Allons-nous

Our purpose in stopping in at Rodney Bay was three fold.  Tom, who as I mentioned before, is unhappy with the new genoa they got during the refit in South Africa, hoped to get the resident sailmaker to take a look and give his opinion.  but once we were already on the dock, it turned out the sailmaker was unavailable. This is when you miss the facility of making a telephone call to make an appointment!

The second and third purposes were to check out of the country and get duty free fuel.  In between we enjoyed a marina cafe with fresh juice green drinks and espresso coffees (prices in EC $) and, of course, Piton beer. 

  We bought vegies from the vegie hawkers, and we also enjoyed a nice dinner at an upstairs restaurant. Alled Thai One On.  The name notwithstanding most of us has curry goat stew.

We departed Tuesay morning with a lively wind behind us as we exited the long narrowing channel out into the bay proper.  On the north arm of the bay that wraps around to a tall promontory that Don and I climbed through the flamboyants to the hilltop fort fifteen years ago (see website!...I think!), a huge resort has been built.  This will be the recurring the theme of this trip, I believe, huge development of residences and resorts on what were barren hillsides.

We had a perfect sail across to Martinique.  The wind held at about 25 kts just forward of the beam yet the seas were amazingly moderate, allowing Quantum Leap to make a steady 8 kts for the 24 miles passage.  We had decided to head for Le Marin, a deep bay on. Martinique's south shore that is the center of French Caribbean yachting.  None of us had been there, in our case because we were usually coming from the north and never wanted to work east to get there!

Le Marin is actually a complicated weav of bays and reefs, anchorages, marinas and mooring fields.  it is actually a surprisingly lovely area, thought very, very full of boats.

Still thinking he might get his sailmaker's opinion, Tom made a pass all the way into to the head of the bay amongst all the the med moored catamarans.  Had Don and I been on our mono-hull, I would have been seriously stressing about finding room enough to turn safely in the still stiff breeze, and I said as much to Tom who then spun this 51' behemoth around virtually on the dime.  OK, another argument in favor of catamarans!

There must have been hundreds and hundreds if not a thousand boats in Le Marin.  Actually, for the French, I thought them fairly well spaced out.  I think, however, our hosts are still adjusting from their empty ocean passage because once we were moored, we never left the boat!  It is all a little overwhelming, especially with the language difference.  We ended up having a huge salad at about three thirty and then settling into our books.  and that was the day!  Bette Lee reminded us, as Tom disappeared to his cabin, thathe had the night watch all the way across the Atlantic.  Evidently he's having some trouble switching his body clock back!

So, this morning we left Le Marin without having gone ashore, and now we are sailing up the coast to Anse Mitan, a tourist center across the bay from Fort-de-F range, Martinique capital.