A piece of France with Carebbean touch.

Haarek went for the traditional souvenirs!
see all photos »

Less than 24 hours west of Barbados the island of Martinique. The main marina is at the south end of Martinique. Rather buisy at this time of Year, but serviceminded and efficient. A bit pricy perhaps, but comfort costs. A lot of boats preferr to anchor just ouside. There are quite some shallow reef patches in the bay so caution has to be taken when getting in and anchoring.

Custom and immigration a dream compared to Barbados. Fill out a form and crew list, all done in 10 minutes. Finally after one month we were again able to jump on a dock and walk to the restaurants. Not many of them, but at least we found one with both high quality and even higher prices! At sea You dream about food that is not obtainable unless You carry a large freezer. Steak was in everyones eyes as we orderes dinner and obviously my French was not quite updated. Tornedos is one thing, I missed the next word 'poison' which is fish! We ended up with fish cakes! After that we renamed the restaurant to: The Surprise Restaurant but enjoyed quite a number of dinners and deserts during our stays in Le Marin.

Nothing like a shower with unlimmeted water supply!
see all photos »

We rented a car and went to pick up Haarek in Port de France at the airport and did a tour around half of the island. If not for the temperature we might as well have been in France. The old culture has been almost completely wiped out. Where in France You have vineyards here was banana plantations and some suger cane fields. Of course in the shops we had our first meetings with what the areas is famous for: the rum!

With Haarek onboard we had to give him a small taste of our journey so we decided to take a trip down to St Lucia and Rodneys Bay for New Year.