Friday,
February 17th.
This
is funny, last Friday I was working out to fit in my
party dress. But it feels like we've been gone for a month! The
Captain feels the same way, specially after the road trip in
Dominica.
We
woke up at six and started our journey to a different place, St.
Pierre, Martinique, 62 miles away. It was a perfect day for sailing.
This time I was the one talking to my brain, instead of my stomach,
so I could enjoy having cereal and a decent lunch. I was even able to
cooperate with Captain Rumfelt, easing and harding the genoa sheet,
coiling them and pulling fishing lines. By the way, our rêve (*) of
catching a Mahi-mahi didn't come true. There was a lot of sea grass
along getting on the lines and hooks.
We
got to Martinique just in time to enjoy the sunset, but we didn't
anchored in St. Pierre until eight. My first impression of this town,
devastated by a volcano in 1902, was arriving to one of the European
towns I've just seen in a movie.
St.
Pierre used to be the Capital of Martinique. It was known as the
Paris of the Caribbean and was the commercial, cultural and social
center of the island, with a population of 30,000 people. After the
explosion of Mt. Pelèe, the volcano, called Ascension Day, the 8th
of May in 1902, there were only 2 survivors in the town; Loen
Leandre, a cobbles who was in his cellar and the famous Cyparis,
imprisoned for murder, in a stone cell. St. Pierre was never rebuilt
to be the same, and some of the survivals walls can be seen as part
of a new house (*).
Now
the Capital is Fort the France, which is our next stop.
Learning
how to garden on a sailboat,
AnechyNotes
(*)
dream or wish in French
(*)
Extract from 2005-2006 Sailors guide by Chris Doyle
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