit the museum and see the rest of the town when we move the boat up there next week. We drove up a road that takes you about 2/3 of the way to the summit of Mount Pelee but decided not to hike the remaining 1600 feet (nearly straight up) that particular day. We visited le Jardin de Balata, a very impressive botanical garden high in the mountains and picnicked alongside le Riviere Alma at a beautiful little spot right off the highway with vegetation so thick it seemed miles away from anything. Miss Augie, who now prefers to be called “Fifi”, went along for the ride yesterday and wore herself out strolling up and down a fantastic semi-secluded, palm-lined beach at Anse L’Entang on the island’s windward coast.

Our plans at this time are to move the boats a short distance over to the St. Anne anchorage and enjoy that quiet, laid-back village for a few days before we head up to St. Pierre and “Runal” has to head south again on their way back to Trinidad where they’ll haul the boat before flying to Wyoming for Al’s high school reunion and then on back to Sweden for a few months. We will clear out of Martinique at St. Pierre and sail back to the USVI, landing at St. Croix where we’ll probably spend a few days before heading up to St. Thomas and St. John where the US mail and 1-800 numbers work again and we can catch up on a few things. We’ll write again from the Virgins.

David and Claudia