St Pierre and Fort de France
Author: Shirlz
13 March, 2014
There was a gentle swell running most of the time that I was anchored off the beach at St Pierre but the offshore breeze held us relatively comfortably aligned at about 60 deg to it. As a veteran of the rolly Chaguaramas anchorage, it was no problem.
I took the dinghy ashore coming up on the beach near to where some fishermen keep their pirogues. On days when the swell made the approach a bit dodgy there was always someone to lend a friendly helping hand.
After clearing in, I wandered along the narrow main street looking for the little shop where I had been told I would be able to buy a new Primus stove and spare burners. This was my main reason for stopping in Saint Pierre and sure enough in amongst an eclectic assortment of fishing gear, tacky tourist souvenirs,carnival paraphenalia,variously coloured hair extensions, make-up and kitchen gadgetry, a shiny new Primus stove was on display. Not particularly cheap at 95 Euros but I was delighted. My planned trip to Nova Scotia will probably mean having to use my heater again and that needs a new burner so now I can relax and look forward to a cozy boat.
I hadn’t realized that the Martinique carnival was happening on the 3rd to 5th of March. Every afternoon a procession shuffled along the street in fancy dress making an astonishing amount of noise. Red Devils predominated. I had a reasonably good view from on board and wasn’t really tempted to go ashore and join in. The ear-shredding music continued till morning. On the 6th everything reverted to normal.
After a lazy week I stocked up with some fresh fruit and veg at the market and moved down to Fort de France where I would be able to find Sparky’s food requirements. Unfortunately the wind turned flukey and I had to motor practically all the way. Only about 15 miles so we just had to endure it.
I was able to check my email at the KFC in town and was amazed to find that Grahame and Monica, old friends from Bermuda would be arriving on th 13th on a 5-masted sailing ship that was cruising the islands. A lovely surprise.
We arranged to meet outside the weirdly elaborate Schoelcher library and had morning coffee and a stroll around town before their ship left on the return trip to Barbados.
I rather enjoyed just wandering around the interesting old town, the busy narrow streets crowded with stylishly dressed locals and sun-pinked flustered tourists, but time was flying by and we needed to move on to my next planned stop at Nevis.
March 24th, 2014 at 14:07
Sounds relaxing…
Nova scotia sounds like a challenge ?
whats your ETA – will you make it in time for the Buskers festival ?
Hugz to Sparky
I am in Cyprus for a haulout and gearbox overhaul prior to leaving for turkey…
Fair winds … and plenty of them :<)
Kris
June 27th, 2014 at 17:21
Hi Shirley – Im from South Africa and i’ve been following your blog and website for quite a while now and would like to thank you for a very informative and interesting website and info in general about the cruising lifestyle as well as the nice photos that you have on yur site.
I am a sailor that own a small junkrigged sailboat (Coromandel)and always find your info about the junk rig very welcome. i am in the process of building a bigger sailboat and think that the reddish rig that you have would work well on this boat as it is very much lke a Vertue in size.
I would like to know if is possible that you could tell me more about your mast and mast partner and the construction as well as the sizes of the components as i would like to construct a similar mast setup that you have.
I would be gratefull for any help that you could give me in this regard – thanks , Hannes