After our stay in Le Marin, a large harbor on the southern side of Martinique with lots of charter boats, and all the marine services you would ever need, we finally decided to start north. We had a nice lunch at Mango Bay and bid adieu to Joel and Claudine. Then we had a lovely sail around the southwest tip, past Diamante Roche (Diamond Rock) and around the corner to Petite Anse de Arlets. A lovely little village on the coast. Although we only anchored for the night, it was beautiful to see the sun come over the mountains and clear the shadows out of the town, as the bell from the local church tolls the morning hour.
From Anse de Arlet, we sailed up to St Pierre. Winds on the lee of Martinique were fickle once again. Talking with others, you need to be almost 10 miles west of the island to get steady trade winds, We hugged the coast, and were treated to winds from all quarters and ranging from 0-20 kts.
St Pierre, on the NW corner of Martinique is another sleepy little town. We anchored right up next to the town dock in 45 feet of water 100 feet off the beach. We went in right away to find the local dive shop to learn about where to dive. It turns out there are several good beginner sights near the harbor. St Pierre was destroyed in 1902 when the volcano above the town erupted, killing all but two people. The is a wreck in the harbor from that catastrophe, but, although it is 100 yards offshore, it lies in 120 feet of water- too deep for us.
We dinghied to the first wreck and Cary, Ginny and I had a nice dive. Water was very clear, there were some nice fish, and a small, fairly well preserved wreck in 25-30 feet of water. It was my first time diving with Cary and Ginny and, I am proud to say, they did very well.
Tricia, Cary and Ginny did a second dive on the northern corner of the harbor. (Tricia) We should probably back up and explain why we are just starting to write about diving…. Yes, this would only be our first island to dive. We attempted diving long ago in the BVI's, and if you remember, we had equipment failures. No one in the caribbean even knew the manufacturer of our failed BCDs, much less was able to help us. I contacted our dive shop at home who had 'serviced' our equipment, Sea Colony in Severna Park, asking them if they would be able to help us, no blame placed. When the equipment was serviced, either the gaskets to our two used BCDs were missing, or they lost them in the process of servicing. The email I got back from Sea Colony was defensive and useless. Our BCDs are made by Zeagle. There is no way to contact the company via email. So an international call was made. In spite of being unknown, and not easy to contact, they were very helpful, confirming that we were correct with the diagnosis, and they would send us some gaskets, but only to a US address. UGH. Mat's parents were kind enough to bring them down to Jost Van Dyke when they visited us at Christmas, but by then our BVI visa was up, so no diving there.
Why then, are we just getting to dive? Well….Many of the islands now have rules that require anyone diving to do so with a local dive shop. As nice as that may have been to do, it is cost prohibitive for this trip. St. Martin is not one of those places, but we didn't dive there either, mostly because all of the dive locations are in rough water, not suitable for a dinghy ride. We were able to pick up another BCD, regulator, and tank so that three of us could dive together. Yeah. The second dive in St. Pierre was beautiful as well, with a nice leatherback turtle, and plenty of fish to keep us occupied. The girls haven't dove much, but are right at home in the water, using little air, and following all of the rules. After our dive, we were happy to be able to fill dive tanks right back up, to be ready for the next port of call.
As usual, we enjoyed baguettes, croissants and espresso. We had stocked up in Le Marin, so we didn't do much more in St Pierre. Definitely worth a return trip, as I need to visit the museum of the volcano eruption.
Leaving Martinique to head to Guadeloupe we made an error in judgment. I decided not to deflate the dinghy and stow it on deck. Instead, I removed the engine and towed it astern. About an hour out of St Pierre, in the gap between Martinique and Dominica, the wind and waves picked up. Before you knew it, the dinghy was flying like a kite on its bridle. That's not too bad. But when it landed upside down and tried to become a submarine, I was NOT HAPPY! We crash tacked (helm over, don't release the jib- leaves you essentially hove to) and I was able to right the dinghy. We then returned to shelter behind the point in Martinique, brought the dinghy aboard and deflated it. Lesson to self- dinghy achieves liftoff at 26 kts. With this delay, we wouldn't make Guadeloupe. We tucked into Prince Rupert Bay, Dominica for the night and set out again the next morning.
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