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| Fort de France |
February
18th. It was 3:45 in the morning when the anchor woke us
up with a noise that sounded like we were dragging. Luckily, it was
just the chain pulling out of the locker when the tide changed and
the wind picked up, because the night before we were so tired that we
didn't put the snubber on (that I called the snugger). After that
incident it was hard to fall back sleep, but for some reason (maybe
the rocking bed) when the alarm clock rang at 6:30 we were fast
slept.
The
early start was to go just 14 miles away, from St. Pierre to Fort de
France. We got there at 9:30, anchored, put the snugger on and got
ready to go on shore. Jim and I were looking forward to get some
French pastries, in the way there we were studding with the
dictionary how to ask directions to get to a “pâtisserie,
changer l'argent et combien ça coûte?”
Come on, this is why I've been studding French! I was very excited
about Martinique, but entering the bay was a big shock compare to
other islands because this is a big city.
Well,
we finally got in the dinghy and went to land, they have a very nice
water front with a dock just for dinghies. It wasn't hard to find a
place to buy Euros, right in front street a big sight in white and
blue advertise the service, and while we waited on line I talked to
some people to find a place to eat. They recommended us the “Centre
Commerciale” the big mall. A few minutes
later we were savoring a delicious “pannini,
une tarte au
pomme, des
cappuccino and a nice ambiance”. The hard
thing was walking down the boulevard, because we happened to get
there the day the carnival started. There were vendors all over the
place selling costumes, people playing drums, buying food and getting
ready for the celebration of “carnaval de
la pêche”.
Our
second goal, was to buy fresh produce in the farmers market. In the
way there we stopped at Canal Levassor; where a fisherman was selling
his catch. He was wearing a T-shirt of “Che Guevara”with a Cuban
flag. I immediately asked him about it, he said a friend brought it
from Cuba, and he express on his loco-motion talking his wish to
visit it one day. “Do you want to buy some fish?” His boat was
full of ballyhoo. Jim said: that's what we use for bait in Beaufort.
I
talk to all the vendors and enjoyed the similitude of the fruits of
this island and Cuban's. Smells and flavors I haven't tried in more
than a year.
We
went back to the boat to leave the grocery bags and went back to town
to watch the parade and walk in a more quiet place as all the
business were closing down.
Sunday
19th Since most of the business are closed the best we
could do was... Carnival! The food kiosks were open and we had the
best fruit smoothy, and a creole dish of rice, lentils and “fricasse
de mouton”
(cheep in souse). Once again I talked to everybody a could with my
“petit po
française” or frenchglish. When the big
parade stared we went to check it out, it was very interesting and
for sure pictures talk better than words.
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| Parade de Fame en bleu |
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| Parade de Transvestitism |
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| Hula-hu girls |
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| The noiy cars |
One
hour later we were back to Salty Shore, but not even then we could
run away from the loud music, it seemed even louder! Well, it was
time to go. Two days of carnival was enough.
Anechy
Notes
